Coalition Statements and the Distribution of Power in German Government Coalitions: 1990–2009

In this article, we analyse the influence of coalition statements on the bargaining strength of the parties after the elections. More specifically, we calculate the distribution of power in German government coalitions during the period of 1990 through 2009, based on the parties’ coalition statements that were made in advance of these elections and the seat distribution in the parliament after the election. We account for seven coalition statements scenarios. To calculate the voting power of the parties within the government coalitions, we apply the ? power index (Casajus 2009).