The Changing Party System in the 1980s: From One-Party Rule Toward an Era of Coalition Government

2019 ◽  
pp. 283-293
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Hrebenar
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Coalition Government

Ireland: Coalition Politics in a Fragmenting Party System

2021 ◽  
pp. 357-395
Author(s):  
Paul Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Party System ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
System P ◽  
Fianna Fail ◽  
The Government ◽  
Almost All

Ireland is a parliamentary democracy created as a result of a revolutionary secession from the United Kingdom. While Ireland has many institutional and administrative features that are quite similar to the Westminster model, there are also some important departures, most notably the adoption of limited government via a written constitution, and the adoption of PR-STV which has facilitated the formation of coalition governments. For most of the twentieth century (up until 1989 at least) a Fianna Fáil single-party government was the default outcome of the government-formation process, though many of these cabinets were ‘large’ minority administrations. The only method of ejecting Fianna Fáil was for the second- and third-largest parties (Fine Gael and Labour) to form a coalition government, which they did on a number of occasions. The bargaining environment permanently changed in 1989 when Fianna Fáil broke the habit of a lifetime and entered its first coalition with the Progressive Democrats. Since then almost all governments have been coalitions. This chapter examines the life cycle of coalition government in Ireland: formation, governance, and dissolution. Coalition agreements have evolved over the decades and have become much more important, detailed, and hence more lengthy. The coalition programme plays a key role in the work of the cabinet and the relations between the parties. The increasingly detailed coalition agreements are a very important commitment device during the life cycle of coalition governments. The increasing fragmentation of the party system has meant that coalition formation bargaining has become more challenging.

Austria: Phasing-Out Grand Coalition Government

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-80
Author(s):  
Wolfgang C. Müller
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Grand Coalition ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Underlying Principle ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War

Grand coalition government of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) had been the hallmark of post-war Austria but the historic ‘grand coalition’ formula seems exhausted. The rationale for maintaining this cooperation vanished, electoral changes undermined the former duopoly of these parties, and party system changes brought new players into the game. Yet at the government level alternatives involving the Freedom Party (FPÖ) have proved unstable as in each case an FPÖ event brought down the government or prevented its renewal. The chapter shows how routine formateur-led processes of coalition formation resulting in anticipated outcomes contrast with a few instances which significantly deviate. Coalition governance is characterized by the use of an elaborated set of rules and instruments and great continuity over time and different types of coalition. Accordingly, the underlying principle of coalition politics has been the ‘coalition compromise’ model, with government policies to be largely agreed between the coalition partners. In practice, ministerial discretion tends to shift government policy output towards the model of ‘constrained ministerial government’. Most coalitions terminated early because of inter-party conflict.

Ending the LDP Hegemony: Party Cooperation in Japan. By Ray Christensen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 228p. $52.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-232
Author(s):  
Kenji Hayao
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
2000 Election

The Japanese party system has been in flux in recent years. In 1993, two groups defected from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and joined with the opposition to form a broadly based coalition government. A year later, the LDP regained power by creating a coalition government with its ideological opponent, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Both events shocked virtually everyone at the time. The LDP had been in power for so long-almost 40 years-that it seemed almost inconceivable that it could lose power. For just as long, the JSP had been the main opposition. By the 2000 election, a dozen parties had come and gone, the JSP's strength dropped to a very small fraction of what it was a decade earlier, and the LDP had to turn to various coalition partners to maintain its control of government. All this is quite puzzling to even close watchers of Japanese politics, because party politics, especially the role of opposition parties, has been a relatively understudied area. For those who want to make sense of how these events came to pass, Ray Christensen's Ending the LDP Hegemony will be very helpful.

Evaluating Political Reform in Japan: A Midterm Report

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven R. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Preliminary Evaluation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost ◽  
First Time

In the 1993 general election the Liberal Democratic Party lost power for the first time since it was founded in 1955. The coalition government that followed enacted the most far-reaching political reforms Japan has experienced since the American Occupation. The country has now experienced two elections since these reforms so we can begin to analyze trends and dynamics. It is now possible to make a preliminary evaluation of the effects of these reforms. I evaluate the reforms under three headings: (1) reducing the cost of elections and levels of corruption; (2) replacing candidate-centered with party-centered campaigns; and (3) moving toward a two-party system which would produce alternation in power between the parties of the government and the parties of the opposition. In conclude that, with some notable exceptions, the reforms are working well, about as well as should have been expected.

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.

scholarly journals La formación de gobiernos en sistemas multipartidistas: la paradoja del caso español

2020 ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Irene Delgado Sotillos
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Government Stability

España ha sido hasta recientemente el único país de la Europa continental en el que ninguno de sus gobiernos ha sido formado por más de un partido, consecuencia de un sistema de partidos estable que ha facilitado la gobernabilidad incluso a gobiernos minoritarios. El primer gobierno de coalición que sale investido del Parlamento es resultado de la profunda transformación del sistema de partidos español tras los procesos electorales de la etapa 2015-2019. En este trabajo abordamos la excepcionalidad del caso español, analizamos el proceso negociador y la distribución de beneficios para la consecución de la estabilidad gubernamental en escenarios parlamentarios minoritarios.Until recently Spain has been the only country in continental Europe in which none of its governments has been formed by more than one party. This feature is the result of a stable party system that has facilitated governance even to minority governments. The first coalition government invested in Parliament is the result of the profound transformation of the Spanish party system after the electoral processes held during 2015-2019. In this work we address the exceptional nature of the Spanish case, it analyzes the negotiation process and the distribution of benefits for the achievement of government stability in minority parliamentary scenarios.

Anti-Establishment Parties in Government

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-47
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Georgiadou ◽  
Jenny Mavropoulou
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Party System ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Chapel Hill

Abstract Anti-establishment parties with either a left-wing or a right-wing ideological slant have been entering contemporary European Democracies with sizeable vote shares. During the Great Recession, the Greek party system could be perceived as a relevant case-study for the formation and breakthrough of anti-establishment parties. Given the fact that two deeply ideologically diverging anti-establishment parties, the Coalition of the Radical Left – Social Unionist Front (syriza) and the populist radical right-wing Independent Greeks (anel), came to power, forming a coalition government from early 2015 to January 2019, the primary goal of this article is to enquire into ‘supply-side’ parameters, exploring potential associations along a range of programmatic stances and policy dimensions that effectuated the syriza-anel alliance. Using the Comparative Manifesto Project and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey datasets from 2012 to 2017, our findings confirm beyond the expected programmatic differences the existence of a converging policymaking basis between syriza and anel which goes beyond the ‘pro-Memorandum vs. anti-Memorandum’ divide.

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.

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