Marriage of love or marriage of convenience? The determinants of pre-electoral coalition formation during the French Fifth Republic 1962–2012

Abstract

ABSTRACT In multiparty countries, parties often form strategic alliances to contest elections together. Pre-electoral coalitions can offer a clear alternative to the government, and as such may get the chance to govern. However, the parties have to convince their voters to support the alliance as a unit. Hence the parties may face a dilemma: whether to choose pre-electoral coalition partners that they have the potential to win the most seats with, or ideologically close allies. Pre-electoral coalitions form before an election; thus, normally, we can only infer the parties’ motivations to form them from the results of their cooperation. I circumvent this problem by using manifesto and electoral data from the first round of the French legislative elections from 1962 to 2012 to predict which alliances form in the second round. I find that ideological closeness is an important factor in PEC formation but only if parties can gain electorally from the alliance.