 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Coalition government" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Part ofa series on |
| Politics |
|---|
_(cropped).svg) |
Government branches |
 Politics portal |
Acoalition government, orcoalition cabinet, is a government bypolitical parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of theexecutive.[1] Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolutemajority after anelection. A party not having majority is common underproportional representation, but not in nations withmajoritarian electoral systems.[1]
There are different forms of coalition governments, minority coalitions and surplus majority coalition governments. A surplus majority coalition government controls more than the absolute majority of seats inparliament necessary to have a majority in the government, whereas minority coalition governments do not hold the majority of legislative seats.[2]
A coalition government may also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis (for example, during wartime or economic crisis) to give a government the high degree of perceivedpolitical legitimacy orcollective identity, it can also play a role in diminishing internal political strife. In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions (national unity governments,grand coalitions).
If a coalition collapses, theprime minister and cabinet may be ousted by avote of no confidence, callsnap elections, form a new majority coalition, or continue as aminority government.
For a coalition to come about the coalition partners need to compromise on their policy expectations. One coalition or probing partner must lose for the other one to win, to achieve aNash equilibrium, which is necessary for a coalition to form. If the parties are not willing to compromise, the coalition will not come about.[3]
Before parties form a coalition government, they formulate a coalition agreement, in which they state what policies they try to adapt in the legislative period.
Inmulti-party states, acoalition agreement is an agreement negotiated between the parties that form a coalition government. It codifies the most important shared goals and objectives of the cabinet. It is often written by theleaders of theparliamentary groups. Coalitions that have a written agreement are more productive than those that do not.[4]
If an issue is discussed more deeply and in more detail in chamber than what appears in the coalition agreement, it indicates that the coalition parties do not share the same policy ideas. Hence, a more detailed written formulation of the issue helps parties in the coalition to limit 'agency loss' when the ministry overseeing that issue is managed by another coalition party.[5]
Coalition governments can also impact voting behavior by diminishing the clarity of responsibility.
Electoral accountability is harder to achieve in coalition governments than insingle party governments because there is no direct responsibility within the governing parties in the coalition.[6]
Retrospective voting has a huge influence on the outcome of an election. However, the risk of retrospective voting is a lot weaker with coalition governments than in single party governments. Within the coalition, the party with the head of state has the biggest risk of retrospective voting.[6]
Governing parties lose votes in the election after their legislative period, this is called “the governing cost”. In comparison, a single- party government has a higher electoral cost, than a party that holds the office of the prime minister. Furthermore, the party that holds the office ofprime minister suffer less electoral costs, then a junior coalition partner, when looking only on the electoral cost created by being in the coalition government.[7]
Countries which often operate with coalition cabinets include: theNordic countries, theBenelux countries,Australia,Austria,Brazil,Chile,Cyprus,East Timor,France,Germany,Greece,Guinea-Bissau,India,Indonesia,Ireland,Israel,Italy,[8]Japan,Kenya,Kosovo,Latvia,Lebanon,Lesotho,Lithuania,Malaysia,Nepal,New Zealand,Pakistan,Thailand,Spain,Trinidad and Tobago,Turkey, andUkraine.Switzerland has been ruled by aconsensus government with a coalition of the four strongest parties in parliament since 1959, called the "Magic Formula". Between 2010 and 2015, theUnited Kingdom also operated a formal coalition between theConservative and theLiberal Democrat parties, but this was unusual: the UK usually has a single-party majority government. Not every parliament forms a coalition government, for example theEuropean Parliament.[9]
Armenia became an independent state in 1991, following the collapse of theSoviet Union. Since then, manypolitical parties were formed in it, who mainly work with each other to form coalition governments. The country was governed by theMy Step Alliance coalition after successfully gaining a majority in theNational Assembly of Armenia following the2018 Armenian parliamentary election.[10]
In federalAustralian politics, the conservativeLiberal,National,Country Liberal andLiberal National parties are united in a coalition, known simply asthe Coalition.
While nominally two parties, the Coalition has become so stable, at least at the federal level, that in practice the lower house of Parliament has become atwo-party system, with the Coalition and theLabor Party being the major parties. This coalition is also found in the states ofNew South Wales andVictoria. InSouth Australia andWestern Australia the Liberal and National parties compete separately, while in theNorthern Territory andQueensland the two parties have merged, forming the Country Liberal Party, in 1978, and the Liberal National Party, in 2008, respectively.
