Voters' short-term responsiveness to coalition deals.

Carolina Plescia

doi:10.1177/13540688211029794

Abstract

Government formation in multiparty systems requires election winners to strike deals to form a coalition government. Do voters respond and how do they respond to coalition government deals? This paper examines the short-term consequences of coalition government formation on voters in European democracies relying on survey panel data and original content analysis of coalition agreements. It tests theoretical expectations that deal with both the actual and perceived ideological shifts parties make when joining coalition deals as well as the effect of a much simpler heuristic cue based on preferences. The findings indicate that coalition deals have consequences on party preferences, but voter perceptions play a much stronger effect than the actual content of coalition deals. These results have important implications for our understanding of public opinion and provide important insights into the current difficulties and challenges of government formation and representative democracy.

Highlights

There is no shortage of research on what Mayhew (1974) has canonically defined as the mass-party ‘electoral connection’
There is more evidence that political parties respond to shifts in voter preferences (e.g., Adams et al, 2006, 2009) and listen to voter issue priorities (e.g., Kluver and Spoon, 2014; Spoon and Kluver, 2014) than evidence that voters perceive parties’ policy shifts, and that these shifts have significant electoral consequences
Elections commonly require the ‘winners’ of the elections to compromise to form a coalition government; in forming such governments parties may need to shift ideologically and the coalition deal will eventually determine the ideological orientation of the government (Strøm and Muller, 1999)

Summary

Introduction

There is no shortage of research on what Mayhew (1974) has canonically defined as the mass-party ‘electoral connection’. The first alternative hypothesis simplifies voters’ reasoning by expecting them to respond to parties’ ideological movements but as perceived by voters, not necessarily the actual movements parties make to form the coalition agreement.

Results

Conclusion