Institutions and cabinet formation: A veto players analysis

This study analyzes the impact of political institutions on cabinet formation. Institutional rules may either provide significant leeway or may seriously constrain political parties in forming sustainable (coalition) cabinets that are close to their ideal points. Differences in institutional design can significantly alter the cabinet formation process in parliamentary democracies. Theoretically, we expect that a high number of institutional veto points should significantly constrain policy making. Hence, parties that form coalitions are significantly more likely to form inclusive cabinets such as surplus majority coalitions under restrictive rules. Political parties in parliamentary democracy with fewer institutional constrains on policy making are more likely to form more narrow cabinets to gain more flexibility in the policy process. We draw on veto player models to explain these strategic choices in coalition formation. Our empirical understanding of the nexus between institutions and coalition building is still limited to a particular set of institutional rules (esp. presidential power, bicameralism, investiture rules) and is mainly based on West European democracies only. In the study, we look at thirty advanced democracies over the entire post-war era to analyze the impact of institutional rules on cabinet formation. To test our argument, we draw on more fine grained measures of institutional constrains on coalition building. The results of the statistical analysis confirm the impact of institutional rules on cabinet formation for the overall sample as well as for a subsample of Western European democracies. However, for new democracies from Central-/Eastern Europe, the results are less clear cut. By looking at three cases from the region, Slovenia (2004), Poland (2005), and the Czech Republic (2006), we are able to demonstrate that institutional rules have an impact on cabinet formation in this region as well.