Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe provides a comprehensive analysis of coalition politics in Western Europe over the post-war period. It champions a dynamic approach in which the various stages in the life of coalitions influence each other. After a review of the literature a theory chapter addresses the roles of bargaining and transaction costs in coalition governance. Eight comparative chapters address the topics of government formation (government type, formation duration), coalition agreements, portfolio allocation, conflict management, cabinet termination and duration, and the electoral consequences of coalition government. The book is based on the most comprehensive data set ever employed in coalition studies that includes both coalitional and single-party countries and governments. Each chapter first provides a comparative overview of the phenomenon under study and then moves on to state-of-the art statistical analysis. Conceptually and in the statistical analysis the study argues for an integrated approach stressing the relevance of countries, time, 'structural attributes', actors' preferences, institutions, the coalition's bargaining environment, and 'critical events'. Indeed, sufficient explanations of most phenomena under study require independent variables from several of these categories.
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Kaare W Strøm is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.
Wolfgang C Müller is Professor of Democratic Governance at the University of Vienna (Austria). Previous appointments included Chair and Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim. He is currently Speaker and Principal Investigator of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES). Since 2013 he has been co-editor of West European Politics. His research interests include government coalitions, political parties and political institutions.
Torbjörn Bergman is Professor of Political Science at Umeå University, Sweden. His books on representative democracy, government formation, and political parties include Political Parties in Multi-Level Polities: The Nordic Countries Compared (with N. Aylott and M. Blomgren, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), The Madisonian Turn - Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracy in Nordic Europe (with K. Strøm, University of Michigan Press, 2011), Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe (with K. Strøm and W.C. Müller, Oxford University Press, 2008) and Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (with K. Strøm and W.C. Müller, Oxford University Press, 2003). He has also published in journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Party Politics, Government & Opposition, and Scandinavian Political Studies.
Rudy B. Andeweg is a professor of Political Science at Leiden University and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research interests include political legitimacy and representation.
Erik Damgaard is Professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Lieven De Winter is a senior professor at the UCLouvain. His research focuses on the (comparative) analysis of government formation, legislatures, elections and political parties and political regionalism, mainly in Western Europe.
Patrick Dumont is a researcher at the University of Luxembourg. He is co-founder of the ‘Selection and Deselection of Political Elites’ (SEDEPE) network and co-editor of Routledge's ‘Research in Social and Political Elites’ book series. He has published on coalition theory, political elites, parties and party systems, and Europeanisation processes. He is a member of the Luxembourg National (and European) Election Study.
Elisabeth R Gerber is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA.
Scott L Kastner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, USA.
Arthur Lupia is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA.
Paul Mitchell is Lecturer in Political Science at LSE, Great Britain.
Hanne Marthe Narud (1958-2012) was professor of political science at the University of Oslo. Her main research focus was on coalition behaviour, political recruiting, and voting behaviour. She published articles in Comparative Sociology, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, West European Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, Party Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Journal of Theoretical Politics and Acta Politica, in addition to numerous contributions to books in Norwegian and English. She also wrote a book with Henry Valen on political representation in a multiparty system. She was frequently called upon to commentate on Norwegian politics in the news media.
Benjamin Nyblade is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Thomas Saalfeld is Reader in Political Science at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Great Britain.
Arco Timmermans is Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Luca Verzichelli is Professor of Political Science at the Centre for the Study of Political Change (CIRCaP, University of Siena). His academic interests cover the field of comparative political institutions, political elite and budgetary politics.
