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The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation

The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation. SONA NADENICHEK GOLDER Florida State University. Question. Under what conditions are pre-electoral coalitions likely to form?. Electoral coalitions formed in the 2002 legislative elections in France and Germany but not in the Netherlands.

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The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation

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  1. The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation SONA NADENICHEK GOLDER Florida State University

  2. Question • Under what conditions are pre-electoral coalitions likely to form? • Electoral coalitions formed in the 2002 legislative elections in France and Germany but not in the Netherlands. • Why?

  3. Definitions Most parties who wish to exercise executive power are forced to enter some type of coalition. Parties can form coalitions: • After elections (government coalitions). • Before elections (pre-electoral coalitions).

  4. Definitions A pre-electoral coalition is a collection of parties that do not compete independently in an election. Rather, they publicly agree to coordinate their campaigns by running joint candidates/lists or agreeing to enter government together following the election. • Criterion I: An electoral coalition must be publicly stated. • Criterion II: Member parties in an electoral coalition cannot compete in elections as truly independent entities. • Criterion III: The electoral coalition must be at the national level.

  5. Types of Electoral Coalitions

  6. Why do we care? • Electoral outcomes • Policy implications • Normative implications • Commonplace

  7. Some Figures • Data from 19 West European countries 1946-2002 • Average of 11 electoral coalitions at any one time. • Average electoral coalition size is 2.6. • 25% of these coalitions end up in government. • 1/3 of written government coalition agreements based on pre-electoral agreements (Müller & Strøm).

  8. Coalition Literature

  9. Austin-Smith & Banks (1988) Laver & Schofield (1988) Baron & Ferejohn (1989) Laver & Shepsle (1990) Strøm, Budge & Laver (1994) Lupia & Strøm (1995) Merlo (1997), Warwick (1999) Diermeier et al. (1999, 2003) Warwick & Druckman (2001, 2006) Martin & Vanberg (2003) Etc., etc… See Laver (1998) in Annual Review of Political Science for an overview of models. See Martin & Stevenson (2001) for an empirical analysis of the main hypotheses in the literature. See Müller & Strøm (2000), Coalition Governments in Western Europe for case studies. Government Coalition Literature

  10. Electoral Coalition Literature Powell (2000); Kaminski (2001) “One area that cries out for more serious theoretical and empirical work is the appearance of announced pre-electoral coalitions between political parties. We know too little about the origins of such coalitions . . .” Powell (2000, p. 247)

  11. What determines electoral coalition formation?

  12. State of the Art • Disproportionality Story “The more disproportional the electoral system, the greater the incentives for pre-electoral alliances” Strom, Budge & Laver (1994, p. 316) • Signaling Story No empirical tests

  13. State of the Art: An Empirical Test 405 legislative elections, 25 countries, 1946-2002 Disproportionality  Electoral coalitions are more likely to form and be successful in disproportional electoral systems so long as there is a sufficiently large number of parties. Signaling 

  14. State of the Art: Limitations • Costs of electoral coalition formation • Ideological and distributional issues • Within-country temporal variation • No bargaining model

  15. Theory

  16. Bargaining Model • Just as with government coalitions, electoral coalitions emerge from a bargaining process. There are some differences . . . • Government coalitions cannot affect the probability of electoral victory, but pre-electoral coalitions can. • Ideological compatibility constraint stronger forelectoral coalitions than government coalitions.

  17. What does the bargaining model look like?

  18. What does the bargaining model look like? • Actors: • Party A, Party B (Potential Coalition Partners) • Non-Strategic Opposition Party • Party leaders care about: • Office • Policy • Decision: • Party A and Party B must decide whether to form an electoral coalition or run separately.

  19. Party A makes an offer Period 1 (Yes) (No) (Yes) Party B accepts PEC (No) Period 2 (No) (No) No PEC Party B makes an offer Party B makes an offer No PEC (Yes) (Yes) (No) (No) No PEC Party A accepts Party A accepts No PEC (Yes) (Yes) PEC PEC Timeline for Bargaining Game

  20. Bargaining Model • Party leaders will form an electoral coalition whenever the expected utility from an agreement is greater than the expected utility from running alone (reservation price).

  21. Payoffs Probability of winning and losing: • Probability that you enter government running divided (Pi-d). • Probability that you enter government running united (Ptu), where P1u> P2u.

  22. Payoffs Office Benefits (S) • If parties form an electoral coalition, they divide the office benefits (o1A,1-o1A) or (o2B,1-o2B). • If parties do not form an electoral coalition but still enter government, they receive share si of the office benefits, where si=seatsi/(seatsi+seatsj).

  23. Payoffs Policy • If not in government, you suffer utility loss from having opposition set policy (λi-opp), where λi-opp= - (Pi – Popp)2 • If in government as electoral coalition, you suffer utility loss from coalition policy λi-pec,where • λi-pec= -(Pi–Ppec)2 • Ppec= pA+suB|pA-pB| or Ppec= pB-suA|pA-pB| • SuA = seatsA/(seatsA+seatsB) and SuB = seatsB/(seatsA+seatsB)

  24. Actors, Actions, and Payoffs • If A makes offer and B accepts in Period 1 • Pu1 (oA1 – λA-PEC) - λA-OPP(1-Pu1) ; Pu1 ((1- oA1) – λB-PEC) - λB-OPP(1-Pu1) • If B rejects A’s offer in Period 1, and A accepts B’s offer in Period 2 • Pu2 (oB2 – λA-PEC) - λA-OPP(1-Pu2) ; Pu2 ((1- oB2) – λB-PEC) - λB-OPP(1-Pu2) • (same payoffs if A makes no offer in Period 1, and A accepts B’s offer in Period 2) • If neither actor makes an offer in either period • PA-d(sA -λA-GOV) - λA-OPP(1-PA-d) ; PB-d(sB -λB-GOV) - λB-OPP(1-PB-d) • (same payoffs if offers are made, but rejected)

  25. Equilibria • Depending on parameter values, 3 possible sub-game perfect Nash equilibria in this game. • In two equilibria, electoral coalitions form in the first round. • In one equilibrium, electoral coalitions never form.

