Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining

The Democractic Life Cycle in Western Europe
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-958749-0
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 464 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 693 g

Reihe: Comparative Politics

Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe provides a comprehensive analysis of coalition politics in Western Europe over the post-1945 period. It champions a dynamic approach using bargaining and transaction cost theory to understand the 'life cycle' of parliamentary politics. After a review of the literature the theory chapter addresses the roles of bargaining and transaction costs in coalition governance. Eight comparative chapters address the topics of government formation, cabinet membership, coalition agreements, portfolio allocation, conflict management, cabinet termination and duration, and the electoral consequences of coalition politics. The book is based on the most comprehensive data set ever employed in coalition studies, which includes both coalitional and single-party countries and governments. Each chapter provides a comparative overview of its topic and state-of-the art statistical analysis. Conceptually and empirically the study argues for an integrated approach to coalition politics, stressing six clusters of explanatory factors: country-specific and temporal circumstances, 'structural attributes', actors' preferences, institutions, the bargaining environment, and 'critical events'. While the importance of different causal factors varies between the various phases of the parliamentary life cycle, no facet of coalition politics can be understood without reference to several of these factors.

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Strom, Kaare

Muller, Wolfgang C.

Bergman, Torbjorn

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Politische Führung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Politische Parteien

Über Autor(innen)

Kaare Stromn 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. Müller 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'Études 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 Strøm, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Coalition Governments in Western Europe (co-ed. with Kaare Strøm, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (co-ed. with Kaare Strøm and Torbjörn Bergman, Oxford University Press, 2003).

Torbjörn 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 Strøm and Wolfgang C. Müller, Oxford University Press, 2003), and Democratic Institutions in Decline? (co-edited with Kaare Strøm, 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.