Bargaining Delays in the Government Formation Process

Abstract

In parliamentary democracies, the transfer of power from one government to the next is sometimes characterized by long periods of negotiations in which party leaders bargain over the composition and policy objectives of a new cabinet. Although these delays can have substantial political and economic consequences, surprisingly little is known about their determinants. Moreover, the few studies that exist reach contradictory conclusions. In this article, the author examines how factors relating to uncertainty and bargaining complexity influence the duration of the government formation process in 16 West European countries from 1944 to 1998. In line with the article’s theoretical expectations, the author finds that factors increasing uncertainty over the type of cabinet that is acceptable always lead to delays in forming governments but that factors increasing bargaining complexity, such as the number of parties and ideological polarization in the legislature, only do so when there is sufficient uncertainty among political actors. The present analysis helps to resolve the contradictory findings in the literature.

The Basic Arithmetic of Legislative Decisions

“…It is well known, however, that some government formation negotiations drag out much longer than others. If the environment evolves stochastically, and/or if party leaders exploit private information (about personal preferences or which proposals their legislators will accept) bargaining delays may arise in equilibrium (Merlo 1997;Merlo and Wilson 1995 (Golder 2010;Martin and Vanberg 2003). Their strongest conclusion is that negotiations immediately following an election tend to take much longer than those taking place between elections, following defeat or resignation of an incumbent.…”

“…Our conjecture is that, as complexity of the coalition formation environment increases, so will the "difficulty" and hence duration of government formation negotiations. Creating binary variables for legislative types, we use the Cox proportional hazards model specified by Golder (2010) to investigate whether these types predict delays in government formation. We follow Golder in using the number of legislative parties as an indicator of uncertainty, controlling for existence of a single majority party, and distinguishing post-and inter-electoral formations.…”

Uncertainty, Complexity, and Gamson’s Law: Comparing Coalition Formation in Western Europe

“…De Winter and Dumont (2008) show that information uncertainty and bargaining complexity also predicts the number of bargaining rounds. Finally, Golder (2010) shows that uncertainty about which coalitions are feasible leads to delays in government formation, but greater bargaining complexity only has that effect when the parties face sufficient uncertainty about which coalitions are feasible.…”

“…If bargaining delays are costly, as Martin and Vanberg (2003) and Golder (2010) argue, it is natural to assume that uncertainty and bargaining complexity not only influence how long it takes to form a coalition but also the outcome of the negotiation. In particular, we argue that parties will be more likely to rely on focal solutions to the bargaining problem -guided by norms or conventions of proportional allocation of ministerial portfolios -in the presence of uncertainty and/or bargaining complexity.…”

Cabinet Formation and Portfolio Distribution in European Multiparty Systems

“…13 (Laver et al 2011) 14 (Golder 2010) (p8) 15 Snyder et al, 2005;Warwick and Druckman 2006 16 Laver et al, 2011 17 (Carroll and Cox 2007a) p 301.…”