Coalition governments involving theLabor Party and theAustralian Greens have occurred atstate and territory level, for example following the2010 Tasmanian state election and the2016 and2020Australian Capital Territory elections.
InBelgium, a nation internally divided along linguistic lines (primarily betweenDutch-speakingFlanders in the north and French-speakingWallonia in the south, withBrussels also being by and large Francophone), each main political disposition (Social democracy,liberalism,right-wing populism, etc.) is, with the exception of the far-leftWorkers' Party of Belgium, split between Francophone and Dutch-speaking parties (e.g. the Dutch-speakingVooruit and French-speakingSocialist Party being the two social-democratic parties). In the2019 federal election, no party got more than 17% of the vote. Thus, forming a coalition government is an expected and necessary part of Belgian politics. In Belgium, coalition governments containing ministers from six or more parties are not uncommon; consequently,government formation can take an exceptionally long time. Between2007 and 2011, Belgium operated under acaretaker government as no coalition could be formed.
InCanada, theGreat Coalition was formed in 1864 by theClear Grits,Parti bleu, andLiberal-Conservative Party. During theFirst World War, Prime MinisterRobert Borden attempted to form a coalition with the opposition Liberals to broaden support for controversial conscription legislation. The Liberal Party refused the offer but some of their members didcross the floor and join the government. Although sometimes referred to as a coalition government, according to the definition above, it was not. It was disbanded after the end of the war.[11]
During the2008–09 Canadian parliamentary dispute, two of Canada's opposition parties signed an agreement to form what would become the country's second federal coalition government sinceCanadian Confederation if the minority Conservative government was defeated on a vote of non-confidence,[12] unseatingStephen Harper as Prime Minister. The agreement outlined a formal coalition consisting of two opposition parties, theLiberal Party and theNew Democratic Party. TheBloc Québécois agreed to support the proposed coalition on confidence matters for 18 months. In the end, parliament wasprorogued by theGovernor General, and the coalition dispersed before parliament was reconvened.
According to historianChristopher Moore, coalition governments in Canada became much less possible in 1919, when the leaders of parties were no longer chosen by elected MPs but instead began to be chosen by party members. Such a manner of leadership election had never been tried in any parliamentary system before. According to Moore, as long as that kind of leadership selection process remains in place and concentrates power in the hands of the leader, as opposed to backbenchers, then coalition governments will be very difficult to form. Moore shows that the diffusion of power within a party tends to also lead to a diffusion of power in the parliament in which that party operates, thereby making coalitions more likely.[13]
Several coalition governments have been formed within provincial politics. As a result of the1919 Ontario election, theUnited Farmers of Ontario and theLabour Party, together with three independent MLAs, formed a coalition that governedOntario until 1923.
InBritish Columbia, the governing Liberals formed a coalition with the opposition Conservatives in order to prevent the surging, left-wingCooperative Commonwealth Federation from taking power in the1941 British Columbia general election. Liberal premierDuff Pattullo refused to form a coalition with the third-place Conservatives, so his party removed him. The Liberal–Conservative coalition introduced a winner-take-all preferential voting system (the "Alternative Vote") in the hopes that their supporters would rank the other party as their second preference; however, this strategy backfired in the subsequent1952 British Columbia general election where, to the surprise of many, the right-wing populistBC Social Credit Party won a minority. They were able to win a majority in the subsequent election as Liberal and Conservative supporters shifted their anti-CCF vote to Social Credit.
Manitoba has had more formal coalition governments than any other province. Following gains by the United Farmer's/Progressive movement elsewhere in the country, theUnited Farmers of Manitoba unexpectedly won the 1921 election. Like their counterparts in Ontario, they had not expected to win and did not have a leader. They askedJohn Bracken, a professor in animal husbandry, to become leader and premier. Bracken changed the party's name to theProgressive Party of Manitoba. During the Great Depression, Bracken survived at a time when other premiers were being defeated by forming a coalition government with the Manitoba Liberals (eventually, the two parties would merge into theLiberal-Progressive Party of Manitoba, and decades later, the party would change its name to theManitoba Liberal Party). In 1940, Bracken formed a wartime coalition government with almost every party in the Manitoba Legislature (the Conservatives, CCF, and Social Credit; however, the CCF broke with the coalition after a few years over policy differences). The only party not included was the small, communistLabor-Progressive Party, which had a handful of seats.
