Explaining the formation of minimal coalitions: Anti-system parties and anti-pact rules

Abstract.  Recent theoretical arguments hold that the institutional setting of a political system influences coalition formation. Empirical analyses that confront these hypotheses have, however, been slow to emerge. We provide a first test of the relation between coalition formation and one element within this institutional setting: the existence of commitments not to join forces with certain 'pariah' parties (i.e., anti-pact rules). Specifically, we study the effect of the 'cordon sanitaire' around the Flemish extreme right-wing party Vlaams Blok over the period from 1976 to 2000. The results show that the refusal to coalesce with Vlaams Blok significantly affects the probability that 'minimal winning', 'minimal number' and 'minimal size' coalitions are formed.     

REVENUE SCARCITY AND GOVERNMENT OUTSOURCING: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM NORWEGIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

It is often said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. In this article, we assess whether this also applies to the design of public authorities' service provision. In particular, we evaluate whether revenue scarcity – as an indicator of fiscal stress – induces government outsourcing. In contrast to previous studies, we exploit arguably exogenous variation in local government revenue across time and space to derive stronger inferences on the role of revenue scarcity for outsourcing. Using data from Norwegian local governments covering the period 1995–2012, our main results indicate that a decrease in local government revenues is linked to more outsourcing of both infrastructure and support services.