Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T11:16:14.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Legislative Review and Party Differentiation in Coalition Governments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

DAVID FORTUNATO*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
*
*David Fortunato, Associate Professor of Political Science and Ray A. Rothrock' 77 Fellow, Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, fortunato@tamu.edu.

Abstract

Multiparty governance requires compromise and this compromise can lead to electoral losses. I argue that coalition members are motivated to differentiate themselves from their cabinet partners to mitigate potential electoral losses resulting from voters perceiving them as not rigorously pursuing their core policy positions or not possessing strong policy stands. I test this argument with original data on the scrutiny of over 2,200 government bills gathered from three parliamentary democracies incorporating information on voter perceptions of partisan ideology and parties’ policy preferences as derived from their manifestos. I find that coalition partners that are perceived as more similar will amend one another’s legislative proposals more vigorously in an effort to differentiate in the eyes of the electorate—to protect their brand—and therefore provide evidence for “pure” vote-seeking behavior in the legislative review process. Furthermore, these original data provide answers to several open questions regarding the policy motivations of cabinet parties in legislative review and the role of committee chairs and external support parties on policy outcomes.

Type
Letter
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to Randy Calvert, Royce Carroll, Songying Fang, Will Lowe, Oli Proksch, Andrew Martin, Lanny Martin, Randy Stevenson, and Georg Vanberg for advice and helpful conversations on the manuscript, as well as five anonymous reviewers and Ben Lauderdale and the APSR editorial team. Any remaining errors are mine. I am also grateful to the SFB 884 “The Political Economy of Reforms” and the Hellman Foundation for funding and also Jacob Gutierrez, Ericka Ledesma, and especially Tessa Provins for research assistance. Replication materials can be found on Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/UVANPR.

References

REFERENCES

Adams, James, Ezrow, Lawrence, and Wlezien, Christopher. 2016. “The Company You Keep: How Voters Infer Party Positions on European Integration from Governing Coalition Arrangements.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 811–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Jim, Weschle, Simon, and Wlezien, Christopher. 2016. How Voters Infer Parties’ Policy Positions Based on Elite Interactions. Philadelphia, PA: Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
Bawn, Kathleen, and Somer-Topcu, Zeynep. 2012. “Government versus Opposition at the Polls: How Governing Status Affects the Impact of Policy Positions.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (2): 433–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, Bräuninger, Thomas, Debus, Marc, and Indridason, Indridi H.. 2016. “Let’s Just Agree to Disagree: Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Coalition Agreements.” The Journal of Politics 78 (4): 1264–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Royce, and Cox, Gary W.. 2012. “Shadowing Ministers: Monitoring Partners in Coalition Governments.” Comparative Political Studies 45 (2): 220–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, Holger, and Manow, Philip. 2011. “Parliament and Government Composition Database (ParlGov): A Short Introduction.” White Paper, 1–12.Google Scholar
Fortunato, David. 2017. “The Electoral Implications of Coalition Policy-making.” British Journal of Political Science, 1–22. Published online February 8, 2017. doi:10.1017/S0007123416000430.Google Scholar
Fortunato, David, Martin, Lanny, and Vanberg, Georg. 2017. “Committee Chairs and Legislative Review in Parliamentary Democracies.” British Journal of Political Science, 1–13. Published online March 23, 2017. doi:10.1017/S0007123416000673.Google Scholar
Fortunato, David, and Stevenson, Randolph T.. 2013. “Perceptions of Partisan Ideologies: The Effect of Coalition Participation.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 459–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, Will, and John, Peter. 2009. “The Dynamics of Political Attention: Public Opinion and the Queen’s Speech in the United Kingdom.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (4): 838–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, Michael, and Shepsle, Kenneth, eds. 1994. Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lowe, Will, Benoit, Kenneth, Mikhaylov, Slava, and Laver, Michael. 2011. “Scaling Policy Preferences from Coded Political Texts.” Legislative studies quarterly 36 (1): 123–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, Kenneth. 2013. “Folketinget Har Vedtaget Omstridt Offentlighedslov.” Politiken (Jun 4).Google Scholar
Martin, Lanny W., and Vanberg, Georg. 2008. “Coalition Government and Political Communication.” Political Research Quarterly 61: 502–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Lanny W., and Vanberg, Georg. 2011. Parliaments and Coalitions: The Role of Legislative Institutions in Multiparty Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strøm, Kaare, Müller, Wolfgang, and Bergman, Torbjörn, eds. 2008. Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thies, Michael F. 2001. “Keeping Tabs on Partners: The Logic of Delegation in Coalition Governments.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (3): 580–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Fortunato supplementary material

Fortunato supplementary material 1

Download Fortunato supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 195.8 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Fortunato Dataset

Link
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.