Portfolio allocation patterns and policy-making effectiveness in minority coalition governments

Although minority coalition has become a relatively frequent form of governance, it is often considered politically ineffective in policy making. To obtain sufficient support in parliament, government bills must go through the scrutiny activities initiated by coalition partners and overcome the concerns of external support parties in opposition. By examining parliamentary scrutiny on government bills, this paper explains the surprising policy-making effectiveness in minority coalition governments. Specifically, we argue and show that different patterns of portfolio allocation with the specific ideological locations of the ministerial office-holder, the coalition partner and the external supporter, structure the extent to which government bills are scrutinized in parliament, and therefore, the effectiveness of the minority coalition on managing and implementing policies. We empirically examine bills initiated by 256 ministries in 13 Danish minority coalitions between 1985 and 2015, and we reveal robust evidence that corroborates our argument.     

Institutions and coalition formation: The German election of 2005

The German election of 2005 creates three puzzles for the literature on coalition formation. First, the election led to a rare event in German politics and in parliamentary systems more generally, a ‘grand coalition’ between the two largest parties. Second, a minority government, something which has never occurred in postwar Germany (except briefly as the result of the breakdown of a government coalition), was in fact one of the two most likely governments to form. Third, the parties of the left retained a comfortable majority in the Bundestag; however they did not form a coalition. The election of 2005 appears unique in German politics, but we argue that its outcome is easily understood using existing institutional theories of coalition formation. We examine party positions in two dimensions (economic and social) using computer-based word scoring of party manifestos. We demonstrate that the conditions for a SPD minority government were present in Germany due to its central location in the policy space. While the configuration of policy positions would thus have allowed the SPD to form a minority government, the role of the Federal President as a veto player could have prevented it from forming, and the presence of an opposition-controlled upper house would have decreased its effectiveness. The mere possibility of forming a minority government gave the SPD a bargaining advantage in the coalition negotiations with the CDU/CSU. We show that in the final portfolio allocation, the SPD received ministries which control approximately two-thirds of the federal budget.     

Who gets what in coalition governments? Predictors of portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies

Ministerial portfolios are the most obvious payoffs for parties entering a governing coalition in parliamentary democracies. This renders the bargaining over portfolios an important phase of the government formation process. The question of ‘who gets what, and why?’ in terms of ministerial remits has not yet received much attention by coalition or party scholars. This article focuses on this qualitative aspect of portfolio allocation and uses a new comparative dataset to evaluate a number of hypotheses that can be drawn from the literature. The main hypothesis is that parties which, in their election manifestos, emphasise themes corresponding to the policy remit of specific cabinet portfolios are more likely to obtain control over these portfolios. The results show that policy saliency is indeed an important predictor of portfolio allocation in postwar Western European parliamentary democracies.     

Uncertainty,Complexity, and Gamson’s Law: Comparing Coalition Formation in Western Europe

According to Gamson’s Law, the allocation of cabinet portfolios in parliamentary democracies is proportional to the legislative seat shares of the governing parties. However, portfolio allocation departs systematically from perfect proportionality. This paper proposes a theory of portfolio allocation that seeks to explain the variance in proportionality across different bargaining situations. It argues that the degree to which the coalition formation process is characterised by uncertainty and complexity influences portfolio allocation. In uncertain and complex bargaining situations, parties that otherwise would be in an advantageous bargaining position will have a difficult time exploiting their bargaining advantage. As a result, portfolio allocation in such circumstances will be closer to proportionality. These patterns are observed in data on coalition formation in 14 West European parliamentary systems in the period 1945–1999.     

Fairness and qualitative portfolio allocation in multiparty governments

How do political parties divide coalition payoffs in multiparty governments? Perhaps the most striking answer to this question is Gamson’s Law, which suggests a strong fairness norm in the allocation of office payoffs among coalition partners. Building upon recent advancements in portfolio allocation research, we extend this approach in three important ways. First, we study fairness with regard to the allocation of policy (rather than office) payoffs. Second, we introduce measures to assess the fairness of the division of policy payoffs following two norms: envy-freeness and equitability. Third, we explore why some allocations of ministerial portfolios deviate from fairness norms. Based on an original data set of party preferences for individual portfolios in Western and Central Eastern Europe, we find substantial variation in the fairness of policy payoffs across cabinets. Moreover, coalitions are more likely to arrive at envy-free and equitable bargaining outcomes if (1) these fair allocations are based on an allocation of cabinet positions that is proportional to party size and if (2) the bargaining power is distributed evenly among government parties. The results suggest that fairness is not a universal norm for portfolio allocation in multiparty governments, but in fact depends on the cabinet parties’ bargaining positions.

