Losers together? Grand coalitions in the EU member states

Marco Morini,Matthew Loveless

doi:10.1017/ipo.2021.12

Marco Morini, Matthew Loveless

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/ipo.2021.12

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Abstract

AbstractOver the last two decades, the formation of grand coalitions has grown in the European Union (EU), even in countries with no previous political experience with them. Alongside a significant rise in both new and radical parties, grand coalitions signal the increasing fragmentation of contemporary European politics. We, therefore, investigate the electoral performance of both mainstream and new parties entering and leaving grand coalitions. We find that mainstream parties do not appear to enter grand coalitions after negative election results. They are, however, punished in the following elections, albeit not as heavily as previous findings have shown. This post-grand coalition electoral penalty is true for both major and minor grand coalition members. These findings contribute to the literature on party competition and provide insights into the choices mainstream parties' have been making in response to recent and rapid changes in the electoral landscape of the EU.

Highlights

In recent decades, grand coalitions (GCs) in which mainstream parties ally with previous rivals or even new challengers, are becoming more common in European politics
If rival parties from opposing sides of the ideological spectrum join forces in a GC, what was the point of voting in the first place? from the rational choice approach embedded in the government formation literature, GCs can be seen as normal as any other combination as they are minimal winning coalitions, fulfil the bargaining proposition, and – all in all – are the best option for office-seeking political actors (Martin and Stevenson, 2010)
We focus on GCs formed after general elections in the European Union (EU) member states since 2004, rather than those arising from government crises or during parliamentary terms. 2004 provides an accommodating start date as it coincides with the ‘big bang enlargement’ in the EU

Summary

Introduction

Grand coalitions (GCs) in which mainstream parties ally with previous rivals or even new challengers, are becoming more common in European politics. Having in mind the German SPD, the two authors argued that where viable more ideologically similar parties exist, core constituents of GCs minor partners participating in a GC may shift their support as a result of coalition compromises Building upon these authors’ findings: Hypothesis 2b: The GCs’ minor partners suffer the most in the following elections. This motivated us to update the original label of GC and focus on coalitions which include the two largest mainstream parties in a party system (which were not in a pre-electoral agreement), rather than trying to forcing a theoretical concept from the German-speaking literature clearly tied to the specific cases in Austria and Germany to other institutional settings. There are countries that have a significant tradition of consensual-style politics, such as Austria, Luxembourg, and

GC parties

Mean for GC mainstream members

Findings

Conclusion