Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/248997 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9452
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Nearly all legislatures segregate politicians by party. We use seating lotteries in the Icelandic Parliament to estimate the effects of seating integration on bipartisanship. When two politicians from different parties are randomly assigned to sit together, they are roughly 1 percentage point more likely to vote alike. Despite this effect, other-party neighbors do not affect general bipartisan voting, as measured by the likelihood that a politician deviates from their party leader’s vote. Furthermore, the pair-level similarity effect is temporary, disappearing the following year. The pattern of results support cue-taking and social pressure as mechanisms for the effects of proximity.
Subjects: 
polarization
integration
intergroup contact
voting
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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