Accountability in Coalition Governments

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6232965
AutoresJosé María Maravall (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen13
Número1
Páginas81-100
Fecha de publicación2010-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnnual Review of Political Science (BOOK_SERIES)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1094-2939 • E-ISSN: 1545-1577
EditorialAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev.polisci.071108.101919
OpenAlexW2114109801
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas43

Most theoretical studies of coalition politics have focused on selection, rather than accountability: Coalition partners are selected according to the proximity of their positions in a Euclidean policy space. This proximity, together with institutional attributes of the party systems or the coalitions, serves also to explain the duration of the coalition. Empirical studies of retrospective voting, often with little connection to accountability theory, have generally concluded that the political survival of coalitions is considerably independent from elections. Such results, however, refer to governments as a whole. In this work, voters allocate rewards and punishments for past outcomes focusing on the prime ministers and their parties. If differences in clarity of responsibility exist, they do not seem to produce greater economic accountability of single-party governments—it is similarly limited under both coalition and single-party governments. Coalitions, however, increase the risks of losing office due to political crises, rather than elections. Prime ministers can respond to challenges by reshuffling the government or the coalition. Because such crises are launched under economic conditions that improve the welfare of citizens, coalitions may undermine democratic accountability

Accountability · CLARITY · Coalition government · Democracy · Economics · Government (linguistics · Multi-party system · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Law · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies