Multiparty Governments Research Articles

Constraining or enabling? The effects of government composition on international commitments

ABSTRACTThe effect of government composition on the ability to make international commitments is an ongoing debate in the literature. Using the veto players and clarity of responsibility theories, I introduce a nuanced understanding of government composition that considers the different types of multiparty governments and the degree of policy incongruence inside them. I test the effects of these variables on the intensity of international commitments with a post-Cold War events dataset of parliamentary European governments. The results of multilevel analyses show that oversized coalitions make more intense commitments than single-party majority governments through responsibility diffusion, though neither approach explains the commitment behavior of minimum winning coalitions. Finally, commitment intensity increases for minority coalitions if their ideological setup leaves the parliamentary opposition fragmented. Ultimately, a government's arithmetic and ideological composition conditions the intensity of its international commitments. I also find that European Union membership has no significant effect on commitment intensity.

Parties and Policymaking in Multiparty Governments: The Legislative Median, Ministerial Autonomy, and the Coalition Compromise

In parliamentary democracies, governments are typically composed of multiple political parties working together in a coalition. Such governments must confront a fundamental challenge in policymaking—the preferences of coalition parties often diverge significantly, but the government can adopt only one common policy on any specific issue. This fact raises a critical question that has far‐reaching implications for the quality of democratic representation: Whose preferences are ultimately reflected in coalition policy choices? In this study, we explore three competing answers to this question derived from the theoretical literature on multiparty governance and parliamentary institutions. Our findings, based on an analysis of the legislative history of more than 1,000 government bills from three parliamentary democracies, strongly suggest that coalition policies reflect a compromise between government parties rather than the preferences of the ministers proposing them or the preferences of the median party in the legislature.

Land Administration in Zambia After 1991: History, Opportunities and Challenges From the 1995 Lands Act

The Land tenure system in Zambia is divided in the following administrative segments: colonial period 1880-1964; immediate post independence 1964-1975, post independence period of one party political administration 1975-1991; and the liberalization period of multiparty government of post 1991, with emphasis on the implications of the 1995 Lands Act. Generally, each period of land tenure administration provided local people relative opportunities and challenges. The aim of this study was to establish the history of, opportunities to and challenges faced by local people in Chibombo district emerging from the 1995 Lands Act. Primary data was obtained through questionnaires, interviews and observations between August 2008 and 2012 involving 60 smallholder farmers around Chibombo (39 respondents) and Mungule (21 respondents) areas of Chibombo district. Through this study it was concluded that several individuals, from within Chibombo district and elsewhere, had obtained title deeds on customary land based on the 1995 Lands Act. Dominantly, among the local people who managed to obtain title deeds to their pieces of land over 70 percent were men. Furthermore, through this policy shift new investments emerged on customary land including a cooking oil processing plant, filling stations and lodges, among others, and the local people benefitted through employment creation, improvements to their houses, purchase of solar panels, radios, cell phones and others. On the contrary, others reduced their land hectarage through selling of parts of their land for money, some relocated from their previous residence and evidence of land boundary conflicts was recorded. Therefore, a mixture of opportunities and challenges emerged from the introduction of the 1995 Lands Act.

Holding parties responsible at election time: Multi-level, multi-party government and electoral accountability

This paper highlights the crucial role played by party-specific responsibility attributions in performance-based voting. Three models of electoral accountability, which make distinct assumptions regarding citizens' ability to attribute responsibility to distinct governing parties, are tested in the challenging Northern Ireland context – an exemplar case of multi-level multi-party government in which expectations of performance based voting are low. The paper demonstrates the operation of party-attribution based electoral accountability, using data from the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly Election Study. However, the findings are asymmetric: accountability operates in the Protestant/unionist bloc but not in the Catholic/nationalist bloc. This asymmetry may be explained by the absence of clear ethno-national ideological distinctions between the unionist parties (hence providing political space for performance based accountability to operate) but the continued relevance in the nationalist bloc of ethno-national difference (which limits the scope for performance politics). The implications of the findings for our understanding of the role of party-specific responsibility attribution in performance based models of voting, and for our evaluation of the quality of democracy in post-conflict consociational polities, are discussed.

