Model Of Government Formation Research Articles

THE ROLE OF PARLIAMENT IN GOVERNMENT FORMATION: COMPARATIVE LEGAL ANALYSIS OF UZBEKISTAN AND EUROPEAN STATES

This research was carried out on the formation of different types of governments in European countries and analyzed the government formation traditions in parliamentary democracies. The article provides the comparative research in constitutional law. By researching this theme we tended to analyze the possibility of application of European model of government formation to models in Central Asian countries based on the constitutional frameworks and key political, contextual factors that influence the formation of different types of governments. Also these studies provide the processes of government formation in Uzbekistan and the extent to which the government formation processes correspond the European experience. This article attempts to look at the extent to which these models are generally applicable when applied to in our country.

A Step in the Wrong Direction: An Appraisal of the Zero-Intelligence Model of Government Formation

In a recent article in the Journal of Politics, Golder, Golder, and Siegel (2012) argue that models of government formation should be rebuilt “from the ground up.” They propose to do so with a “zero-intelligence” model of government formation. They claim that this model makes no theoretical assumptions beyond the requirement that a potential government, to be chosen, must be preferred by all its members and a legislative majority to the incumbent administration. They also claim that, empirically, their model does significantly better than existing models in predicting formation outcomes. We disagree with both claims. Theoretically, their model is unrestrictive in terms of its institutional assumptions, but it imposes a highly implausible behavioral assumption that drives the key results. Empirically, their assessment of the performance of the zero-intelligence model turns on data that are of limited relevance in testing coalition theories. We demonstrate that the predictions of the zero-intelligence model...

A Step in the Wrong Direction: An Appraisal of the Zero-Intelligence Model of Government Formation

In a recent article in the Journal of Politics, Golder, Golder, and Siegel argue that models of government formation should be rebuilt from the ground up. They propose to do so with a model of government formation, which they claim makes no theoretical assumptions beyond the requirement that a potential government, to be chosen, must be preferred by all its members and a legislative majority to the incumbent administration. They also claim that, empirically, their model does significantly better than existing models in predicting formation outcomes. We disagree with both claims. Theoretically, their model is unrestrictive in terms of its institutional assumptions, but it imposes a highly implausible behavioral assumption that drives the key results. Empirically, their assessment of the performance of the zero intelligence model turns on a misunderstanding of the relevant data for testing coalition theories. We demonstrate that the predictions of the zero-intelligence model are no more accurate than random guesses, in stark contrast to the predictions of well-established approaches in traditional coalition research. We conclude that scholars would be ill advised to dismiss traditional approaches in favor of the approach advanced by Golder, Golder, and Siegel.

Modelling Government Formation in Denmark and Beyond

This article proposes a new model of government formation: the Dual Power Base Model. The starting point is the median voter theorem, but an institutional limitation suggested by Laver and Shepsle (2000) is added. The claim is that it takes a certain number of MPs to cope with the practical tasks of running a government — that is, to have ‘Office Capacity’. If the median party has Office Capacity, the model predicts that the median party will form the government. If the median party does not have Office Capacity the median party will choose the closest party or parties that do have Office Capacity. This model is applied most thoroughly to government formation in Denmark, but also to the Norwegian and Swedish cases. When party positions are measured by previous voting behaviour on bills in parliament, the model explains 23 out of 25 government formations in Denmark in the period 1953 to 2007.

Office and Policy Payoffs in Coalition Governments

According to theories on coalition formation, parties with a key position in the coalition game receive higher office and policy payoffs than their coalition partners. In this article, I use two models of government-formation — the portfolio allocation model and the political heart model — to identify key players in the coalition game. Both models are modified to incorporate institutional and political constraints on coalition-formation, and the predictions of key parties from the four models are compared with the governments that actually formed in five European countries: Austria (1983—2002), Belgium (1985—2003), Germany (1980— 2005), Ireland (1982—2002) and The Netherlands (1977—2003). I argue that the modified models are preferred to the original ones on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Using the key parties identified by the modified models, I find that if a coalition member is a key party, then it is able to assert its policy views more effectively than its coalition partners can, but, contrary to expectations in the literature, that it is unable to capture a surpassing share of cabinet offices.

Demand Commitment in Legislative Bargaining

Morelli (1999) provides a model of government formation in which the parties make payoff demands and the order of moves is chosen by the leading party. Morelli's main proposition states that the ex post distribution of payoffs inside the coalition that forms is proportional to the distribution of relative ex ante bargaining power. We provide a counterexample in which the leading party is able to obtain the entire payoff; furthermore, there are coalitions for which proportional payoff division does not occur for any order of moves.

‘Natural because it had become just that.’ Path dependence in pre-electoral pacts and government formation: A New Zealand case study

Formal models of government formation frequently find their predictions confounded in the real world and/or fail to explain empirical observations, leading to calls for new approaches. The formation of New Zealand's 1999 minority coalition government—one which ran counter to the predictions of all conventional coalition theories—illustrates the potential contribution of path dependence to those approaches, particularly when we are trying to explain why pre-electoral pacts are relatively good predictors of government composition.

Ministrables and Government Formation: Munchkins, Players and Big Beasts of the Jungle

Many models of government formation pay particular attention to certain key political actors. Schofield, for example, uses the concept of the `core party', while Laver and Shepsle focus on `strong parties'. Such parties have an important position in bargaining over government formation because they are in certain circumstances able to form minority governments on their own. In practical terms, this implies controlling the entire political machinery of government without help from other parties. An important matter hitherto ignored in theoretical discussions of government formation is the possibility that actors with pivotal positions in such models may in practice simply not have access to the political resources they need to exploit these. There may well be `small' parties that are well located in terms of some model of government formation, but which cannot capitalize upon this position for lack of access to sufficient political talent. This paper explores the implications of this phenomenon for government formation, showing that the failure of one or more parties in the system to have sufficient political resources to control a national government single-handed can involve striking reallocations of bargaining power.

Policy Payoffs in Local Government

This article applies the portfolio allocation model of government formation to the formation of local government administrations in general, with a particular empirical application to the formation of administrations in British local authorities with hung councils. First, the implications of the portfolio allocation model for the formation of local administrations are discussed. Secondly, this model is operationalized in the context of British local politics, and specific empirical implications are explicitly derived from it. Thirdly, these implications are systematically evaluated against the recent experience of the formation of local administrations in Britain. The results suggest that policy is indeed important in the formation of British local administrations, but that more than a single left–right dimension of financial policy is needed to describe this process adequately.

Election results and coalition possibilities in Ireland

Abstract Election results make political sense only in terms of the government formation possibilities they imply. Using a new model of government formation, this paper explores the different coalition possibilities implied by different potential election results in Ireland. This analysis provides a more rigorous theoretical foundation for the view that, given the current policy configuration of the Irish party system or something reasonably like it, Fianna Fail can remain a dominant party of government in Ireland more or less regardless of the precise outcomes of elections.

Government Coalitions and Intraparty Politics

A new model of government formation is elaborated and developed to allow consideration of politics within political parties. The impact of coalition bargaining on intraparty politics is considered, as well as the impact of intraparty politics on coalition bargaining. Different intraparty decision-making regimes are shown to affect coalition outcomes. Finally, the potential impact of anticipated coalition bargaining on the choice of decision-making regime within a party is explored.