In Saskatchewan, NDP premierRoy Romanow formed a formal coalition with theSaskatchewan Liberals in 1999 after being reduced to a minority. After two years, the newly elected Liberal leader David Karwacki ordered the coalition be disbanded, the Liberal caucus disagreed with him and left the Liberals to run as New Democrats in the upcoming election. TheSaskatchewan NDP was re-elected with a majority under its new leaderLorne Calvert, while the Saskatchewan Liberals lost their remaining seats and have not been competitive in the province since.
From the creation of theFolketing in 1849 through the introduction ofproportional representation in 1918, there were only single-party governments in Denmark.Thorvald Stauning formed hissecond government and Denmark's first coalition government in 1929. Since then, the norm has been coalition governments, though there have been periods where single-party governments were frequent, such as the decade after the end ofWorld War II, during the 1970s, and in the late 2010s. Every government from 1982 until the2015 elections were coalitions. WhileMette Frederiksen'sfirst government only consisted of her ownSocial Democrats, hersecond government is a coalition of the Social Democrats,Venstre, and theModerates.
When the Social Democrats under Stauning won 46% of the votes in the1935 election, this was the closest any party has gotten to winning an outright majority in parliament since 1918. One party has thus never held a majority alone, and even one-party governments have needed to haveconfidence agreements with at least one other party to govern. For example, though Frederiksen's first government only consisted of the Social Democrats, it also relied on the support of theSocial Liberal Party, theSocialist People's Party, and theRed–Green Alliance.
InFinland, no party has had an absolute majority in the parliament since independence, and multi-party coalitions have been the norm. Finland experienced its most stable government (Lipponen I andII) sinceindependence with a five-party governing coalition, a so-called "rainbow government". The Lipponen cabinets set the stability record and were unusual in the respect that both the centre-left (SDP) and radical left-wing (Left Alliance) parties sat in the government with the major centre-right party (National Coalition). TheKatainen cabinet was also a rainbow coalition of a total of five parties.
In Germany, coalition governments are the norm, as it is rare for any single party to win a majority in parliament. The German political system makes extensive use of theconstructive vote of no confidence, which requires governments to control an absolute majority of seats. Every government since the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949 has involved at least two political parties. Typically, governments involve one of the two major parties forming a coalition with a smaller party. For example, from 1982 to 1998, the country was governed by a coalition of theCDU/CSU with the minorFree Democratic Party (FDP); from 1998 to 2005, a coalition of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the minorGreens held power.[14] The CDU/CSU comprises an alliance of theChristian Democratic Union of Germany andChristian Social Union in Bavaria, described as "sister parties" which form a joint parliamentary group, and for this purpose are always considered a single party.[15] Coalition arrangements are often given names based on the colours of the parties involved, such as "red-green" for the SPD and Greens. Coalitions of three parties are often named after countries whose flags contain those colours, such as the black-yellow-greenJamaica coalition.[16]
Grand coalitions of the two major parties also occur, but these are relatively rare, as they typically prefer to associate with smaller ones. However, if the major parties are unable to assemble a majority, a grand coalition may be the only practical option. This was the case following the2005 federal election, in which the incumbent SPD–Green government was defeated but the opposition CDU/CSU–FDP coalition also fell short of a majority. A grand coalition government was subsequently formed between the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Partnerships like these typically involve carefully structured cabinets:Angela Merkel of the CDU/CSU becameChancellor while the SPD was granted the majority of cabinet posts.