     

The Impact of the European Union on Coalition Formation in a Minority System: The Case of Denmark

Does European Union membership influence coalition patterns in national parliaments? For governments in the Scandinavian countries – with their relatively high share of minority governments requiring external parliamentary support to form parliamentary majorities – the question of ‘coalition management’ is highly relevant. This article provides an empirical test of three central arguments in the Europeanisation literature on the impact of EU membership on national parliaments when political parties pass legislation in the Danish Folketing. The effect of EU content in a law on coalition patterns is compared across policy areas and four electoral periods from 1998 to 2011 encompassing 2,894 laws. The data provide support for the argument that the loss of national agenda‐setting over the legislative process has an impact on coalition patterns in the Danish parliament. It is shown that the coalition patterns on Europeanised legislation are both broader and more stable compared to national, non‐EU‐related legislation. The focus on Europeanisation of legislative coalitions goes beyond previous analysis with an institutional focus, and demonstrates an example of how the EU systematically has an effect on legislative coalition formation in a national parliamentary system.     

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

Most democracies are governed by coalitions, comprising multiple political parties with conflicting policy positions. The prevalence of these governments poses a significant question: Which parties' electoral commitments are ultimately reflected in government policy? Recent theories have challenged our understanding of multiparty government, arguing that the relative influence of coalition parties depends crucially on institutional context. Specifically, where institutions allow credible enforcement of bargains, policy should reflect a compromise among all governing parties; where such institutions are absent, the preferences of parties controlling the relevant ministries should prevail. Critically, empirical work has thus far failed to provide direct evidence for this conditional relationship. Analyzing changes in social protection policies in 15 parliamentary democracies, we provide the first systematic evidence that the strength of legislative institutions significantly shapes the relative policy influence of coalition parties. Our findings have implications for our understanding of coalition government, policymaking, and electoral responsiveness.     

Regierungsbildung im deutschen Fünf-Parteiensystem

Since 2005 all five parliamentary parties in the German Bundestag have coalition potential in the sense that they are able to enter at least one minimal winning coalition, that is a coalition without parties which are not necessary for a majority. Given the number of each party’s members of parliament, the strategic coalition situation is fixed as the set of possible minimal winning coalitions. With certain assumptions (no party will gain an absolute majority, the party system consists of two larger and three smaller parties etc.) two strategic coalition situations are possible as a consequence of the Bundestag election in September 2009: the same as the existing one where only CDU/CSU and SPD can form a two party majority government, and an alternative, predicted currently (February/March 2009) by pollsters, where the largest party, probably the CDU/CSU, can form a two party majority coalition also with the third largest party, probably the FDP. In addition, several three party coalitions are also possible. Which of these coalitions will actually be formed will be determined by the policy distances between the parties which are identified in a two dimensional policy space (economic and social issue positions of parties). The possible minimal winning coalitions are further constrained by the majority coalitions in the so-called cycle set as defined by Schofield.     

Three-party competition in parliamentary democracy with proportional representation

This article studies the long-run dynamics of policy choices, government formations, and voting behavior under a parliamentary constitution and proportional representation. I develop an infinite period game where, in each period, voters participate in a proportional representation election, and three farsighted parties bargain over one-dimensional policy programs and government positions. The model incorporates the interaction between elections and coalition bargaining, which is the essence of politics in most parliamentary systems, as well as a dynamic environment of policymaking: a policy once implemented remains in effect until another replaces it. I find a Markov perfect equilibrium in which (1) there is no majority party in any election; (2) election results converge over time to a stable vote distribution; (3) policy outcomes change over time but eventually stay within a set of three points; (4) minimal winning coalitions and minority governments are formed with positive probability and alternate over time.     

