Assembly Dissolution Powers and Government Formation

Parties which can precipitate or threaten parliamentary dissolution have the opportunity to use this power for partisan advantage (Lupia & Strom 1995). In the context of negotiations about government terminations and the formation of a new government, they can be expected to employ this prerogative (i) to trigger early elections when circumstances are favourable, or (ii) to exploit favourable public opinion polls in order to secure replacements that will give them greater weight in a new government. We argue that both mechanisms ensure that parties with control of parliamentary dissolution have a greater chance of succeeding in government formation negotiations following a termination. We test this expectation using data on 256 government formation opportunities and 65,320 potential coalitions. Our findings suggest that a party’s ability to precipitate parliamentary dissolution significantly raises the probability of its inclusion in the next government.