Coalitions and Cabinet Government

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 873-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Kenneth A. Shepsle
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Government Behavior ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Formal Study ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
Two Bodies

The formal study of coalitions is active in Europe, whereas the formal study of political institutions preoccupies American scholars. We seek to integrate aspects of these two bodies of research. For nearly thirty years models of coalition government have focused more on coalition than on government. Thus, these theories are essentially extensions of the theory of voting in legislatures. Unlike passing a bill or “dividing a dollar,” however, forming a government is not the end of politics but the beginning. During the formation process, rational actors must entertain expectations of subsequent government behavior. We provide a model of rational expectations with an emphasis on the credibility of the policy promises of prospective government partners as determined by the allocation of portfolios in the new government. Portfolio allocation becomes the mechanism by which prospective coalitions make credible promises and so inform the expectations of rational agents in the coalition formation process.

One size fits all? The role of size in coalition formation and portfolio allocation after the local elections of 2006 in the Flemish region in Belgium

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-931
Author(s):  
Ellen Olislagers ◽  
Kristof Steyvers
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Coalition Formation Process

This paper focuses on the role of size in coalition formation in the Flemish region in Belgium after the local elections of 2006. A quantitative analysis already showed that size matters at the local level. In this paper, portfolio allocation is considered as an important part of coalition formation. This paper illustrates that combining research methods can enhance our knowledge about the role of size in the coalition formation process. The results demonstrate that parties consider a minimal winning and minimum parties coalition as a starting point for the negotiations and other factors influence the final coalition outcome. In portfolio allocation proportionality rules, but parties also prefer competences related to their policy profile. Intra-party and personal characteristics play an important role in selecting the executive mandates.

scholarly journals Ruling divided

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 640-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Greene ◽  
Christian B Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Government Behavior ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Conditional Effects ◽  
Conditional Effect ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Relative Salience

Issue salience and ideological disagreement often predict coalition government behavior. However, research on portfolio allocation has yet to fully specify the complex relationship between issue salience, disagreement, and coalition negotiations. Scholars treat issue salience and disagreement as distinct and disconnected, despite evidence that they work together and with conditional effects in a range of settings. Following a logic of portfolio trades or “logrolls,” we propose that the relative salience of issues and disagreements at the issue level within the coalition both moderate the effect of issue salience on portfolio allocation. Using data drawn from the Parliamentary Democracy Data Archive, we find compelling evidence for our theory that links party manifestos to portfolio allocation. Consistent with a story on the conditional effect of salience and disagreement, we find evidence that the effect of salience is mitigated by the extent of disagreement between coalition parties.

B is for Bias

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Calin Valsan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Economic Environment ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
Behavioral Biases ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Economic

Standard economic theory assumes rational agents. Individuals are expected to have rational expectations and constantly optimize their choices. Modern economic and financial theory is build under the assumption of rationality. There is plenty of evidence from psychology, however, that individuals are biased and rely heavily on heuristics in order to make decisions. Yet, this is not a mere fluke, a behavioral oddity. Because the social and economic environment in which individuals evolve is complex, behavioral biases represent evolutionary adaptations allowing economic agents to deal with undecidability and computational irreducibility.

scholarly journals Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (8) ◽  
pp. 2644-2678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Coibion ◽  
Yuriy Gorodnichenko
Keyword(s):  
Formation Process ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Imperfect Information ◽  
State Dependence ◽  
Expectations Hypothesis ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
Expectations Formation ◽  
Information Models ◽  
International Data ◽  
Information Rigidity

We propose a new approach to test the full-information rational expectations hypothesis which can identify whether rejections of the null arise from information rigidities. This approach quantifies the economic significance of departures from the null and the underlying degree of information rigidity. Applying this approach to US and international data of professional forecasters and other agents yields pervasive evidence consistent with the presence of information rigidities. These results therefore provide a set of stylized facts which can be used to calibrate imperfect information models. Finally, we document evidence of state-dependence in the expectations formation process. (JEL C53, D83, D84, E13, E31, E37)

Bulgaria

2019 ◽  
pp. 86-128
Author(s):  
Rumyana Kolarova ◽  
Maria Spirova
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
Communist Countries

Democracy in Bulgaria came as a result of a pact that preserved the role of the communist successor party to a larger degree than in many other post-communist countries in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). That had an impact on the nature of coalition government as well as an important but rarely noted aspect of the legacy of the successor party, the Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP). Because of the dominant position of the BSP, its personalized and centralized vision and practice of governing have remained characteristic of the political system. Coalition government is the dominant pattern in Bulgarian democratic politics: of the eleven party-based cabinets since 1990, only four were single-party ones. There are several major features of coalition government in Bulgaria: one is that party-building and coalition-making have been deeply intertwined over the entire period. Further, coalitions have been based on the understanding that parties divide the power and accompanying privileges, rather than that they share responsibility for government. Thus, in contrast to some longer-standing democracies the coalition formation process rarely involves detailed agreements on policy, and has mostly revolved around personalities and portfolios. As a result, coalition agreements have been minimal and the periods of coalition bargaining have been relatively short. Conflict resolution mechanisms are centralized and personalized, and coalitions have broken down because of narrow party political interests rather than because of principled conflicts over public policy.

Agenda Control, Committee Capture, and the Dynamics of Institutional Politics

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1187-1207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bendor ◽  
Terry M. Moe
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Group Influence ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Institutional Politics

Most models of agenda control examine dyadic relations—for example, those between a committee and the floor of a legislature. Such relations, however, are always embedded in a larger context, namely, a political environment composed of voters and interest groups. In this paper we model agenda setters (a legislative committee) as decision makers with limited cognitive abilities who adjust over time to their larger political environment. The legislators' policy positions are endogenous, reflecting the relative strengths of voters wielding the district-specific resource of votes and of interest groups wielding the transferable resource of money. The resulting outcomes indicate that neoclassical models of voting and pluralist models of group influence have each told part of the story. When only votes matter, our boundedly rational agents grope toward equilibria close to those of neoclassical models; however, when mobile resources matter as well, the outcomes depart systematically from those of previous models. In particular, interest groups can make themselves worse off by capturing the committee. The results suggest that agenda control is less powerful than conventionally believed and point toward conditions shaping its effectiveness—conditions highlighting the distinctive contributions of pluralist and neoclassical thinking to a broader theory of political institutions.

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