Bargaining and Policy-making in Multiparty Governments

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Multiparty governments bring together political parties with diverging and often conflicting policy preferences. Government parties hence find themselves in the paradoxical situation where they have to cooperate in government, but also aim to implement their preferred policies and maintain their policy profiles to be competitive in the upcoming elections. Inter-party bargaining and joint decision-making are thus key features of multiparty governments, which have attracted considerable scholarly attention. Two major research questions in this context are: i) how do multiparty governments reach an agreement in contested policy areas, and ii) whose policy positions prevail during inter-party bargaining? The panel proposal explores these research questions with four closely related papers on bargaining and policy-making in multiparty governments.
Specifically, the first paper by Bäck, Ecker, and Schleiter explores the relationship between the dissolution powers of government parties and policy bargaining in multiparty governments. The main argument is that asymmetrically distributed dissolution powers among government parties provide some parties with a considerable bargaining advantage vis-á-vis their peers. Dominant parties with the constitutional prerogative to unilaterally dissolve the legislature and call for early elections should be able to extract greater concessions from their coalition partners in policy bargaining, than their peers who lack such powers.
The second paper by Müller et al. analyzes the effectiveness of different government types in the policy making process using a comprehensive data set on reform measures in Western Europe. It challenges the conventional expectation that certain government types, such as single-party and/or majority governments, are unconditionally more effective in changing the policy status quo compared to multi-party or minority governments. Differences in the level of reform output can be explained by shorter survival times of some government types, while single-party and majority governments are indeed more effective in implementing their desired policy agenda.
The third paper by Kayser and Rehmert adds to this topic by proposing a new dynamic measure of parties’ bargaining power. The main argument is that the bargaining advantage of political parties changes over the course of the electoral cycle. Specifically, their bargaining leverage is modelled as a dynamic function of its number of outside options. Party behavior in government and parties’ ability to implement their preferred policies will thus likewise vary throughout the legislative term.
The fourth and final paper by Krauss and Klüver then links policy-making and inter-party bargaining with cabinet stability. Specifically, it explores whether coalition agreements with extensive policy agendas prolong the lifetime of multiparty governments. To the extent that political parties are able to settle conflicts and negotiate compromises on conflictual policy issues in advance, conflict over government policies is less likely during the legislative term. This, in turn, should substantively enhance cabinet stability.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 14: Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies

Chair

• Lanny W. Martin Bocconi University

Discussant

• Lanny W. Martin Bocconi University

Individual Presentations

• The Vote of Confidence Procedure and Policy Bargaining - Hanna Back, Lund University; Alejandro Ecker; Petra Schleiter, University of Oxford

• Types of Parliamentary Government and the Challenge of Making Reforms - Wolfgang C. Mueller; Daniel Strobl; Hanna Back, Lund University; Mariyana Angelova, University of Vienna

• Coalition Inclusion Probabilities. A Dynamic Measure of Party Competitiveness - Mark A. Kayser, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin; Jochen Rehmert, Hertie School of Governance

• Government Formation, Policy-making and Cabinet Stability - Svenja Krauss, University of Essex; Heike Klüver, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin