Pre-electoral coalitions, familiarity, and delays in government formation
Bäck, Hanna LU
; Hellström, Johan
; Lindvall, Johannes
and Teorell, Jan
(2024)
In West European Politics
47(1).
p.88-112
- Abstract
- During the past decade, many parliamentary democracies have experienced bargaining delays when forming governments. The previous literature has attributed protracted government formation processes to a high degree of preference uncertainty among the political parties and a high level of bargaining complexity. The article draws on such theories, but also adds a third theoretical mechanism, commitment problems, and highlights two explanatory variables that have not received much attention so far. The first is pre-electoral coalitions, which are declarations by parties stating that they intend to collaborate with each other after the election. The second is familiarity, which is the mutual trust between parties that comes from having worked... (More)
- During the past decade, many parliamentary democracies have experienced bargaining delays when forming governments. The previous literature has attributed protracted government formation processes to a high degree of preference uncertainty among the political parties and a high level of bargaining complexity. The article draws on such theories, but also adds a third theoretical mechanism, commitment problems, and highlights two explanatory variables that have not received much attention so far. The first is pre-electoral coalitions, which are declarations by parties stating that they intend to collaborate with each other after the election. The second is familiarity, which is the mutual trust between parties that comes from having worked together in the past. By combining a large-N study of government formation processes in 17 West European parliamentary democracies (1945–2019) with an in-depth case study of the prolonged Swedish government formation process in 2018–2019, it is shown that pre-electoral coalitions that fail to win a majority can sometimes delay, not speed up, government formation. In addition, a lack of familiarity may sometimes lead to a breakdown of negotiations and drawn-out government formation processes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/81368157-7908-4c29-ac8e-921076ecffed
- author
- Bäck, Hanna
LU
; Hellström, Johan
; Lindvall, Johannes
and Teorell, Jan
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- government formation, bargaining delays, parliamentary democracies, Sweden
- in
- West European Politics
- volume
- 47
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 88 - 112
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85154547210
- ISSN
- 0140-2382
- DOI
- 10.1080/01402382.2023.2200328
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 81368157-7908-4c29-ac8e-921076ecffed
- date added to LUP
- 2023-09-08 11:25:35
- date last changed
- 2025-01-27 15:14:49
@article{81368157-7908-4c29-ac8e-921076ecffed,
abstract = {{During the past decade, many parliamentary democracies have experienced bargaining delays when forming governments. The previous literature has attributed protracted government formation processes to a high degree of preference uncertainty among the political parties and a high level of bargaining complexity. The article draws on such theories, but also adds a third theoretical mechanism, commitment problems, and highlights two explanatory variables that have not received much attention so far. The first is pre-electoral coalitions, which are declarations by parties stating that they intend to collaborate with each other after the election. The second is familiarity, which is the mutual trust between parties that comes from having worked together in the past. By combining a large-N study of government formation processes in 17 West European parliamentary democracies (1945–2019) with an in-depth case study of the prolonged Swedish government formation process in 2018–2019, it is shown that pre-electoral coalitions that fail to win a majority can sometimes delay, not speed up, government formation. In addition, a lack of familiarity may sometimes lead to a breakdown of negotiations and drawn-out government formation processes.}},
author = {{Bäck, Hanna and Hellström, Johan and Lindvall, Johannes and Teorell, Jan}},
issn = {{0140-2382}},
keywords = {{government formation; bargaining delays; parliamentary democracies; Sweden}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{88--112}},
publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}},
series = {{West European Politics}},
title = {{Pre-electoral coalitions, familiarity, and delays in government formation}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2200328}},
doi = {{10.1080/01402382.2023.2200328}},
volume = {{47}},
year = {{2024}},
}