Patterns of multi-party government: Viability and compatibility of coalitions

Abstract

Coalition theory is central to our understanding of the nexus between party system development, party government composition and the relationship between the executive and legislature. I argue that government formation is crucial for understanding the life cycle of party government. I consider the relations between parties in parliament and parties in government as principal-agent relations, signifying the indirect character of representative governance. The study of (coalition) government should not be a one-shot game and not be conducted without taking into account its contextual variation or the time dimension: the coalition praxis to form a new government is not only a post-electoral ‘game’ conducted within parliament and government between parties, but also a serious exercise by parties to translate policy preferences into a viable agreement that honours, by and large, the voters’ choices. The comparative analysis of 17 established parliamentary democracies after 1990 serves to illustrate these points.