The cost of coalition compromise: the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios

Zachary Greene, Nathan Henceroth, Christian B Jensen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)
54 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article highlights the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios within a coalition government. For voters, holding ministries can be seen as a symbol of a party’s success within the coalition. As a voting heuristic, parties not controlling the portfolios on issues important to their platforms signal their failure to achieve these goals. Following this perspective, we hypothesize that the difference between coalition parties that hold salient portfolios and those that do not partially predicts the extent of the electoral cost of coalition participation. Using a dataset that covers 11 European parliamentary democracies between 1966 and 2002, we show that for junior coalition partners there is an electoral reward for holding their most salient portfolio. There is also an electoral benefit for a junior partner to hold a larger number of portfolios if they do not control their most salient portfolio. Conversely, holding their most salient portfolio and a larger number of additional ministries results in greater electoral losses in the subsequent parliamentary election. These results indicate that parties’ success at negotiating for their policy priorities in coalition governments holds consequences for their future electoral success.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)827-838
Number of pages12
JournalParty Politics
Volume27
Issue number4
Early online date14 Feb 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2021

Keywords

  • coalition governance
  • issue salience
  • elections
  • policy responsiveness
  • policy accountability
  • portfolio allocation

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