Isabela Mares, Ph.D.

Project

Defending Parliament: Responses of Mainstream Parties to Parliamentary Erosion

This book-length project investigates how mainstream political parties can respond to and contain parliamentary disruption initiated by extremist parties. Whether from the far right or far left, these parties often enter legislatures intent on undermining parliamentary procedures and obstructing the legislative process. How can democratic parties effectively counter such threats and safeguard parliamentary integrity? To answer this question, I conduct a comparative historical analysis of political developments in France and Germany, spanning from the Weimar Republic and the French Third and Fourth Republics to the present day. I develop a typology of parliamentary defense strategies, ranging from targeted sanctions against individual legislators to broader institutional reforms, such as changes to parliamentary or electoral rules. The project further examines the political demand for these defense strategies and the conditions under which stable legislative majorities can be formed to implement them. I argue that the success of collective defense measures depends on mainstream parties first establishing clear political boundaries—a cordon sanitaire—between themselves and ideologically adjacent extremists, and I analyze the political dynamics behind such decisions, such as changes to parliamentary or electoral rules.

Recommended Reading

Mares, Isabela. From Open Secrets to Secret Voting: Democratic Electoral Reforms and Voter Autonomy. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Mares, Isabela, and Lauren E. Young. Conditionality and Coercion: Electoral Clientelism in Eastern Europe. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Mares, Isabela. Protecting the Ballot: How First-Wave Democracies Ended Electoral Corruption. Princeton University Press, 2022.