Minority Governments in Denmark. Policy Reforms through Coordination with Parliament and within Cabinet

Minority governments are more common in Denmark than in any other parliamentary democracy. Internationally, the literature associates minority governments with short time in office and inefficient governance. Yet, this is not the case in Denmark. Here, many governments serve full terms, and they have passed a huge number of reforms. In this paper we consider how Danish minority governments manage to cope so well, and whether polarization and populism may challenge the solutions to this apparent paradox. We find that, legislative bargaining and agreements (politiske forlig) between government and oppositions parties are highly institutionalized, giving opposition parties policy influence and procedural privileges almost as a cabinet parties but only on the items they have an agreement about. Hereby, the government maintains flexibility. In addition, Danish governments have increased their hierarchical coordination, both in form of policy through coalition agreements, and internally in the form of inner cabinet and a strengthened office of the Prime Minister. We argue that these changes makes it easier for a government to negotiate as a coherent unit. Finally, we find that the parties on the ideological wings of the Danish parliaments are also included in negotiations and agreements, meaning that polarization does not seem to affect how minority government perform.