Coalition government
A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election. A party not having majority is common under proportional representation, but not in nations with majoritarian electoral systems.
There are different forms of coalition governments, minority coalitions and surplus majority coalition governments. A surplus majority coalition government controls more than the absolute majority of seats in parliament necessary to have a majority in the government, whereas minority coalition governments do not hold the majority of legislative seats.
A coalition government may also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy or collective identity, it can also play a role in diminishing internal political strife. In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions.
If a coalition collapses, the prime minister and cabinet may be ousted by a vote of no confidence, call snap elections, form a new majority coalition, or continue as a minority government.
Formation of coalition governments
For a coalition to come about the coalition partners need to compromise on their policy expectations. One coalition or probing partner must lose for the other one to win, to achieve a Nash equilibrium, which is necessary for a coalition to form. If the parties are not willing to compromise, the coalition will not come about.Before parties form a coalition government, they formulate a coalition agreement, in which they state what policies they try to adapt in the legislative period.
Coalition agreement
In multi-party states, a coalition agreement is an agreement negotiated between the parties that form a coalition government. It codifies the most important shared goals and objectives of the cabinet. It is often written by the leaders of the parliamentary groups. Coalitions that have a written agreement are more productive than those that do not.If an issue is discussed more deeply and in more detail in chamber than what appears in the coalition agreement, it indicates that the coalition parties do not share the same policy ideas. Hence, a more detailed written formulation of the issue helps parties in the coalition to limit 'agency loss' when the ministry overseeing that issue is managed by another coalition party.
Electoral accountability
Coalition governments can also impact voting behavior by diminishing the clarity of responsibility.Electoral accountability is harder to achieve in coalition governments than in single party governments because there is no direct responsibility within the governing parties in the coalition.
Retrospective voting has a huge influence on the outcome of an election. However, the risk of retrospective voting is a lot weaker with coalition governments than in single party governments. Within the coalition, the party with the head of state has the biggest risk of retrospective voting.
Governing cost
Governing parties lose votes in the election after their legislative period, this is called “the governing cost”. In comparison, a single- party government has a higher electoral cost, than a party that holds the office of the prime minister. Furthermore, the party that holds the office of prime minister suffer less electoral costs, then a junior coalition partner, when looking only on the electoral cost created by being in the coalition government.Distribution
Countries which often operate with coalition cabinets include: the Nordic countries, the Benelux countries, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, East Timor, France, Germany, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, and Ukraine. Switzerland has been ruled by a consensus government with a coalition of the four strongest parties in parliament since 1959, called the "Magic Formula". Between 2010 and 2015, the United Kingdom also operated a formal coalition between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties, but this was unusual: the UK usually has a single-party majority government. Not every parliament forms a coalition government, for example the European Parliament.Armenia
became an independent state in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, many political parties were formed in it, who mainly work with each other to form coalition governments. The country was governed by the My Step Alliance coalition after successfully gaining a majority in the National Assembly of Armenia following the 2018 Armenian parliamentary election.Australia
In federal Australian politics, the conservative Liberal, National, Country Liberal and Liberal National parties are united in a coalition, known simply as the Coalition.While nominally two parties, the Coalition has become so stable, at least at the federal level, that in practice the lower house of Parliament has become a two-party system, with the Coalition and the Labor Party being the major parties. This coalition is also found in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. In South Australia and Western Australia the Liberal and National parties compete separately, while in the Northern Territory and Queensland the two parties have merged, forming the Country Liberal Party, in 1978, and the Liberal National Party, in 2008, respectively.
Coalition governments involving the Labor Party and the Australian Greens have occurred at state and territory level, for example following the 2010 Tasmanian state election and the 2016 and 2020 Australian Capital Territory elections.
