Portfolio Allocation and Policy Compromises: How and Why the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats Formed a Coalition Government

Political Quarterly

Volumn 82, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 293-304

  Debus, Marc ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ   (Germany)

Author keywords

Analysis of election manifestos; Coalition theories; Government formation; Party competition; Patterns of portfolio allocation; United kingdom general election 2010

Indexed keywords

EID: 79959280613     PISSN: 00323179     EISSN: 1467923X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-923X.2011.02191.x     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. For a recent overview, see W. C. Müller, 'Government formation', in T. Landmann and N. Robinson, eds, The SAGE Handbook of Comparative Politics, Los Angeles, CA, Sage, 2009, pp. 227-45.
2. L. W. Martin and R. T. Stevenson, 'Government formation in parliamentary democracies', American Journal of Political Science, vol. 45, no.1, 20012001, pp.33-50.
3. W. Gamson, 'A theory of coalition formation', American Sociological Review, vol. 26, no.3, 19611961, pp. 373-82.
4. P. V. Warwick and J. N. Druckman, 'Portfolio salience and the proportionality of payoffs in coalition governments', British Journal of Political Science, vol. 31, no.4, 20012001, pp.627-49.
5. I. Budge and H. Keman, Parties and Democracy: Coalition Formation and Government Functioning in Twenty States, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990.
6. M. Laver and K. Shepsle, Making and Breaking Governments, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
7. Back M. Debus and P. Dumont 'Who gets what in coalition governments? Predictors of portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies', European Journal of Political Research, vol. 50, forthcoming.
8. The five Sinn Féin MPs declined-as they always do-to take their seats in the House of Commons because they refuse to take the oath to the Queen.
9. J. Von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1944.
10. M. Laver, K. Benoit and J. Garry, 'Extracting policy positions from political texts using words as data', American Political Science Review, vol. 97, no.2, 20032003, pp.311-31. Election manifestos from serve as reference texts, while reference scores stem from an expert survey conducted by Kenneth Benoit and Michael Laver (see K. Benoit and M Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, London, Routledge, 2006).
11. The following cabinet posts are defined as 'classical' and thus more important than others: Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Defence, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Secretary of State for Health and Secretary of State for Education.
12. See I. Budge, H.-D. Klingemann, A. Volkens, J. Bara and E. Tanenbaum, eds, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments, 1945-1998, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. For the updated dataset, see A. Volkens, O. Lacewell, S. Regel, H. Schultze and A. Werner, The Manifesto Data Collection: Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR), Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung (WZB), 2010 http://manifesto-project.wzb.eu.