Representing the compromise: How institutions serve government support coalitions in European Union policy making

This article presents an original model of policy making by multiparty coalitions at the international level. Specifically, it analyses how domestic institutions serve parties in enforcing policy compromises onto national ministers negotiating legislation in the European Union (EU). In contrast to existing research on coalition politics, the model accounts for the benefits of not only legislative but also executive institutions and incorporates opposition parties as pivotal actors under minority governments. Ministers propose policy positions at the EU level that represent domestic coalition compromises when cabinet participation, executive coordination and parliamentary oversight of EU affairs make it cheap for coalition partners to challenge the minister's position and when ideological divisiveness increases the incentive to do so. Statistical analyses of 1,694 policy positions taken by ministers from 22 member states in the Council of the EU provide strong empirical evidence for the model. The results support the claim of executive dominance in EU policy making but also highlight that, where institutions are strong, ministers represent domestic coalition compromises rather than their own positions.     

Does anybody notice? How policy positions of coalition parties are perceived by voters

Does governing in coalitions affect how coalition parties’ policy positions are perceived by voters? In this article, the authors seek to understand the relationship between parties’ participation in coalition governments and their perception by voters. Policy positions are an important instrument through which parties compete for the support of voters. However, it is unclear to what extent voters can correctly perceive the positions of parties when they govern together with other coalition partners. It is argued here that because of the blurred lines of responsibility in multiparty cabinets, it is difficult for voters to correctly perceive the positions of coalition parties. What is more, it is expected that the internal functioning of coalition cabinets affects the extent to which coalition parties struggle to get their message out to voters. It is hypothesized in the article that intra‐cabinet conflict is negatively related to misperception. To test their theoretical expectations, the authors combine data on the left‐right policy positions of political parties from the Comparative Manifestos Project with data on how these positions are perceived by voters gathered from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems from 1996 to 2011. The findings shed light on the relationship between party competition and coalition governments, and its implications for political representation.     

In Search of Successful Reform: The Politics of Opposition and Consensus in OECD Parliamentary Democracies

Why are some governments able to undertake controversial policy reforms and others are not? Conventional wisdom argues that single-party majority governments are best able to implement reforms because there are fewer veto actors within the government that can block the reforms. However, these accounts fail to consider the veto power of societal actors and particularly of trade unions, which can stall reform even in the presence of a unified executive. This paper argues that controversial reforms require broad societal and, consequently, political consensus, which are easier to achieve under minority governments or governments of broad coalitions. Evidence from 22 OECD parliamentary democracies over 35 years shows that minority and large coalition governments have been more successful in reducing social security contributions and pensions than narrower majority governments. This is especially true in countries where trade unions are militant and often resort to industrial action.     

Portfolio Allocation and Policy Compromises: How and Why the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats Formed a Coalition Government

The question of ‘who gets what?’ is one of the most interesting issues in coalition politics. Research on portfolio allocation has thus far produced some clear‐cut empirical findings: coalition parties receive ministerial posts in close proportion to the number of parliamentary seats they win. This article poses two simple questions: Why did the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats agree to form a coalition government and, secondly, did the process of portfolio allocation in the United Kingdom in 2010 reflect standard patterns of cabinet composition in modern democracies? In order to answer these questions, a content analysis of election manifestos is applied in this article in order to estimate the policy positions of the parties represented in the House of Commons. The results show that a coalition between the Tories and Lib Dems was indeed the optimal solution in the British coalition game in 2010. When applying the portfolio allocation model, it turns out that the Conservatives fulfilled the criteria of a ‘strong party’, implying that the Tories occupied the key position in the coalition game. On account of this pivotal role, they were ultimately able to capture the most important ministries in the new coalition government.     