Coalition Policy-Making under Constraints: Examining the Role of Preferences and Institutions

While much has been written about the formation and termination of coalitions, comparatively little attention has been paid to the policy output of multiparty governments. The present study attempts to narrow this research gap by analysing policy-making in three Austrian coalition governments between 1999 and 2008. Drawing on the party mandate literature, a manually coded textual analysis of election manifestos is conducted that yields a dataset containing over 1,100 pledges. The fulfilment of these pledges is taken as the dependent variable in a multivariate analysis. The results indicate that institutional determinants (adoption in the coalition agreement, ministerial control, and policy status quo) significantly influence the chances of pledge fulfilment and thus present a powerful predictor of coalition policy output. By contrast, factors related to parties’ preferences (consensus between parties, policy distance, pledge saliency, and majority support in parliament) do not have an impact.

Multiparty Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Public Spending

A large body of research has claimed that budget making by multiparty governments constitutes a “common pool resource” (CPR) problem that leads them to engage in higher levels of spending than single-party governments and, further, that this upwards fiscal pressure increases with the number of parties in the coalition. We offer a significant modification of the conventional wisdom. Drawing on recent developments in the literature on coalition governance, as well as research on fiscal institutions, we argue that budgetary rules can mitigate the CPR logic provided that they (1) reduce the influence of individual parties in the budget process and (2) generate endogenous incentives to resist spending demands by coalition partners. Our empirical evaluation, based on spending patterns in 15 European democracies over nearly 40 years, provides clear support for this contention. Restrictive budgetary procedures can eliminate the expansionary fiscal pressures associated with growing coalition size. Our conclusions suggest that there is room for addressing contemporary concerns over the size of the public sector in multiparty democracies through appropriate reforms to fiscal institutions, and they also have implications for debates about the merits of “proportional” and “majoritarian” models of democracy that are, at least in part, characterized by the difference between coalition and single-party governance.

Multiparty Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Public Spending

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the size of the public sector has been a central, and often controversial, item on the political agenda, as governments from Europe to the United States have embarked on new campaigns to reduce public spending. Previous research on the political factors underlying public spending has naturally focused on the characteristics of the governments that make budgetary decisions. Most recently, scholars have argued, and shown empirically, that spending tends to be larger when cabinets are composed of multiple political parties, and larger still when those coalitions include more members. The key theoretical insight is that spending constitutes a pool problem, which is more difficult to solve for multiparty governments than for single-party administrations because doing so requires the cooperation of actors who are electorally accountable to separate constituencies. In this study, drawing on recent research on the impact of institutions on coalition policymaking, we challenge the prevailing wisdom in this area. Specifically, we argue that rules that reduce the influence of individual government parties in budget formulation, and increase their incentives to oppose the spending demands of their partners, significantly mitigate the common pool resource problem and thus reduce the expansionary effect of coalition governance on spending. Our empirical analysis of public spending in fifteen European democracies over a thirty-five year period supports our argument. Our findings demonstrate that in certain institutional environments, multiparty governments will spend no more than their single-party counterparts. Our conclusions also offer hope that appropriate institutional reforms may be part of a political solution to the financial woes currently confronting multiparty governments across Europe.

Why are multi-party minority governments viable in India? Theory and comparison

This paper attempts to explain the apparently exceptional pattern of coalition politics in India compared to international patterns – the prevalence of minority governments and among them, minority coalitions, among non-single party majority governments, as well as the predominance of very large coalitions of 6–12 parties – in the light of theorising on coalition and minority governments and the specificities of India's political institutions. It shows that there are two general and three specific circumstances that favour such a pattern and that most of these have been present at government formation since 1989, and particularly since 1996.

