Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining The Democractic Life Cycle in Western Europe

Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe provides a comprehensive analysis of coalition politics in Western Europe over the post-war period. It champions a dynamic approach in which the various stages in the life of coalitions influence each other. After a review of the literature a theory chapter addresses the roles of bargaining and transaction costs in coalition governance. Eight comparative chapters address the topics of government formation (government type, formation duration), coalition agreements, portfolio allocation, conflict management, cabinet termination and duration, and the electoral consequences of coalition government. The book is based on the most comprehensive data set ever employed in coalition studies that includes both coalitional and single-party countries and governments. Each chapter first provides a comparative overview of the phenomenon under study and then moves on to state-of-the art statistical analysis. Conceptually and in the statistical analysis the study argues for an integrated approach stressing the relevance of countries, time, 'structural attributes', actors' preferences, institutions, the coalition's bargaining environment, and 'critical events'. Indeed, sufficient explanations of most phenomena under study require independent variables from several of these categories. Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary issues in comparative government and politics. The General Editors are David M. Farrell, Jean Monnet Chair in European Politics and Head of School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester and Alfio Mastropaolo, University of Turin. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research.

Kaare Strom is a Professor in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Minority Government and Majority Rule; co-editor of Challenges to Political Parties, Policy, Office or Votes?, Coalition Governments in Western Europe, Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies, and the textbook Comparative Politics Today: A World View. He has published numerous articles in such scholarly journals as the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the European Journal of Political Research. He has received the American Political Science Association's Franklin Burdette Pi Sigma Alpha Award for best conference paper (1983), the Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in Comparative Politics (1984), and UNESCO's Sixth Stein Rokkan Prize in Comparative Social Science Research (1994). Wolfgang C. Muller is a Professor in Comparative Government at the University of Mannheim and former Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES). Previously he taught at the Universities of Vienna, Humboldt University Berlin, University of California, San Diego, Institute d'Etudes Politiques de Lille and was Academic Visitor, Nuffield College, Research Fellow University of Bergen, and Joseph A. Schumpeter Fellow at Harvard University. His book publications include Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (co-ed. with Kaare Strom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Coalition Governments in Western Europe (co-ed. with Kaare Strom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (co-ed. with Kaare Strom and Torbjorn Bergman, Oxford University Press, 2003). Torbjorn Bergman is a Professor in Political Science at the University of Umea. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Californa, San Diego and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His book publications include Delegation and Accountability in European Integration: The Nordic Parliamentary Democracies and the European Union (co-edited with Erik Damgaard, London: Frank Cass, 2000), Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (co-ed. with Kaare Strom and Wolfgang C. Muller, Oxford University Press, 2003), and Democratic Institutions in Decline? (co-edited with Kaare Strom, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2008). His articles have appeared in journals such as European Journal of Political Research, Journal of European Public Policy, Government and Opposition, Party Politics, and Scandinavian Political Studies.

1. Coalition Theory and Cabinet Governance: An Introduction, Wolfgang C. Müller, Torbjörn Bergman, and Kaare Strøm
2. Bargaining, Transaction Costs, and Coalition Governance, Arthur Lupia and Kaare Strøm
3. The Empirical Study of Cabinet Governance, Torbjörn Bergman, Elisabeth R. Gerber, Scott Kastner, and Benjamin Nyblade
4. Uncertainty and Complexity in Cabinet Formation, Lieven De Winter and Patrick Dumont
5. Coalition Agreements and Cabinet Governance, Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Strøm
6. Government Formation and Cabinet Type in Parliamentary Democracies, Paul Mitchell and Benjamin Nyblade
7. Portfolio Allocation, Luca Verzichelli
8. Conflict Management in Coalition Government, Rudy B. Andeweg and Arco Timmerman
9. Cabinet Termination in Western Europe, Erik Damgaard
10. Institutions, Chance and Choices: The Dynamics of Cabinet Survival in the Parliamentary Democracies of Western Europe (1945-1999), Thomas Saalfeld
11. Coalition Membership and Electoral Performance, Hanne Marthe Narud and Henry Valen
12. Conclusion: Cabinet Governance in Parliamentary Democracies, Kaare Strøm, Torbjörn Bergman, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Benjamin Nyblade