Coalition agreements and Cabinet Governance (Muller and Strom)

• Coalition agreements are one of the aspect of the governance structure of multiparty coalition in parliamentary democracy. However the two most important stylized accounts of coalition decision making did not consider the coalition agreements:

1. Ministerial government (Laver&Shepsle) Coalition agreements are futile

2. Veto Players (Tsebelis). Coalition agreements are redundant

Ministerial government model’s drawbacks

• Laver and Shepsle argue that delegation from the prime minister or the coalition leaders to individual cabinet ministers cannot work, since these ministers can never be induced to pursue a policy different from their own most preferred one. However:

1. Delegation is implicitly assumed to work from cabinet ministers to civil servant, a relationship that seems much more risky in terms of agency loss.

2. Ministerial government is largely suboptimal as government stability results from the parties’ inability to agree on any mutually benificial alternatives to the status quo. Why the party leaders choose this decision making structure ?

Veto Players model’s (Cabinet government) drawbacks

• Tsebelis argues that in the cabinet any coalition party is a veto player regardless of the distribution of cabinet portfolios. Therefore he emphasizes the centralization of cabinet authority.

1. No all government parties in all governments are pivotal .

2. Vetoing sometimes is not credible as the political perspective after the government collapse can be worse than the defeat in the intragovernment bargaining.

Why coalition agreements

• Coalition agreements are indications that political parties often find it difficult to cooperate in the executive branch and that neither ministerial government nor cabinet government is an adequate description of the process of coalition policy making in parliamentary democracies.

1. No all government parties in all governments are pivotal .

2. Vetoing sometimes is not credible as the political perspective after the government collapse can be worse than the defeat in the intragovernment bargaining.

Coalition agreements functions

1. Internal: C.A are precommitments by which the negotiating party leaders bind themselves against intraparty pressure

2. External: C.A. tie together the leaders of the coalition parties, ease comunication between them, contain interparty conflict or facilitate its resolution.

What makes difficult governing together (and sometimes C.A necessary)?

• Preference divergence (about policy benefits, office benefits, electoral advantages)

Proposition 1. The greater the preference diversity among the coalition parties, the more formalized their coalition agreement is likely to be

What makes difficult governing together (and sometimes C.A necessary)?

• Uncertainty (about policy instruments, policy agenda, voters)

Proposition 2. The greater the uncertainty among the coalition parties, the more formalized their coalition agreement is likely to be

What makes difficult governing together (and sometimes C.A. necessary)?

• Opportunism (sequence in which the parties secure their gains [Marshall&Weingast …], verification problems )

Proposition 3. The greater the risk of opportunistic behavior among the coalition parties, the more formalized their coalition agreement is likely to be.

What makes difficult governing together (and sometimes C.A. necessary)?

• Opportunism (sequence in which the parties secure their gains [Marshall&Weingast …], verification problems )

Proposition 3. The greater the risk of opportunistic behavior among the coalition parties, the more formalized their coalition agreement is likely to be.

What makes difficult governing together (and sometimes C.A. necessary)?

• Values of C.A. (Majority gov vs minority gov., period of birth in the parliamentary cycle.

• Costs of C.A.( writing costs, audience costs, reputational costs) Proposition 4. The more valuable the coalition, the more formalized the coalition agreements is likely to be. Proposition 5 The greater the transaction and audience costs of forging a C.A., the less formalized such a C.A. is likely to be.

Mechanisms of centralized cabinet authority

• Ex ante modes of coalition governance: comprehensive initial policy agreement

• Ex post modes of coalition governance: junior ministers, (parliamentary committees)

4 modes of coalition governance

• Centralized

• Decentralized Ex ante modes of governance

• Decentralized Ex post modes of governance

• Decentralized Ex ante and Ex post modes of governance

Why some coalition governance mechanisms instead of others?

Path dependency …

Explaining Coalition Agreements

• Explanatory factors1. Preference divergence2. Uncertainty3. Opportunism4. Values and Cost of

C.A

• Clusters of explanatory variables

1. The effects of time and space

2. Structural attributes of cabinets and party systems

3. The preferences of the players

4. Political institutions5. Features of the

bargaining situation6. Exogenous critical

events

Variables: Structural attributes of bargaining environment

• Post election cabinet (+Value of C.A.)• Maximum government duration (+Uncertainty)• Minimal winning Coalition (+Opportunism)• Surplus majority cabinet (- Opportunism)• Cabinet seat share (+Opportunism)• Number of parliamentary parties (+ Uncertainty ;

+ writing costs)• Size of the largest party (- Uncertainty; - writing

costs)• Number of cabinet parties (+ Uncertainty;

+writing costs)

Variables: Preferences

• Cabinet preference range (+preference divergence.)

• Median party in the Cabinet (+Opportunism)• Share of extremist parties (-Opportunism)• Weighted polarization of parliament (-

Opportunism)• Presence of a core party (-Opportunism) • Absence of policy connectedness (+preference

divergence)

Wrong sign!

Wrong sign!

Variables: Institutions

• Positive Parliamentarism (- Cost of writing)

• Ex ante Programme screening (- Cost of writing)

• Bicameralism (-Cost of writing)

• PM powers (+Opportunism)

• Semipresidentialism (+Opportunism ; - value of C.A.)

Wrong sign!Wrong sign!

Wrong sign!Wrong sign!

Variables: Bargaining environment

• Conflict termination (+Uncertainty;+ opportunism)

• Cabinet bargaining duration (+ cost C.A; - cost C.A.)

• Inconclusive bargaining round (+ cost C.A.)

Variables: Critical events

• Volatility (+Uncertainty)

• Terminal events previous cabinets (+Uncertainty)

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