The Life-Cycle of Multiparty Parliamentary Government

Session Submission Type: Full Submitted Panel

Session Description

This panel brings together papers on government formation, the division of cabinet resources and spoils, voter reaction to policymaking procedure, and cabinet durability to better understand not only the birth and death of governments, but also the business of governing and its implications for the electorate. Though the papers employ an array of research designs (formal theoretical models, experimental methods, text analysis, etc.), the tie that binds them is consideration of the institutional and electoral constraints to policymaking that condition the behavior of cabinet parties in ways omitted by most previous models.

Two of the papers consider cabinet formation and portfolio allocation directly by proposing theoretical models of coalition formation that are conditioned by voters’ expectations for and perceptions of party bargaining performance (Martin and Vanberg) and the presence of strategic dissolution powers (Indridason and Sturluson). The remaining two papers focus on how voters perceive the business of policymaking more directly by employing a text analysis of coalition policy agreements conditioned on the value that party supporters place on disparate policy areas (Klüver and Bäck) and an experimental analysis of how party supporters react to the bargaining style and success of their leadership (Becher and Brouard). Together, the papers paint a nuanced picture of multiparty parliamentary governance.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / French Politics Group

Chair

• David Fortunato Texas A&M University

Discussant

• Yannis Vassiliadis University of Rochester

Individual Presentations

• Prime Ministers' Hard Choices: Legislative Performance and Voter Evaluation - Sylvain Brouard, Duplicate Related Group Chair record; Michael Becher, IE University

• Gamson's Law & Government Dissolution: An Experimental Analysis - Indridi Haukur Indridason, University of California, Riverside

• Policy Payoff Allocation in Multiparty Cabinets - Hanna Back, Lund University; Heike Klüver, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

• Attributions of Policy-Making Influence in Coalitional Systems: How (Most) Voters Get it (Mostly) Right - David Fortunato, Texas A&M University; Nick C.N. Lin, Rice University; Randolph T. Stevenson, Rice University; Mathias Tromborg, Rice University