Do coalition agreements work?

Abstract

AbstractChapter 7 shifts the focus from explaining coalition agreements to examining the effect of coalition agreements on cabinet survival. Thus, instead of treating coalition agreements as the dependent variable as in the preceding chapters, coalition agreements are now treated as the independent variable in order to explain how long coalition governments last. This allows us to say something about the impact of coalition agreements, and whether they in fact “work” as control mechanisms. It is argued that cabinets are more stable if parties negotiated compromises not only on uncontested but more importantly also on conflictual policy issues. More specifically, it is hypothesized that cabinets last longer the more extensive conflictual issues are covered in the coalition agreement. The argument is tested by combining the COALITIONAGREE dataset with data on cabinet survival. The results support the intuition: Coalition governments on average last longer when coalition parties strike a deal on divisive policies in their agreement.