Legislative Governing Coalitions in Parliamentary Democracies

Abstract

A neglected aspect of parliamentary democracies that do not conform to the British model is the relation between executive and legislative leadership. In multiparty systems with strong legislative committees, committee chairmen constitute a governing coalition comparable to the cabinet. Given the coalitional nature of each leadership group, their partisan composition may not be identical; nor need they be equally stable. These are matters of importance for the operation of government. This article examines the relations between the two coalitions in the primordial parliamentary democracy, the French Third Republic. Using correlation analysis, I found a weak partisan relation between the two coalitions during the five legislatures of the interwar years. Using two measures of stability, durability and the continuity of coalitions beyond formal tenure, I found the legislative coalition always more stable. Institutional rules and the multiparty system helped account for these differences. Nevertheless, there was enough variation from legislature to legislature to show that electoral rules and results had an impact. Variations resembled those in the American republic. Periods of greater similarity in partisan composition coincided with greater effectiveness or stability for the executive; periods of divided control coincided with lesser executive stability. This was of consequence for the making of policy.