Coalition Government, Legislative Institutions, and Public Policy in Parliamentary Democracies

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lanny W. Martin ◽  
Georg Vanberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Legislative 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.

The Grand Coalition: Precedents and Prospects

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludger Helms
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Party System ◽  
Grand Coalition ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Federal System ◽  
System Reform ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Basic Parameters

While the Federal Republic has been famously characterized as a "grand coalition state," the Merkel government, formed in the after-math of the 2005 federal election, is only the second CDU/CSU-SPD coalition at the federal level since 1949. A comparison of the present administration with the first grand coalition government (1966-1969) reveals a wealth of differences that include some of the basic parameters of governing and governance in Germany, such as the structure of the party system and the overall public climate. Also, the personnel features and patterns of informal coalition governance under Chancellors Angela Merkel and Kurt-Georg Kiesinger display major differences. Arguably the single most important difference between the two administrations, however, relates to the level of public policy, with the Merkel government seeking to reverse some of the key decisions of its historical predecessor. Such u-turn dynamics have been particularly tangible in the field of federal system reform.

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.

Legislative Institutions and Coalition Government

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Martin ◽  
Thomas Saalfeld ◽  
Kaare W. Strøm ◽  
Lanny W. Martin ◽  
Georg Vanberg
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Government ◽  
Legislative Institutions

Statutory Interpretation and the Balance of Institutional Power

1994 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Silverstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Statutory Interpretation ◽  
American System ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Default Assumption ◽  
Legislative Institutions

Rational choice scholars argue that there is no such thing as legislative intent, and that courts should abandon futile efforts to find and enforce that intent. Faced with ambiguous statutes, these scholars suggest judges either actively interpret statutes to achieve the best public policy possible; or they advise the judges to accept a default assumption that congressional ambiguity will be read as implicit delegation of interpretive discretion to the executive branch. Both options pose problems for the American system of separated institutions. Though legislative intent may be impossible to discern, an effort to identify legislative purpose may be critical to assure the maintenance of a balance of institutional power. How that purpose is identified is a problem not only for the Court, but for the legislative institutions responsible for statutory drafting and approval.

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