Coalition Policy-Making under Constraints: Examining the Role of Preferences and Institutions

While much has been written about the formation and termination of coalitions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the policy output of multiparty governments. The present study attempts to narrow this research gap by analysing policy-making in three Austrian coalition governments between 1999 and 2008. Drawing on the party mandate literature, a manually coded textual analysis of election manifestos is conducted that yields a dataset containing over 1,100 pledges. The fulfilment of these pledges is taken as the dependent variable in a multivariate analysis. The results indicate that institutional determinants (adoption in the coalition agreement, ministerial control, and policy status quo) significantly influence the chances of pledge fulfilment and thus present a powerful predictor of coalition policy output. By contrast, factors related to parties’ preferences (consensus between parties, policy distance, pledge saliency, and majority support in parliament) do not have an impact.     

Formation rules and minority governments

Abstract. This research note focuses on the importance of rules for coalition formation in parliamentary democracies. Traditionally, coalition theorists have assumed that only majority coalitions can be winning. The more recent literature has shown that coalitions can be winning even if they do not control more than half of all legislators. However, the literature has continued to overlook the fact that there exist two different types of government formation rules. In this note, the two types—positive and negative rules—are presented and it is shown that minority governments are more frequent in the countries with negative rules.     

Coalition type and voter support for parties: Grand coalitions in German elections

While scholars have generally acknowledged that coalition governments are less accountable to voters than single party majorities, surprisingly little differentiation is made among different types of coalition governments. In this paper, we examine voter support for two very different types of coalition governments: those with a single large party and a junior partner and grand coalitions—governing coalitions between two large but ideologically dissimilar parties. We argue that grand coalitions differ from the more typical senior–junior partners in terms of the ability of individual parties to respond to their constituencies. We test this argument using survey data from four German Election Studies (GES), before and after each of the two German grand coalitions (1965, 1969, 2005, and 2009), which provide a unique opportunity to compare voter support for grand coalitions to those of the more typical senior–junior party model. We find evidence that voters responded to grand coalitions by moving away from their traditional voting patterns, and increasing their support for parties outside of the grand coalition, although this effect varies by the number of alternative parties.     

Do Policy Horizons Structure the Formation of Parliamentary Governments?: The Evidence from an Expert Survey

This article tests the hypothesis that parties in West European parliamentary systems operate under the constraint of "policy horizons," that is, limits or bounds on the extent to which they can compromise on policy for the purpose of entering coalition governments. The test is based on a new expert survey covering thirteen West European parliamentary democracies in which respondents were asked not only to locate party positions on a number of policy dimensions, but also to estimate the parties' limits of acceptable compromise on each dimension. The survey data are first analyzed using a new computer program, Horizons 3D, to determine which parties have intersecting horizons in these systems—and hence the ability to form coalition governments under the hypothesis. These calculations are then employed to assess whether policy horizons structure the choice of governing coalition beyond any effect conveyed by the policy distances among parties. Although the potential for error in these data is considerable, the estimated horizons, with few exceptions, appear to play the role hypothesized for them .     

Gaining new insights by going local: determinants of coalition formation in mixed democratic polities

We develop a simple spatial model suggesting that Members of Parliament strive for the inclusion of the head of state’s party in coalitions formed in mixed democratic polities, and that parliamentary parties try to assemble coalitions that minimize the ideological distance to the head of state. We identify the German local level of government as functionally equivalent to a parliamentary setting, such that the directly elected mayor has competencies similar to a president in a mixed national polity. Our findings show that the party affiliation of the head of state is a key factor considered by party members in the legislature when forming coalitions: coalitions in the legislature are more likely to form if they include the party of the head of the executive branch. Furthermore, the policy preferences of the head of the executive branch matter for the legislators’ behavior in the coalition formation process: the smaller the ideological distance between the position of a coalition and the position of the head of state, the more likely a coalition is to be formed.     

Making a difference? Public perceptions of coalition,single-party,and minority governments

It is often argued that coalition governments are less likely to ‘make a difference’ than single-party governments. Because they are composed of multiple actors who need to agree to policy innovations, and because there are fewer personnel changes between successive coalition governments, coalitions are associated with fewer policy differences. From this it follows that public perceptions that governments should ‘make a difference’ will be weaker under coalition than single-party governments. The same logic applies to minority governments, which require support to pass legislation from opposition parties, and hence are less likely to deliver on their commitments. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, this paper tests these hypotheses. The expected effects, albeit small ones, are found for coalition governments, but only in old democracies.