Coalition formation has become increasingly complex as voters increasingly migrate away from the major parties during the 2000s and 2010s.[17] While coalitions of more than two parties were extremely rare in preceding decades, they have become common on the state level. These often include the liberal FDP and the Greens alongside one of the major parties, or"red–red–green" coalitions of the SPD, Greens, andThe Left. In theeastern states, dwindling support for moderate parties has seen the rise of new forms of grand coalitions such as theKenya coalition. The rise of populist parties also increases the time that it takes for a successful coalition to form.[18] By 2016, the Greens were participating eleven governing coalitions on the state level in seven different constellations.[19] During campaigns, parties often declare which coalitions or partners they prefer or reject. This tendency toward fragmentation also spread to the federal level, particularly during the2021 federal election, which saw the CDU/CSU and SPD fall short of a combined majority of votes for the first time in history.[20]
After India's Independence on 15 August 1947, theIndian National Congress, the major political party instrumental in theIndian independence movement, ruled the nation. The first Prime Minister,Jawaharlal Nehru, his successorLal Bahadur Shastri, and the third Prime Minister,Indira Gandhi, were all members of the Congress party. However,Raj Narain, who had unsuccessfully contested an election against Indira from the constituency ofRae Bareli in 1971, lodged a case alleging electoral malpractice. In June 1975, Indira was found guilty and barred by the High Court from holding public office for six years. In response, a state of emergency was declared under the pretext of national security. Thenext election resulted in the formation ofIndia's first ever national coalition government under the prime ministership ofMorarji Desai, which was also the first non-Congress national government. It existed from 24 March 1977 to 15 July 1979, headed by theJanata Party,[21] an amalgam of political parties opposed to the emergency imposed between 1975 and 1977. As the popularity of the Janata Party dwindled, Desai had to resign, andChaudhary Charan Singh, a rival of his, became the fifth Prime Minister. However, due to lack of support, this coalition government did not complete its five-year term.
Congress returned to power in 1980 under Indira Gandhi, and later underRajiv Gandhi as the sixth Prime Minister. However, thegeneral election of 1989 once again brought a coalition government underNational Front, which lasted until 1991, with two Prime Ministers, the second one being supported by Congress. The 1991 election resulted in a Congress-led stableminority government for five years. The eleventhparliament produced three Prime Ministers in two years and forced the country back to the polls in 1998. The first successful coalition government in India which completed a whole five-year term was theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ledNational Democratic Alliance withAtal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2004. Then another coalition, the Congress-ledUnited Progressive Alliance, consisting of 13 separate parties, ruled India for two terms from 2004 to 2014 withManmohan Singh as PM. However, in the16th general election in May 2014, the BJP secured a majority on its own (becoming the first party to do so since the 1984 election), and the National Democratic Alliance came into power, withNarendra Modi as Prime Minister. In 2019, Narendra Modi was re-elected as Prime Minister as the National Democratic Alliance again secured a majority in the17th general election. India returned to an NDA led coalition government in 2024 as the BJP failed to achieve an outright majority.
As a result of thetoppling of Suharto, political freedom was significantly increased. Compared to only three parties allowed to exist in theNew Order era, a total of 48 political parties participated in the1999 election and always a total of more than 10 parties in next elections. There are no majority winner of those elections and coalition governments are inevitable. The current government is a coalition of five parliamentary parties led by the majorcentre-rightGerindra to let governingbig tentAdvanced Indonesia Coalition.
InIreland, coalition governments are common; not since 1977 has a single party formed a majority government. Coalition governments to date have been led by eitherFianna Fáil orFine Gael. They have been joined in government by one or more smaller parties orindependent members of parliament (TDs).
Ireland'sfirst coalition government was formed after the1948 general election, with five parties and independents represented at cabinet. Before 1989, Fianna Fáil had opposed participation in coalition governments, preferring single-party minority government instead. It formed a coalition government with theProgressive Democrats in that year.
TheLabour Party has been in government on eight occasions. On all but one of those occasions, it was as a junior coalition party toFine Gael. The exception was a government with Fianna Fáil from 1993 to 1994. The29th Government of Ireland (2011–16), was agrand coalition of the two largest parties, as Fianna Fáil had fallen to third place in the Dáil.
Thecurrent government is aFianna Fáil,Fine Gael and the Independents. Although Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been serving in government together since 2020, they haven't formed coalition before due to their different roots that goes back toIrish Civil War (1922–23).
A similar situation exists inIsrael, which typically has at least 10 parties holding representation in theKnesset. The only faction to ever gain the majority of Knesset seats wasAlignment, an alliance of theLabor Party andMapam that held an absolute majority for a brief period from 1968 to 1969. Historically, control of the Israeli government has alternated between periods of rule by the right-wingLikud in coalition with several right-wing and religious parties and periods of rule by the center-left Labor in coalition with several left-wing parties.Ariel Sharon's formation of the centristKadima party in 2006 drew support from former Labor and Likud members, and Kadima ruled in coalition with several other parties.
Israel also formed anational unity government from1984–1988. The premiership and foreign ministry portfolio were held by the head of each party for two years, and they switched roles in 1986.
