The cost of coalition compromise : the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios
Greene, Zachary and Henceroth, Nathan and Jensen, Christian B (2021) The cost of coalition compromise : the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios. Party Politics, 27 (4). pp. 827-838. ISSN 1354-0688 (https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068820904429)
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Abstract
This article highlights the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios within a coalition government. For voters, holding ministries can be seen as a symbol of a party’s success within the coalition. As a voting heuristic, parties not controlling the portfolios on issues important to their platforms signal their failure to achieve these goals. Following this perspective, we hypothesize that the difference between coalition parties that hold salient portfolios and those that do not partially predicts the extent of the electoral cost of coalition participation. Using a dataset that covers 11 European parliamentary democracies between 1966 and 2002, we show that for junior coalition partners there is an electoral reward for holding their most salient portfolio. There is also an electoral benefit for a junior partner to hold a larger number of portfolios if they do not control their most salient portfolio. Conversely, holding their most salient portfolio and a larger number of additional ministries results in greater electoral losses in the subsequent parliamentary election. These results indicate that parties’ success at negotiating for their policy priorities in coalition governments holds consequences for their future electoral success.
ORCID iDs
Greene, Zachary ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1261-749X, Henceroth, Nathan and Jensen, Christian B;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 71193 Dates: DateEvent1 July 2021Published14 February 2020Published Online14 January 2020AcceptedSubjects: Political Science Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Government and Public Policy > Politics Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 23 Jan 2020 16:48 Last modified: 23 Nov 2024 01:14 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/71193