Information Processing in Coalition Governance: How Political Parties Reset the Policy Agenda When in Office Together

In systems where no single party obtains a parliamentary majority, coalitions are formed to establish some form of viable government. Typically, when engaging in coalition building, parties try to establish a common policy agenda. But the diversity in ideological or other kinds of filters when processing information make political togetherness a notoriously difficult task. For this reason, agenda setting by governments always is a mix of policy planning and reaction to problems not foreseen or neglected at earlier stage. Modern governments are equipped with policy making apparatus. But the successful policy performance on previously agreed decisions is possible only when matters do not require full coalition government attention. When issues rise, governments need to shift from parallel to serial attention, addressing issues one by one. Te implication of this shift is that hard choices must be made. How do coalition governments deal with issues on which participant parties may differ when valuing new information? How are policy themes prioritized over the successive years of a governmental life cycle? This paper presents a theoretical argument about how serial processing of information by partners in office involves some issues to be sacrificed and others to be elevated. Recent work shows that shifts occur and often cut across electoral cycles (Jennings et al 2011; Mortensen et al 2011; Timmermans and Breeman 2015). This paper places emphasis on the policy themes involved in attention reshuffles, such as economic recovery, social reform, energy, climate policy and immigration. It seeks to account for the way in which governments sequence priorities on which the partners may have different evaluations of information.