InJapan, controlling a majority in theHouse of Representatives is enough to decide theelection of the prime minister (=recorded, two-round votes in both houses of theNational Diet, yet the vote of the House of Representatives decision eventually overrides a dissentingHouse of Councillors vote automatically after the mandatory conference committee procedure fails which, by precedent, it does without real attempt to reconcile the different votes). Therefore, a party that controls the lower house can form a government on its own. It can also pass a budget on its own. But passing any law (including important budget-related laws) requires either majorities in both houses of the legislature or, with the drawback of longer legislative proceedings, a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.
In recent decades, single-party full legislative control is rare, and coalition governments are the norm: Mostgovernments of Japan since the 1990s and, as of 2020, all since 1999 have been coalition governments, some of them still fell short of a legislative majority. TheLiberal Democratic Party (LDP) held a legislative majority of its own in the National Diet until 1989 (when it initially continued to govern alone), and between the 2016 and 2019 elections (when it remained in its previous ruling coalition). TheDemocratic Party of Japan (through accessions in the House of Councillors) briefly controlled a single-party legislative majority for a few weeks before it lost the 2010 election (it, too, continued to govern as part of its previous ruling coalition).
From the constitutional establishment of parliamentary cabinets and the introduction of the new, now directly elected upper house of parliament in 1947 until the formation of the LDP and the reunification of theJapanese Socialist Party in 1955, no single party formally controlled a legislative majority on its own. Only few formal coalition governments (46th,47th, initially49th cabinet) interchanged with technical minority governments and cabinets without technical control of the House of Councillors (later called "twisted Diets",nejire kokkai, when they were not only technically, but actually divided). But during most of that period, the centristRyokufūkai was the strongest overall or decisive cross-bench group in the House of Councillors, and it was willing to cooperate with both centre-left and centre-right governments even when it was not formally part of the cabinet; and in the House of Representatives, minority governments of Liberals or Democrats (or their precursors; loose, indirect successors to the two major pre-war parties) could usually count on support from some members of the other major conservative party or from smaller conservative parties and independents. Finally in 1955, when Hatoyama Ichirō's Democratic Party minority government called early House of Representatives elections and, while gaining seats substantially, remained in the minority, the Liberal Party refused to cooperate until negotiations on a long-debated "conservative merger" of the two parties were agreed upon, and eventually successful.
After it was founded in 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party dominated Japan's governments for a long period: The new party governed alone without interruption until 1983, again from 1986 to 1993 and most recently between 1996 and 1999. The first time the LDP entered a coalition government followed its third loss of itsHouse of Representatives majority in the1983 House of Representatives general election. The LDP-New Liberal Clubcoalition government lasted until 1986 when the LDP won landslide victories in simultaneous double elections to both houses of parliament.
There have been coalition cabinets where the post of prime minister was given to a junior coalition partner: theJSP-DP-Cooperativist coalition government in 1948 of prime ministerAshida Hitoshi (DP) who took over after his JSP predecessorTetsu Katayama had been toppled by the left wing of his own party, theJSP-Renewal-Kōmei-DSP-JNP-Sakigake-SDF-DRP coalition in 1993 withMorihiro Hosokawa (JNP) as compromise PM for theIchirō Ozawa-negotiated rainbow coalition that removed the LDP from power for the first time to break up in less than a year, and theLDP-JSP-Sakigake government that was formed in 1994 when the LDP had agreed, if under internal turmoil and with some defections, to bury the main post-war partisan rivalry and support the election of JSP prime ministerTomiichi Murayama in exchange for the return to government.
Ever sinceMalaysia gainedindependence in 1957, none of itsfederal governments have ever been controlled by a single political party. Due to the social nature of the country, thefirst federal government was formed by a three-partyAlliance coalition, composed of theUnited Malays National Organisations (UMNO), theMalaysian Chinese Association (MCA), and theMalaysian Indian Congress (MIC). It was later expanded and rebranded asBarisan Nasional (BN), which includes parties representing the Malaysian states ofSabah andSarawak.
The2018 Malaysian general election saw the first non-BN coalition federal government in the country's electoral history, formed through an alliance between thePakatan Harapan (PH) coalition and theSabah Heritage Party (WARISAN). The federal government formed after the2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis was the first to be established through coordination between multiple political coalitions. This occurred when the newly formedPerikatan Nasional (PN) coalition partnered with BN andGabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS). In 2022 after its registration, Sabah-basedGabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) formally joined the government (though it had been a part of an informal coalition since 2020). Thecurrent government led by Prime MinisterAnwar Ibrahim is composed of four political coalitions and 19 parties.