Live Together, Die Alone? The Disparity of Partners' Electoral Fortunes in Coalition Governments

Although it is said that voters fi nd it more difficult to attribute blame and credit for policy-making when a coalition is in office, it is also true that coalitions can manage decision-making in di fferent ways, shaping how the electorate can see the lines of responsibility. We adapt Duch and Stevenson's (2008) model on economic voting under multiparty governments to show to what extent diff erent ways of deciding in each policy jurisdiction aff ect the signal voters receive about each coalition partner's competence. We then o er empirical evidence suggesting that those coalitions in which it is likely that each partner decides policy individually in their jurisdictions are also more likely to end in a greater electoral disparity between their members, and vice versa.

Intra-party decision making, party formation, and moderation in multiparty systems

We establish coalitional stable party structures of a party formation game in an elected assembly. Farsighted political players can commit to form parties and to vote on policies according to the party position which is determined by intra-party majority rule. Parties may form governments and block proposals by a randomly selected member of the government. If the government recognition rule allows for the formation of multiparty governments, the median parliamentarian either realizes her ideal point or a policy lottery which she strictly prefers to the status quo. This outcome is enforced by the threat of forming a moderating centre party.

The Eyes that Bind: Junior Ministers as Oversight Mechanisms in Coalition Governments

Research on multiparty governments has started to debate how coalition partners oversee each other’s policymaking. Due to the divergence of preferences among partners and the difficulty of sanctioning members of other parties, cabinet members attempt to monitor each other in policymaking activities through the use of junior ministers. By analyzing multiple countries’ governments across decades, this article contributes to the current debate about government oversight by defining the circumstances under which parties in coalition governments choose to use junior ministers to keep tabs on ministers from coalition partners. Specifically, we contend that their use depends on the power dynamics within a coalition, as well as the institutional structures in the broader political environment.1

Electoral Corruption and the Politics of Elections Financing in Tanzania

Since 1994 when Tanzania held its first multiparty local government elections following the reintroduction of multiparty politics in 1992, corruption has been in a surge. There is a growing concern from civil society organizations, the media and the general public over an excessive use of money and other resources to influence the voters. With the money dictating the conduct of electoral processes, weak or poor candidates and parties have been risking their chance of being elected as they cannot compete with their affluent counterparts. In spite of the

Negotiating coalitions: Comparative perspectives

Recent elections in the English-speaking world have thrown up results that were both unpredictable and history-making. In particular, the advent of multi-party and minority government in Britain and Australia, neither of which have proportional representation, raises questions about the capacity of major parties to remain dominant, and the place of minor parties and independents in the future. Here we argue that while the idiosyncrasies of the Australian political system have fostered the rise of independents in ways we are unlikely to see elsewhere, other features of the post-election negotiation process in the wake of the 2010 Australian election highlight the adaptive and innovative potential of major parties seeking office, and the resilience of smaller parties or independents seeking policy and votes.

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

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.

Ethnic Identity, Participation and Social Justice: A Constitution for New Nepal?

AbstractFor nearly two centuries Nepal has been governed under the hegemony of three upper caste communities: Brahmins, Chettries and Newars. Under the influence of Hinduism and the monarchy, other communities, Dalits, women, indigenous peoples and the people of the southern parts were marginalised. Struggles of democracy in the 1950s were less about social justice than the access of the elite communities to increasing shares in the spoils and administration of the state, which was achieved in the 1990 Constitution. The Maoist rebellion in the mid 1990s seriously hampered the working of the Constitution, although not the hegemony of the upper caste communities. The uprising of the people against the King in April 2006 changed the context of that rebellion, accelerated the ceasefire and introduced a new constitutional agenda, based on social justice and the inclusion of the marginalised community in the affairs and institutions of the state. However, despite the overthrow of the monarchy, a multi-party government, of parties committed to fundamental state restructuring, progress towards a new dispensation has been slow. A new Constitution should have been adopted by April 2010 by an elected, representative Constituent Assembly but disagreements between the former elites, still firmly in control of politics, has diverted attention from constitutional reform.