Belgium
In Belgium, a nation internally divided along linguistic lines, each main political disposition is, with the exception of the far-left Workers' Party of Belgium, split between Francophone and Dutch-speaking parties. In the 2019 federal election, no party got more than 17% of the vote. Thus, forming a coalition government is an expected and necessary part of Belgian politics. In Belgium, coalition governments containing ministers from six or more parties are not uncommon; consequently, government formation can take an exceptionally long time. Between 2007 and 2011, Belgium operated under a caretaker government as no coalition could be formed.Canada
In Canada, the Great Coalition was formed in 1864 by the Clear Grits, Parti bleu, and Liberal-Conservative Party. During the First World War, Prime Minister Robert Borden attempted to form a coalition with the opposition Liberals to broaden support for controversial conscription legislation. The Liberal Party refused the offer but some of their members did cross the floor and join the government. Although sometimes referred to as a coalition government, according to the definition above, it was not. It was disbanded after the end of the war.During the 2008–09 Canadian parliamentary dispute, two of Canada's opposition parties signed an agreement to form what would become the country's second federal coalition government since Canadian Confederation if the minority Conservative government was defeated on a vote of non-confidence, unseating Stephen Harper as prime minister. The agreement outlined a formal coalition consisting of two opposition parties, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party. The Bloc Québécois agreed to support the proposed coalition on confidence matters for 18 months. In the end, parliament was prorogued by the Governor General, and the coalition dispersed before parliament was reconvened.
According to historian Christopher Moore, coalition governments in Canada became much less possible in 1919, when the leaders of parties were no longer chosen by elected MPs but instead began to be chosen by party members. Such a manner of leadership election had never been tried in any parliamentary system before. According to Moore, as long as that kind of leadership selection process remains in place and concentrates power in the hands of the leader, as opposed to backbenchers, then coalition governments will be very difficult to form. Moore shows that the diffusion of power within a party tends to also lead to a diffusion of power in the parliament in which that party operates, thereby making coalitions more likely.
Provincial
Several coalition governments have been formed within provincial politics. As a result of the 1919 Ontario election, the United Farmers of Ontario and the Labour Party, together with three independent MLAs, formed a coalition that governed Ontario until 1923.In British Columbia, the governing Liberals formed a coalition with the opposition Conservatives in order to prevent the surging, left-wing Cooperative Commonwealth Federation from taking power in the 1941 British Columbia general election. Liberal premier Duff Pattullo refused to form a coalition with the third-place Conservatives, so his party removed him. The Liberal–Conservative coalition introduced a winner-take-all preferential voting system in the hopes that their supporters would rank the other party as their second preference; however, this strategy backfired in the subsequent 1952 British Columbia general election where, to the surprise of many, the right-wing populist BC Social Credit Party won a minority. They were able to win a majority in the subsequent election as Liberal and Conservative supporters shifted their anti-CCF vote to Social Credit.
Manitoba has had more formal coalition governments than any other province. Following gains by the United Farmer's/Progressive movement elsewhere in the country, the United Farmers of Manitoba unexpectedly won the 1921 election. Like their counterparts in Ontario, they had not expected to win and did not have a leader. They asked John Bracken, a professor in animal husbandry, to become leader and premier. Bracken changed the party's name to the Progressive Party of Manitoba. During the Great Depression, Bracken survived at a time when other premiers were being defeated by forming a coalition government with the Manitoba Liberals. In 1940, Bracken formed a wartime coalition government with almost every party in the Manitoba Legislature. The only party not included was the small, communist Labor-Progressive Party, which had a handful of seats.
In Saskatchewan, NDP premier Roy Romanow formed a formal coalition with the Saskatchewan Liberals in 1999 after being reduced to a minority. After two years, the newly elected Liberal leader David Karwacki ordered the coalition be disbanded, the Liberal caucus disagreed with him and left the Liberals to run as New Democrats in the upcoming election. The Saskatchewan NDP was re-elected with a majority under its new leader Lorne Calvert, while the Saskatchewan Liberals lost their remaining seats and have not been competitive in the province since.