Coalition voting and minority governments in Canada

Abstract

Inter-party voting coalitions in three minority cabinets were analysed: the 38th (2004-05), 39th (2006 -08) and 40th (2008-11) Federal Canadian Parliaments. The paper begins by developing a simple theory to explain the formation of voting coalitions. The theory predicts that electoral incentives and policy issues drive minority government support. The main contention is that voting coalitions are more likely to form along ideological lines, as proposed by Axelrod [(1970) The Conflict of Interest (Chicago: Markham)]. However, the analysis also demonstrates that voting coalitions form along a second dimension in the Canadian Parliament, mainly on issues related to federalism and the province of Quebec. Some evidence is also provided to show that expected electoral gains could explain why certain parties choose to support the government more, despite ideological incentives.

The Frequency of Use of Legislative and Non-Legislative Tools in Five Countries

“…Even though the legislative process is constrained in all five countries, legislators from Israel and the US manage to overcome them. It is important to note that, as previous studies found, the party plays an important role in the legislative process in the UK, Canada and Australia (e.g., Bowler 2010;Döring 2017;Godbout and Høyland 2011). The findings strengthen this point by comparing five different countries with regard to the role that party the plays in them.…”

“…Other research has dealt with them as part of the analysis of speeches in general (Proksch and Slapin 2015), or in specific settings such as studies about motions in the Canadian parliament (Godbout and Høyland 2011;Godbout and Smaz 2016). For example, Godbout and Høyland (2011) analyzed private member motions, but included general motions and bills introduced by private members. They found a significant increase in the number of motions from the 38 th parliament to the 39 th parliament (from 39 to 111, respectively).…”

Do governments keep their promises? An analysis of speeches from the throne

“…On the contrary, minority configurations can work quite effectively to the point of being “majority governments in disguise” (Strøm, 1990, pp. 108–9), 6 especially when the governing party negotiates with the opposition parties in advance of a throne speech to support its agenda (Godbout & Høyland, 2011; Thomson et al, 2017, p. 537). Even in those cases, however, there is the possibility that opposition parties will vote against promises made in the speech, including those that they negotiated, if they sense that the implementing legislation does not reflect what they wanted, or if they sense a change in public mood that could encourage them to trigger a general election in hopes of boosting their standing in the legislature (Moury, 2013).…”

Explaining accountability for public policies: an fsQCA analysis of health policy in Spain

“…Scholars have emphasized that minority governments carry out their programs through parliamentary agreements and/or coalitions with other parties (Strøm, 1990). ‘[A minority] cabinet is most likely to use policy concessions as a bargaining chip to build coalitions around specific legislation’ (Godbout and Høyland, 2009: 8). Thus, one might expect that in minority governments opposition and/or coalition parties would push for accountability mechanisms to control the government.…”