Pieces of the puzzle? Coalition formation and tangential preferences

Patrick Dumont; Albert Falcó-Gimeno; Indridi H. Indridason; Daniel Bischof

doi:10.1080/01402382.2023.2234236

Pieces of the puzzle? Coalition formation and tangential preferences

Patrick Dumont^*
, Albert Falcó-Gimeno
, Indridi H. Indridason
, Daniel Bischof

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Political Science

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The similarity of parties’ policy preferences has long been considered an important determinant of whether they form a government coalition. That similarity has typically been assessed based on parties’ respective locations in a policy space. The degree to which parties care about different issues may, however, also vary. Parties that care about different issues may actually be the most compatible partners, as their tangential preferences would allow them to engage in policy logrolling and enable them to preserve their distinctiveness in the eyes of voters. This analysis tests arguments regarding the role of tangentiality and its interaction with policy proximity on the party composition of governments formed in Western Europe from 1945 to 2019. The findings show that parties that emphasise the same issues are more natural coalition partners provided the ideological differences between the parties are sufficiently similar.

Original language	English
Journal	West European Politics
Volume	47
Issue	1
Pages (from-to)	61-87
Number of pages	27
ISSN	0140-2382
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2234236
Publication status	Published - 2024

Keywords

Coalition formation
coalition government
parliamentary democracies
preference compatibility
Western Europe

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title = "Pieces of the puzzle? Coalition formation and tangential preferences",

abstract = "The similarity of parties{\textquoteright} policy preferences has long been considered an important determinant of whether they form a government coalition. That similarity has typically been assessed based on parties{\textquoteright} respective locations in a policy space. The degree to which parties care about different issues may, however, also vary. Parties that care about different issues may actually be the most compatible partners, as their tangential preferences would allow them to engage in policy logrolling and enable them to preserve their distinctiveness in the eyes of voters. This analysis tests arguments regarding the role of tangentiality and its interaction with policy proximity on the party composition of governments formed in Western Europe from 1945 to 2019. The findings show that parties that emphasise the same issues are more natural coalition partners provided the ideological differences between the parties are sufficiently similar.",

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AB - The similarity of parties’ policy preferences has long been considered an important determinant of whether they form a government coalition. That similarity has typically been assessed based on parties’ respective locations in a policy space. The degree to which parties care about different issues may, however, also vary. Parties that care about different issues may actually be the most compatible partners, as their tangential preferences would allow them to engage in policy logrolling and enable them to preserve their distinctiveness in the eyes of voters. This analysis tests arguments regarding the role of tangentiality and its interaction with policy proximity on the party composition of governments formed in Western Europe from 1945 to 2019. The findings show that parties that emphasise the same issues are more natural coalition partners provided the ideological differences between the parties are sufficiently similar.

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KW - preference compatibility

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Pieces of the puzzle? Coalition formation and tangential preferences

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Keywords

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