Are All Coalition Parties Treated the Same?

• In Event: Factions and Coalitions in Legislative Politics

Abstract

Although there is a broad understanding that taking part in a coalition government is not costless for its members, how these costs are shared among coalition partners is unclear. In this study, we investigate the extent to which each of the coalition members is subject to economic voting. More specifically, we examine whether the system of government (i.e., parliamentary or presidential) has an impact on the economic retrospective vote. Using worldwide coalition data from 1983 to 2015, we test: (1) whether junior partners are punished less severely than senior partners; (2) whether voters treat junior partners differently, and; (3) whether all coalition partners (or only a subset of them) are more likely to lose votes in comparison to opposition parties when economic conditions deteriorate. A better understanding of how voters evaluate each coalition member in presidential and parliamentary systems has the potential to uncover important aspects related to coalition dynamics in both of these systems, such as the incumbency advantage and defections within coalition governments.

Authors

• Andrea Junqueira, Texas A&M University

• Thiago Nascimento da Silva, Universität Mannheim

• Guy D. Whitten, Texas A&M University