The Dynamics of Policy Implementation in Coalition Governments

Much scholarly attention has hitherto been devoted to the role of pledges in coalition formation as well as to the actual policy output that governments produce once they take office. This paper aims at combining these two strands of research, thus generating a dynamic account of the coalition policy agenda from the election campaign through the coalition formation stage to the legislative implementation of policy proposals. Using the case of Austria, we track the ‘life cycle’ of policy pledges starting from the election manifestos of government parties. We employ event history models to test the effects of, inter alia, pledge adoption in the coalition agreement, pledge saliency, policy consensus between coalition parties, the allocation of ministerial portfolios, and opposition support on the duration of the legislative process.