Portfolio allocation patterns and policy‐making effectiveness in minority coalition governments

Thomas König,Nick Lin

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12416

Abstract

AbstractAlthough minority coalition has become a relatively frequent form of governance, it is often considered politically ineffective in policy making. To obtain sufficient support in parliament, government bills must go through the scrutiny activities initiated by coalition partners and overcome the concerns of external support parties in opposition. By examining parliamentary scrutiny on government bills, this paper explains the surprising policy‐making effectiveness in minority coalition governments. Specifically, we argue and show that different patterns of portfolio allocation with the specific ideological locations of the ministerial office‐holder, the coalition partner and the external supporter, structure the extent to which government bills are scrutinized in parliament, and therefore, the effectiveness of the minority coalition on managing and implementing policies. We empirically examine bills initiated by 256 ministries in 13 Danish minority coalitions between 1985 and 2015, and we reveal robust evidence that corroborates our argument.

Highlights

In parliamentary democracies where multiple parties routinely rule together in coalition governments, minority coalitions are often considered puzzling deviations from majority coalitions (Andeweg et al 2011)
Our argument focuses on how different patterns of portfolio allocation—defined by the relative ideological locations of the ministerial office-holder, the coalition partner and the external support party— structure the extent to which government bills are scrutinized in parliament
When the environment is uncertain for future policy making at the time of coalition formation and agreement, we examine whether and how portfolio allocation shape the joint level of parliamentary scrutiny on government bills, and their implications on the policy-making effectiveness of minority coalitions

Summary

Introduction

In parliamentary democracies where multiple parties routinely rule together in coalition governments, minority coalitions are often considered puzzling deviations from majority coalitions (Andeweg et al 2011). Our argument, following the literature on policy making in multiparty governments (Martin & Vanberg 2005, 2011), centres on how the risk of ministerial drift motivates both coalition partners and external supporters to scrutinize government bills in the parliamentary policy-making process and how distributing portfolios in different patterns conditions these actors’ incentives to engage in parliamentary oversight.

Results

Conclusion