Abstract
Coalition governments typically face problems from conflicting preferences of the cabinet parties. For many reasons individual ministers are likely to pursue party rather than coalition policies. Yet, the doctrine of collective cabinet responsibility ties the coalition as a whole to government policy. In this chapter, we study how coalitions as collective actors can strengthen the link to their ministers. Drawing on the principal–agent approach and the literature on coalition governance, we identify several mechanisms that help to establish coalition control over individual ministers. We discuss how specific control mechanisms serve the functions of contract design, screening, monitoring, and institutional checks familiar from the delegation literature. Employing data from post-war Western European coalitions and using multi-level models, we present a unified analysis of coalition governance. Focussing on the architecture of coalition governance, we argue that coalition cabinets employ control mechanisms that complement each other. A country’s experience with specific control mechanisms, the coalition’s bargaining environment, the actors’ policy preferences, and political institutions determine whether coalition parties are willing to bear the costs of negotiating compromises.
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Notes
- 1.
Our terms ministerial party governmentand cabinet party governmentresemble Strøm’s (1994) ministerial governmentand cabinet governmentbut express the concepts more clearly and keep the latter distinct from the classic understanding of cabinet government as formulated by authors such as Crossman (1972) and Mackintosh (1977).
- 2.
The election rule is technically the most difficult to enforce, as the dissolution of parliament in most cases requires the agreement of individuals who may be outside the coalition deal (the head of state) or who may have strong personal interests against such an act (the sitting prime minister).
- 3.
- 4.
Clearly, this is much less likely with regard to ministers. Although ministers command departmental resources, these will be better qualified for checking the proposals from other ministries from a departmentalrather than partyperspective (see, e.g., Andeweg 2000).
- 5.
Although it might be argued that the effects of institutions may differ from their actual use, we see no argument why coalitions should refrain from using existing opportunities for the mutual checking of the partners. This is certainly true if the daily costs of control are borne by MPs rather than party leaders and cabinet ministers.
- 6.
Nevertheless, the fixed control mechanisms affect their application and hence are used as independent variables.
- 7.
For coalition discipline, the costs rather consist of policy costs due to the voting restrictions.
- 8.
This is the same argument as the one for the positive impact of coalition discipline on the installation of coalition committees. In fact, we do not argue that a causal relationship exists. Rather, the mechanisms complement each other and hence no causal direction is required. The same holds for the relationship between other control mechanisms.
- 9.
The data set is available from http://www.pol.umu.se/ccpd/.
- 10.
We also estimated models including cabinets in countries where an election rule is unfeasible or unattractive (Norway and Sweden) and where junior ministers are not the rule (Denmark, Finland, and Iceland). Excluding the respective variables for watchdog junior ministers and the election rule, the results are similar to those reported here (n= 242).
- 11.
The countries are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
- 12.
According to Mattson and Strøm’s analysis, “drafting authority’ includes the committees’ abilities to initiate legislation, to rewrite bills, and to summon documents. The second factor “agenda control’ comprises the committees’ control of the own timetable and the right to summon witnesses.
- 13.
Specifically, we distinguished three time periods for Italy (before 1948, between 1948 and 1988, and after 1988). If institutional regimes only covered one cabinet, we dropped these cases from the analysis. In our sample this only affects one cabinet in Portugal (Soares I).
- 14.
Compared to a variance-components model.
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the conference “Reform processes and policy change: How do veto players determine decision-making in modern democracies” at the University of Mannheim/MZES, 14–16 May 2009. The authors thank the participants for helpful comments and criticism.
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Müller, W.C., Meyer, T.M. (2011). Mutual Veto? How Coalitions Work. In: König, T., Debus, M., Tsebelis, G. (eds) Reform Processes and Policy Change. Studies in Public Choice, vol 16. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5809-9_5
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