{"title":"Hitting the Sweet Spot? The Electoral Consequences of Supporting Minority Governments","authors":"Maria Thürk, H. Klüver","doi":"10.1177/00104140241271210","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Does supporting a minority cabinet harm a party’s electoral prospects? While minority governments have become more common in recent years, the electoral implications for parties supporting such cabinets remain unclear. Previous research suggests that support parties enjoy a favorable position, exerting policy influence while avoiding electoral losses associated with joining the government. However, we argue that this is only true for support parties without written agreements, as their support is less visible to voters. To test our argument, we compiled a novel dataset on the electoral performance of 563 parties in 304 elections across 31 countries since 1980. We estimate the effect of being a support party on subsequent electoral performance. Our findings indicate that parties which declare support perform better electorally than junior partners, while contract support parties do not. These insights shed light on the relationship between minority governments and electoral competition amidst growing party system fragmentation.","PeriodicalId":10600,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Political Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Comparative Political Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140241271210","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Does supporting a minority cabinet harm a party’s electoral prospects? While minority governments have become more common in recent years, the electoral implications for parties supporting such cabinets remain unclear. Previous research suggests that support parties enjoy a favorable position, exerting policy influence while avoiding electoral losses associated with joining the government. However, we argue that this is only true for support parties without written agreements, as their support is less visible to voters. To test our argument, we compiled a novel dataset on the electoral performance of 563 parties in 304 elections across 31 countries since 1980. We estimate the effect of being a support party on subsequent electoral performance. Our findings indicate that parties which declare support perform better electorally than junior partners, while contract support parties do not. These insights shed light on the relationship between minority governments and electoral competition amidst growing party system fragmentation.
期刊介绍:
Comparative Political Studies is a journal of social and political science which publishes scholarly work on comparative politics at both the cross-national and intra-national levels. We are particularly interested in articles which have an innovative theoretical argument and are based on sound and original empirical research. We also encourage submissions about comparative methodology, particularly when methodological arguments are closely linked with substantive issues in the field.