Prelegislative bargaining under minority governments

Even though formal minority cabinets have become more frequent, we know very little about the policy making process under minority governments. In order to pass legislation effectively, minority cabinets have to be supported by non-cabinet parties which in exchange obtain policy pay-offs for their legislative support. I argue that minority cabinet parties have to make fewer policy concessions to non-cabinet parties if they occupy the median position in parliament and if they have strong agenda setting powers. In contrast, I expect minority cabinets to make more concessions if there is a formal legislative agreement with non-cabinet parties. The empirical analysis is based on a new dataset on legislative decision making under seven minority governments in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden between 2010 and 2018. It contains information on the bargaining success of approx. 700 political party positions on 68 legislative policy proposals. Following the strategy of the DEU-Project, the information on the parties’ ideological positions was gathered in 25 semi-structured expert and elite interviews. My findings have important implications for the understanding of minority governance and contribute to the fields of policy making, legislative politics, and party competition.