4 Opposition party distinctiveness and minority government support – Patterns from quantitative analysis

2022 ◽  
pp. 98-165
Author(s):  
Melanie Müller
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Müller

Opposition parties in minority governments are partly responsible for government stability without being able to neglect their accountability to the electorate, a dilemma that, as this book shows, has many electoral as well as policy advantages for opposition parties. This book’s analysis of opposition behavior in the Swedish Riksdag (1991–2018) sheds light on the rationality of minority governments from an opposition perspective: receiving political influence without jeopardizing one's party profile. The author studies oppositional behavior in Swedish minority governments using quantitative and qualitative methods.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Melanie Müller

Abstract The survival of minority governments depends on support from non-cabinet parties that strive to safeguard government stability while also fulfilling their accountability to the electorate. This article argues that non-cabinet parties' propensity to support the government depends on their desire to uphold distinctiveness when accountability is at stake. This even applies to opposition parties that are officially committed to minority government support and, as a trade-off, receive policy pay-offs. By analysing opposition party voting in 23 years of Swedish minority governments (1991–2018), the article suggests that ideologically distant support parties are more likely to oppose the government on their core issues since compromise would involve too-large concessions. These results question our understanding of support party pay-offs as a trade-off for minority government support and highlight the rationality of entering a support agreement, which gives the support party a certain degree of policy influence while also keeping a distinct party profile.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Melanie Müller ◽  
Marcus Höreth

Government stability in the German Bundestag is traditionally tied to a parliamentary majority and an opposition minority . Nonetheless, minority governments in other Western democracies show that, despite the lack of a parliamentary majority, they govern stable and effectively together with the opposition . In this article, on the Swedish case, we examine how opposition parties in parliament are involved in the legislative process in a minority government and what patterns they follow in order to maintain governmental stability without neglecting their alternative function . The paper combines theoretical and concep­tual considerations on the adequate understanding of the opposition in the Federal Repub­lic of Germany with empirical findings on cooperation and conflicts between opposition party groups and minority governments . The results show that opposition parties strategi­cally switch between confrontational (Westminster-style) and consensual patterns of behav­ior (republican) . Through this flexible majority finding, opposition parties in parliament can alternately present themselves as policymakers or as an alternative counterpart to the government . This opposition behavior is functionally adequate under the conditions of a pluralized and fragmented party system and the resulting difficulties in forming a stable government majority .


1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 857-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junko Kato

In exploring the conflicts between individual interests and the conditions that facilitate the disintegration of a political party, this article modifies the exit, voice, and loyalty framework developed by Hirschman. The utility of that framework is examined using the recent change in Japan, that is, the demise of the so-called 1955 system, in which the predominant conservatives confined the socialists to the status of a major but perennial opposition party. The quantitative analysis focuses on the split of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and the internal dispute in the Democratic Socialist Party of Japan. These cases provide an interesting comparison of how individual characteristics and contextual conditions affect members' decisions to exercise exit and voice. At the same time, they illuminate how party-level changes have been influenced by intraparty factors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-223
Author(s):  
Dariane Cristina Catapan ◽  
Tâmara Duarte Borges ◽  
Manoella Müller ◽  
Cláudia Turra Pimpão

This study describes characteristics of a sample of 80 dog and cat NGOs. When it comes to the results, we used Content Analysis, t-test and z-test to find the confidence interval for the average time of the NGOs’ existence, and Fisher's exact test to compare the ratio for NGOs with/without shelter. The NGOs are located in 49 of the 399 municipalities of Paraná (12.28%). Curitiba presented the largest number of NGOs (n=16), representing 20% of the total organizations. The average time of existence of NGOs in Paraná is 8.75 ± 7.14 years. The oldest NGO was created in 1972, and the most recent one in 2016, that is, 46 and 2 years old, respectively. Organizations’ main source of income is through donations, in 58.56% (n=65) of the cases; only 7.21% (n=7) of them reported having received government support. Also, 48.75% (n=39) are regulated NGOs, and 56.25% (n=45) of them do not have shelter for reception and housing of dogs and cats. This study concluded that the actions of NGOs supported by civil society, community and government are fundamental to mitigate the overpopulation of dogs.


Author(s):  
Kunkunrat Kunkunrat ◽  
Ade Priangani

Interesting events in the last 2 (two) elections, where there is a phenomenon of political parties contesting in the 2014 and 2019 elections trying to create an election that puts forward checks and balances between government support parties and opposition parties in the form of coalitions. In the 2014 elections there was a Great Indonesian Coalition (KIH) government, consisting of PDI-P, Nasdem, PKB, Hanura and PKPI, and the opposition Red and White coalition (KMP), consisting of Gerindra, Golkar, PAN, PKS, PPP and the United Nations. It is hoped that the people will have checks and balances so that the minority government is controlled by a large opposition. But that hope vanished as Golkar, PAN and PPP joined the government, so the opposition was no longer helpless, because it only left Gerindra and PKS. The recurring incident in the 2019 election, in which the presidential election gave birth to 2 coalition supporters of Jokowi-Maruf Amien Coalition of Working Indonesia (PDI-P, Nasdem, PKB, Hanura, PKPI, Golkar, PPP, Perindo, PSI) and the Coalition supporting Prabowo-Sandiaga, named The Indonesian Coalition is just and prosperous (Gerindra, PKS, PAN, Democrat), it is very apparent that there is a desire from PAN and Democrats to be part of the government coalition, inconsistencies occur in coalition in Indonesia.


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