MMP was introduced inNew Zealand inthe 1996 election. In order to get into power, parties need to get a total of 50% of the approximately (there can be more if anOverhang seat exists) 120 seats in parliament – 61. Since it is rare for a party to win a full majority, they must form coalitions with other parties. For example, from 1996 to 1998, the country was governed by a coalition of theNational with the minorNZ First; from 1999 to 2002, a coalition of theLabour and the minorAlliance and withconfidence and supply from theGreen Party held power. Between 2017 and 2020,Labour,New Zealand First formed aCoalition Government with confidence and supply from theGreen Party.[22][23] During the2023 general election,National,ACT andNew Zealand First formed acoalition government following three weeks of negotiations.[24]
Since 2015, there are many more coalition governments than previously in municipalities, autonomous regions and, since 2020 (coming from theNovember 2019 Spanish general election), in the Spanish Government. There are two ways of conforming them: all of them based on a program and its institutional architecture, one consists on distributing the different areas of government between the parties conforming the coalition and the other one is, like in the Valencian Community,[25] where the ministries are structured with members of all the political parties being represented, so that conflicts that may occur are regarding competences and not fights between parties.
Coalition governments in Spain had already existed during the 2nd Republic, and have been common in some specific Autonomous Communities since the 1980s. Nonetheless, the prevalence of two big parties overall has been eroded and the need for coalitions appears to be the new normal since around 2015.
Turkey'sfirst coalition government was formed after the1961 general election, with two political parties and independents represented at cabinet. It was also Turkey's firstgrand coalition as the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies (Republican People's Party andJustice Party) united. Between 1960 and 2002, 17 coalition governments were formed in Turkey. The media and the general public view coalition governments as unfavorable and unstable due to their lack of effectiveness and short lifespan.[citation needed] Following Turkey's transition to apresidential system in 2017, political parties focussed more on formingelectoral alliances. Due toseparation of powers, the government doesn't have to be formed by parliamentarians and therefore not obliged to result in a coalition government. However, the parliament can dissolve the cabinet if theparliamentary opposition is in majority.
In theUnited Kingdom, coalition governments (sometimes known as "national governments") usually have only been formed at times of national crisis. The most prominent was theNational Government of 1931 to 1940. There were multi-party coalitions during bothworld wars. Apart from this, when no party has had a majority, minority governments normally have been formed with one or more opposition parties agreeing to vote in favour of the legislation which governments need to function: for instance theLabour government ofJames Callaghan formeda pact with theLiberals from March 1977 until July 1978, following a series of by-election defeats which had eroded Labour's majority of three seats which had been gained at theOctober 1974 election. However, in the run-up to the1997 general election, Labour opposition leaderTony Blair was in talks withLiberal Democrat leaderPaddy Ashdown about forming a coalition government if Labour failed to win a majority at the election; but there proved to be no need for a coalition as Labour won the election by alandslide.[26] The2010 general election resulted in ahung parliament (Britain's first for36 years), and theConservatives, led byDavid Cameron, which had won the largest number of seats, formed acoalition with theLiberal Democrats in order to gain a parliamentary majority, ending 13 years of Labour government. This was the first time that the Conservatives and Lib Dems had made a power-sharing deal at Westminster.[27] It was also the first full coalition in Britain since 1945, having been formed 70 years virtually to the day after the establishment ofWinston Churchill's wartime coalition,[28]Labour and the Liberal Democrats have entered into a coalition twice in theScottish Parliament, as well as twice in theWelsh Assembly.
