11:20 - 13:00
P7
Room:
Room: Club C
Panel Session 7
Svenja Krauss, Constantin Wurthmann - Baby, when the lights go on - Coalition preferences before the 2021 German federal election
Ida Hjermitslev - Pragmatism versus Purity Trade-offs in Multiparty Systems
Theres Matthieß, Christian Stecker - When do citizens (not) prefer minority governments
Jan Berz - Prime Ministerial Power and Voters' Responsibility Attribution in Coalition Governments
Prime Ministerial Power and Voters' Responsibility Attribution in Coalition Governments
P7-4
Presented by: Jan Berz
Jan Berz
Trinity College Dublin
How do voters' assign responsibility for government outcomes in coalition governments? The ability of voters to assign responsibility for outcomes is of high relevance for the democratic function of parliamentary elections but remains poorly understood. According to existing observational studies voters rely heavily on a party's control over the office of prime minister, as an informational shortcut to identify the agenda-setter within a coalition government, and assign responsibility. Yet, there exists little theory and evidence on the effect of institutional prime ministerial powers and their usage on the role of prime ministers as informational shortcut for voters. This manuscript lays out a research design to causally identify responsibility assignment among coalition parties under different prime ministerial power contexts. It employs a vignette experiment in varying contexts of prime ministerial powers and makes use of a scheduled transition of the office of prime minister between coalition parties as a natural experiment. The results of this study have important implications for our understanding of how prime ministerial behaviour and powers can affect electoral accountability in coalition governments.