Meeting the Challenges of Representation and Accountability in Multi-party Governments

In systems of proportional parliamentarism political parties play a double role. On the one hand they make delegation and accountability work; on the other they add complexity to the delegation regime, as minority situations require inter-party cooperation. Because coalition government usually involves policy compromises, the question arises how the coalition parties can ensure that the ministers stick to the coalition deal. Employing the principal–agent framework, this paper shows that coalitions can use several control mechanisms to pursue this goal. The authors consider ex ante mechanisms such as policy agreements that set the agenda for future policy decisions and coalition screening of ministerial candidates. Next they discuss the effects of ex post mechanisms such as strong committee systems and institutional checks like ‘watchdog’ junior ministers. Employing a simple spatial model, they illustrate how these instruments work. Using control mechanisms is not costless, however, and actors may want to avoid these costs. The article specifies conditions that make the use of control mechanisms likely to occur.

Agenda Control in the Israeli Knesset during Ariel Sharon's Second Government

How do multi-party coalition governments share agenda power? In principle, coalitions might allocate agenda power among their members by distributing special proposal rights, distributing special blocking rights, or both. The literature has prominent models embodying each polar possibility, with Laver and Shepsle's model envisaging that each party in a coalition has the ability to propose any bill(s) it wishes within the jurisdiction of a ministry it controls; and Cox and McCubbins' cartel theory envisaging that each party has the ability to block bills, thus necessitating collective bargaining over the overall agenda. This paper shows that agenda-setting in Israel is not consistent with the ‘ministerial dictatorship’ version of the Laver–Shepsle model but is consistent with the Cox–McCubbins model.

Strategic coalition voting: Evidence from New Zealand

Whereas the classic literature on strategic voting has focused on the dilemma faced by voters who prefer a candidate for whom they expect has little chance of winning a seat, we consider the dilemma faced by voters in PR systems who do not expect their preferred party to be in government. We develop hypotheses relating to strategic voting over multi-party governments that we test using the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) campaign study of 2002. We find evidence that expectations play a role in structuring vote choice. While there is clear evidence of wishful thinking there is also evidence that voters respond to expectations about government formation. These expectations may mobilize voters and lead them to defect from their first preference.

Lijphart expanded: three dimensions of democracy in advanced OECD countries?

This article attempts to examine the relationship between the most important political institutions and direct democracy in 23 modern OECD democracies by expanding Lijphart’s concept of majoritarian and consensus democracy. The article updates Lijphart’s data collection for the most recent period (1997–2006); it responds to criticisms of Lijphart’s measurement of a number of variables and of case selection, and it integrates direct democracy as an additional variable. Based on factor analysis, the main finding is that there are not just two, but three dimensions of democracy in advanced democracies. The horizontal dimension comprises the disproportionality of the electoral system, the number of parties, the executive–legislative relationship, the interest groups, and the degree of central bank independence. In the vertical dimension of democracy, we find federalism, decentralization, bicameralism, the rigidity of constitutional provisions, and the strength of judicial review. The top-to-bottom dimension of democracy comprises the type of cabinet government and the strength of direct democracy. In contrast to earlier research, our empirical analysis furnishes the hypothesis that direct democracy is not a variable that is independent of all other political institutions. While active direct democracy goes hand-in-hand with broadly supported multi-party governments, purely representative constitutions frequently appear in conjunction with minimal winning cabinets.

Political Attention in a Coalition System: Analysing Queen's Speeches in the Netherlands 1945–2007

At the beginning of each Parliamentary session, the Dutch Queen gives a speech (Troonrede) in which she presents the government's policy goals and legislative agenda for the year to come. The general assumption is that newly elected governments will use agenda-setting moments such as the Queen's speech to put new issues on the national agenda. But does this really happen? Are governmental agendas characterized by sudden shifts following elections or by continuity? After all, at least one coalition party of the previous Dutch government is also a member of the new coalition government. So how much do changes in coalition membership result in changes in policy agendas? In this paper, we study the macro-level structure of the Dutch policy agenda and link patterns of agenda-setting with the institutional context in which this agenda-setting process occurs, that is, the Dutch parliamentary democracy characterized by multi-party government. We coded all Queen's speeches between 1945 and 2007 with a topic code book, based on similar code books used in other countries. In this way, we can examine Dutch agenda-setting patterns and assess the effects of coalition composition and coalition life cycle (from the first year a newly formed government is installed to the last year it is still in office) on agenda-setting.