Since the1989 election, there have been 4 coalition governments, all including at least both the conservativeNational Party and the liberalColorado Party. The first one was after the election of the blancoLuis Alberto Lacalle and lasted until 1992 due to policy disagreements, the longest lasting coalition was the Colorado-led coalition under the second government ofJulio María Sanguinetti, in which the national leaderAlberto Volonté was frequently described as a "Prime Minister", the next coalition (under presidentJorge Batlle) was also Colorado-led, but it lasted only until after the2002 Uruguay banking crisis, when the blancos abandoned the government.[29] Following the2019 Uruguayan general election, the blancoLuis Lacalle Pou formed thecoalición multicolor, composed of his own National Party, the liberal Colorado Party, the eclecticOpen Cabildo and the center leftIndependent Party.[30]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(May 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Advocates of proportional representation suggest that a coalition government leads to more consensus-based politics, as a government comprising differing parties (often based on different ideologies) need to compromise about governmental policy. Another stated advantage is that a coalition government better reflects the popular opinion of the electorate within a country; this means, for instance, that the political system contains just one majority-based mechanism. Contrast this with district voting in which the majority mechanism occurs twice: first, the majority of voters pick the representative and, second, the body of representatives make a subsequent majority decision. The doubled majority decision undermines voter support for that decision. The benefit of proportional representation is that it contains that majority mechanism just once. Additionally, coalition partnership may play an important role in moderating the level of affective polarization over parties, that is, the animosity and hostility against the opponent party identifiers/supporters.[31]
Those who disapprove of coalition governments believe that such governments have a tendency to be fractious and prone to disharmony, as their component parties hold differing beliefs and thus may not always agree on policy.[32] Sometimes the results of an election mean that the coalitions which are mathematically most probable are ideologically infeasible, for example inFlanders orNorthern Ireland. A second difficulty might be the ability of minor parties to play "kingmaker" and, particularly in close elections, gain far more power in exchange for their support than the size of their vote would otherwise justify.
Germany is the largest nation ever to have had proportional representation during the interbellum. After WW II, the German system, district based but then proportionally adjusted afterward, contains a threshold that keeps the number of parties limited. The threshold is set at five percent, resulting in empowered parties with at least a minimum amount of political gravity.
Coalition governments have also been criticized[by whom?] for sustaining aconsensus on issues when disagreement and the consequent discussion would be more fruitful. To forge a consensus, the leaders of ruling coalition parties can agree to silence their disagreements on an issue to unify the coalition against the opposition. The coalition partners, if they control the parliamentary majority, can collude to make the parliamentary discussion on the issue irrelevant by consistently disregarding the arguments of the opposition and voting against the opposition's proposals — even if there is disagreement within the ruling parties about the issue. However, in winner-take-all this seems always to be the case.
Powerful parties can also act in anoligocratic way to form an alliance to stifle the growth of emerging parties. Of course, such an event is rare in coalition governments when compared totwo-party systems, which typically exist because of stifling of the growth of emerging parties, often through discriminatorynomination rules regulations andplurality voting systems, and so on.
A single, more powerful party can shape the policies of the coalition disproportionately. Smaller or less powerful parties can be intimidated to not openly disagree. In order to maintain the coalition, they would have to vote against their own party's platform in the parliament. If they do not, the party has to leave the government and loses executive power. However, this is contradicted by the "kingmaker" factor mentioned above.
Finally, a strength that can also be seen as a weakness is that proportional representation puts the emphasis on collaboration. All parties involved are looking at the other parties in the best light possible, since they may be (future) coalition partners. The pendulum may therefore show less of a swing between political extremes. Still, facing external issues may then also be approached from a collaborative perspective, even when the outside force is not benevolent.
A legislative coalition or voting coalition is when political parties in a legislature align on voting to push forward specific policies or legislation, but do not engage in power-sharing of the executive branch like in coalition governments.[33]
In a parliamentary system, political parties may form aconfidence and supply arrangement, pledging to support the governing party on legislative bills and motions that carry avote of confidence. Unlike a coalition government, which is a more formalised partnership characterised by the sharing of the executive branch, a confidence and supply arrangement does not entail executive "power-sharing". Instead, it involves the governing party supporting specific proposals and priorities of the other parties in the arrangement, in return for their continued support on motions of confidence.[34]
In the United States, political parties have formed legislative coalitions in the past in order to push forward specific policies or legislation in theUnited States Congress.[33] In1855, a coalition was formed between members of theAmerican Party,Opposition Party andRepublican Party to electNathaniel P. Banksspeaker of the House.[35]
Later, in 1917, at the start of the65th Congress, a coalition was formed between members of theDemocratic Party,Progressive Party andSocialist Party of America to electChamp Clark as thespeaker of the United States House of Representatives.[36] This was the only time a socialist party entered coalition government in the House on a national level.[37] More recently, during the118th Congress, an informal legislative coalition formed between Democrats and mainline Republicans to pass critical legislation opposed by theFreedom Caucus, an extreme right-wing faction controlling a minority of seats in the Republican Conference.
A coalition government, in which "power-sharing" of executive offices is performed, has not occurred in the United States.[33][38] The norms that allow coalition governments to form and persist do not exist in the United States.[38]
