Resumen de Party discipline and disruptions of legislative business: evidence from India
The paper contributes to the literature on legislative disruptions by introducing a novel explanation for why legislators choose to disrupt legislative business. Disruptions are usually perceived as acts of indiscipline in the legislature, but this study argues counterintuitively that disruptions are made possible through a discipline that legislative party leaders impose on their party legislators. Drawing from the literature on party discipline in the legislature, two hypotheses are advanced: first, that party leaders incentivise disruptive behaviour by rewarding disruptive legislators with priority in the allocation of scarce party resources; and second, that the level of institutionalisation of political parties influences their inclination to incentivise disruptions. These hypotheses are tested by using original data on disruptions that occurred during the 15th parliamentary term of the Indian parliament.
