17:45 - 20:00
Thursday-Panel
Chair/s:
Raimondas Ibenskas
Discussant/s:
Raimondas Ibenskas
Meeting Room K

Liran Harsgor, Reut Itzkovitch-Malka, Or Tuttnauer
Vote switching and Coalition-Directed Voting: A Panel Study of Repeat Elections in Israel

Thomas König, Xiao Lu, Thiago Nascimento da Silva, Nikoleta Yordanova, Galina Zudenkova
Cooperation and Competition: Coalition Governance and Timing of Bill Initiation

David Fortunato, Randolph Stevenson
How Voters Predict Coalition Bargaining Outcomes

Anthea Alberto
Don’t Promise What You Won’t Deliver: Policy-Making in Coalition Governments
Don’t Promise What You Won’t Deliver: Policy-Making in Coalition Governments
Heike Klüver, Anthea Alberto, Fabio Ellger
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Why do coalition parties break policy commitments? Before coalition governments take over executive offices, they typically engage in intensive coalition negotiations and publish a comprehensive coalition agreement in which they provide a detailed account of the policy reforms they plan to enact in government. However, previous case study evidence shows that only about two thirds of all the policy reforms promised in coalition agreements were actually enacted. Despite its importance, the question of how coalition governments translate policy promises into policy has received little academic attention to date. In order to address this gap, we develop a new theoretical argument on policy implementation in coalitions. More specifically, we argue that the decision not to enact policy pledges can be explained by the preference configuration within the cabinet and by changes in public opinion. To test our argument, we have compiled a new comparative dataset on the enactment of more than 12’000 policy pledges by 102 coalition governments in 24 Western and Eastern European countries from 2000 to 2015. Our results have major implications for our understanding of coalition governance, multiparty competition and policy making in multiparty democracies.