Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:33:02.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From Election to Government: Principal Rules and Deviant Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Abstract

This study focuses on the principal rules of government formation as well as on the deviant cases. On a party level, over 1,000 cases and approximately 250 government formations in 17 West European countries during the second half of the twentieth-century are analysed. By means of regression analyses, the study explores the effects of the size of the parties, other party characteristics, as well as characteristics in the party system on the choice of premier party and coalition party respectively. The results show that the choice of premier party to a great extent is decided by the size of the party and the position as median party. The choice of coalition party, however, is a far more complex process. Favourable and unfavourable conditions are defined, and the deviant cases are identified, compared and analysed with respect to the choice of PM party and the choice of coalition party respectively. The study shows that the deviant cases are not disparate. On the contrary, the deviant cases form a set of rules of their own.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Laver, M. and Shepsle, K. A., ‘Coalitions and Cabinet Government’, American Political Science Review, 84 (1990), pp. 873–90;CrossRefGoogle Scholar M. Laver and N. Schofield, Multiparty Government. The Politics of Coalition in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 89–143; A. Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy, Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 91–6; H. M. Narud, Voters, Parties and Governments. Electoral Competition, Policy Distances and Government Formation in Multi-party Systems, Oslo, Institute for Social Research, 1996, pp. 13–20; and W. H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions, New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1962.

2 See, for instance, Warwick, P. V., ‘Coalition Government Membership in West European Parliamentary Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science, 26: (1996), pp. 471–99;CrossRefGoogle Scholar M. Laver and K. A. Shepsle, Making and Breaking Governments. Cabinets and Legislatures in Parliamentary Democracies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996; Laver and Schofield, Multiparty Government and W. C. Müller and K. Strøm, Coalition Governments in Western Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.

3 See sources mentioned in n.1, as well as I. Budge and H. Keman, Parties and Democracy. Coalition Formation and Government Functioning in Twenty States, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990; M. Gallagher, M. Laver and P. Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe. Institutions, Parties, and Governments, New York, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2001; Roozendaal, P. V., ‘The Effect of Dominant and Central Parties on Cabinet Composition and Durability’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17: 1 (1992), pp. 536;CrossRefGoogle Scholar I. Budge, H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara and E. Tanenbaum, Mapping Policy Preferences. Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.

4 B. G. Peters, Comparative Politics. Theory and Methods, London, Macmillan, 1998, pp. 162–74.Google Scholar

5 Warwick, ‘Coalition Government Membership in West European Parliamentary Democracies’; and Martin and Stevenson, ‘Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’.Google Scholar

6 Strøm, K., Budge, I. and Laver, M., ‘Constraints on Cabinet Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’, American Journal of Political Science, 38 (1994), pp. 303–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Warwick, ‘Coalition Government Membership’, pp. 474f; and Mattila and Raunio, ‘Government Formation in the Nordic Countries: The Electoral Connection’.Google Scholar

8 Müller and Strøm, Coalition Governments in Western Europe.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 569.Google Scholar

10 J.-E. Lane and S. Ersson, Politics and Society in Western Europe, London, Sage Publications, 1999, pp. 79–88.Google Scholar

11 L. Mayer, ‘A Note on The Aggregation of Party Systems’, in P. H. Merkl (ed.), Western European Party Systems, New York, Free Press, 1980, K. Strøm, Minority Government and Majority Rule, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 64ff, Laver and Schofield, Multiparty Government, pp. 147–50, and Lane and Ersson, Politics and Society in Western Europe, pp. 134f.Google Scholar

12 European Journal of Political Research (several volumes), I. Gorvin (ed.), Elections since 1945: A Worldwide Reference Compendium, Suffolk, Longman, 1989; J.-E. Lane, D. McKay and K. Newton, Political Data Handbook. OECD Countries, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991; T. Mackie and R. Rose, The International Almanac of Electoral History, New York, Free Press, 1991; H. Paloheimo, Governments in Democratic Capitalist States 1950–1983. A Data Handbook, Turku, Department of Sociology and Political Science, 1984; A. Siaroff, Comparative European Party Systems. An Analysis of Parliamentary Elections since 1945, New York, Garland Publishing, 2000; Strøm, Minority Government and Majority Rule; J. Woldendorp, H. Keman and I. Budge, Party Government in 48 Democracies (1945–1998). Composition – Duration – Personnel, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.Google Scholar

13 Information concerning median party is missing for Great Britain, Greece, Iceland and Spain. Cases from these countries are therefore not included in Model 2 and Model 3 of the regression analyses.Google Scholar

14 Warwick, ‘Coalition Government Membership’, pp. 479–87, Martin and Stevenson, ‘Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’, pp. 41ff; and Mattila and Raunio, ‘Government Formation in the Nordic Countries’, pp. 274ff.Google Scholar

15 Warwick, ‘Coalition Government Membership’, pp. 487–99, and Mattila and Raunio, ‘Government Formation in the Nordic Countries’, pp. 275f.Google Scholar

16 See also Müller and Strøm, Coalition Governments in Western Europe, pp. 567ff.Google Scholar

17 See, for instance, ibid.Google Scholar

18 See Warwick, ‘Coalition Government Membership’, pp. 487–97.Google Scholar