Budgetary institutions with or without coalition government: political economy of parliamentary democracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-216
Author(s):  
Makoto Nakanishi
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Budgetary Institutions

Coalition Policymaking and Legislative Review

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
LANNY W. MARTIN ◽  
GEORG VANBERG
Keyword(s):  
Agency Problems ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Legislative Review ◽  
Institutional Mechanism ◽  
Legislative Institutions

Political scientists know remarkably little about the extent to which legislatures are able to influence policymaking in parliamentary democracies. In this article, we focus on the influence of legislative institutions in periods of coalition government. We show that multiparty governments are plagued by “agency” problems created by delegation to cabinet ministers that increase in severity on issues that divide the coalition. We also argue that the process of legislative review presents an important—but understudied—institutional opportunity for coalition partners to overcome these tensions. We evaluate our argument using original legislative data on over 300 government bills collected from two parliamentary democracies. The central implication of our findings is that legislatures play a more important role in parliamentary democracies than is usually appreciated by providing a key institutional mechanism that allows coalition partners with divergent preferences to govern successfully.

scholarly journals The cost of coalition compromise: The electoral effects of holding salient portfolios

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882090442
Author(s):  
Zachary Greene ◽  
Nathan Henceroth ◽  
Christian B Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Government ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Cost

This article highlights the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios within a coalition government. For voters, holding ministries can be seen as a symbol of a party’s success within the coalition. As a voting heuristic, parties not controlling the portfolios on issues important to their platforms signal their failure to achieve these goals. Following this perspective, we hypothesize that the difference between coalition parties that hold salient portfolios and those that do not partially predicts the extent of the electoral cost of coalition participation. Using a data set that covers 11 European parliamentary democracies between 1966 and 2002, we show that for junior coalition partners there is an electoral reward for holding their most salient portfolio. There is also an electoral benefit for a junior partner to hold a larger number of portfolios if they do not control their most salient portfolio. Conversely, holding their most salient portfolio and a larger number of additional ministries results in greater electoral losses in the subsequent parliamentary election. These results indicate that parties’ success at negotiating for their policy priorities in coalition governments holds consequences for their future electoral success.

Coalition Government Membership in West European Parliamentary Democracies

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul V. Warwick
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Set Covering ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
West European

The results of a quantitative investigation into the factors affecting coalition government membership in West European parliamentary democracies are reported in this article. Using a new data set covering the post-war era to 1990, separate logistic regression analyses are performed to determine what influences the odds of becoming the government ‘formateur’ and the odds of becoming a coalition partner. In addition, Laver and Shepsle's portfolio allocation theory is subjected to testing. Among the independent variables considered are a party's size, its previous experience in government, its willingness to trade off policy for office, and its ideological position in the parliamentary party system. The findings point to the important roles played by the formateur's preferences and by the need to build workable coalitions, given party-system constraints. They also suggest several criteria that ought to, but often do not, guide formal theory-building.

The Political Economy of Deficit Spending in Nine Industrialized Parliamentary Democracies

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUNG DEUK HAHM ◽  
MARK S. KAMLET ◽  
DAVID C. MOWERY
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fiscal Deficit ◽  
Potential Influence ◽  
Ceteris Paribus ◽  
Systematic Relationship ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Deficit Spending ◽  
Ruling Party

This article analyzes the influence of four sets of factors on deficit spending in 9 industrialized parliamentary democracies during 1958-1990. This article analyzes the influence of these factors and introduces and tests the importance of an additional potential influence on the size of a country's fiscal deficit: the “strength of fiscal bureaucracy.” It is argued that the stronger a country's fiscal bureaucracy, the lower its deficit, ceteris paribus. Empirically, the authors find that the state of a nation's economy heavily affects its deficit. Little systematic relationship is found between the ideology of the ruling political party and a nation's deficit or between the political strength of the ruling party and deficits, in contrast to the findings of Roubini and Sachs. Finally, it is found that the strength of a country's fiscal bureaucracy is an important influence on the deficit in these 9 industrialized parliamentary democracies.

scholarly journals Divide to conquer? Strategic parliamentary opposition and coalition government

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110428
Author(s):  
Richard Whitaker ◽  
Shane Martin
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Government ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Policy Conflicts ◽  
Focus Questions ◽  
Opposition Parties

Parliamentary elections often result in the formation of a coalition government. While the legislative process allows actors within a coalition government to monitor each other, little attention has focused on how opposition parties respond to coalition government. We argue that opposition parties have incentives to uncover and highlight differences and tensions within the governing coalition. A strategy by the opposition to use legislative tools to uncover policy conflicts and ministerial drift within the coalition increases intra-coalition tensions, potentially generating electoral costs for the governing parties, and potentially even hastening the coalition’s demise. To test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010–15 coalition. As expected, the main opposition party appears to strategically focus questions towards policy areas that uncover intra-coalition tensions. This research highlights the importance of opposition parties in parliamentary democracies.

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