  26. Comparative Statics The probability of electoral coalition formation increases when: • Ideological distance between coalition partners (λAB) decreases. • Ideological distance to opposition (λi-opp) increases, so long as coalition is beneficial (Ptu> Pti-d). • Probability that coalition wins (P1u, P2u) increases. • Probability that party wins running alone (Pi-d) decreases.

  27. What does the model get us? • Surprising result • Party system polarization does not have an unconditional effect on electoral coalition formation.

  28. Is this a Good Explanation?

  29. Hypothesis 1 The probability of electoral coalition formation increases when: • Ideological distance between coalition partners (λAB) decreases. • Hypothesis 1 • Pre-electoral coalitions are less likely to form as the • ideological distance between potential coalition members • increases.

  30. Hypotheses 2 and 3 The probability of electoral coalition formation increases when: • Ideological distance to opposition (λi-opp) increases, so long as coalition is beneficial (Ptu> Pti-d). • Hypotheses 2 and 3 • Party system polarization increases the likelihood of electoral coalitions when the electoral system is sufficiently disproportional. • An increase in the disproportionality of the electoral system will increase the probability of forming a pre-electoral coalition. This positive effect should be stronger when the party system is polarized.

  31. Hypothesis 4 The probability of electoral coalition formation increases when: • Probability that coalition wins (P1u, P2u) increases. • Probability that party wins running alone (Pi-d) decreases. • Hypothesis 4 • The probability that an electoral coalition forms is a quadratic • function of the size of the potential electoral coalition. • It should be increasing in the first term (size) and decreasing • in the second term (size2).

  32. Hypothesis 5 Hypothesis 4 Hypothesis 5 • If the expected coalition size is sufficiently large, then pre- electoral coalitions are less likely to form if there is an asymmetric distribution of electoral strength among the potential coalition parties.

  33. Data • 292 legislative elections in 20 advanced industrialized parliamentary democracies between 1946 and 1998.

  34. Data • 292 legislative elections in 20 advanced industrialized parliamentary democracies between 1946 and 1998. • Dyadic format • 4,460 potential two-party coalitions. • 234 potential coalitions actually formed (5%) • Pre-electoral coalitions formed prior to 44% of elections in dataset

  35. Specification • Random-Effects Probit Model PEC* = β0 + β1Incompatibility + β2Polarization + β3Threshold + β4Polarization*Threshold + β5Coalition Size+ β6Coalition Size2 + β7Asymmetry + β8Asymmetry*Coalition Size + ε

  36. Results

  37. Dependent Variable: Pre-Electoral Coalition (0,1) * p < 0.05 (two-tailed)

  38. Interaction Terms in Non-Linear Models: An Aside • Imagine I have some conditional hypothesis whereby some variable Z modifies the effect of X on Y. • One question we might ask is how the value of Z modifies the effect of X on Y. • What is ? We refer to this as the “interaction effect”.

  39. Interaction Terms in Non-Linear Models: An Aside • OLS World • Y = β0 + β1X + β2Z + β3XZ + ε • = β1 + β3Z • = β3 • The coefficient (and standard error) on the interaction term tells us the direction, magnitude, and significance of the “interaction effect”.

  40. Interaction Terms in Non-Linear Models: An Aside • Logit World • P(yi = 1) = = Λ(xiβ) = Λ • = [Λ(1-Λ)][β1 + β3Z] • = β3Λ(1-Λ) + (β1 + β3Z)(β2 + β3X)Λ(1-Λ)(1-2Λ)

  41. Interaction Terms in Non-Linear Models: An Aside • Logit World • The coefficient (and standard error) on the interaction term does NOT tell us the direction, magnitude, or significance of the “interaction effect”. • The interaction effect depends on the values of all of the other variables.

  42. Interaction Terms in Non-Linear Models: An Aside • P(yi = 1) = = Λ(xiβ) • xiβ = β0 + β1X + β2Z + β3XZ • Let β0 = β1= β2 = β3 = 1 • A simulation…

  43. Dependent Variable: Pre-Electoral Coalition (0,1) * p < 0.05 (two-tailed)

  44. Quantities of Interest • Predicted probabilities • What’s the predicted probability that y = 1 (i.e., that a pre-electoral coalition forms)? • Note that we often report this for probit/logit models, but not when we use OLS… • Marginal effects • What’s the effect of a very, very small change in x on the probability that y = 1? • First differences • How does the probability that y = 1 change when we increase x by one unit (or some number of units)?

  45. Effect of a One Unit Increase in Electoral Thresholds on the Probability of Electoral Coalition Formation Effect of Electoral Thresholds 95% Confidence Intervals Party System Polarization

  46. Effect of a One Unit Increase in Party System Polarization on the Probability of Electoral Coalition Formation Effect of Party System Polarization 95% Confidence Intervals Electoral Threshold

  47. Effect of a 0.01 Unit Increase in Asymmetry on the Probability of Electoral Coalition Formation Effect of Asymmetry 95% Confidence Intervals Expected Coalition Size

  48. Effect of a One Unit Increase in Expected Coalition Size on the Probability of Electoral Coalition Formation (When Asymmetry is one standard deviation below its mean) Effect of Expected Coalition Size 95% Confidence Intervals Expected Coalition Size

  49. Effect of a One-Unit Increase in Expected Coalition Size Asymmetry is one standard deviation below its mean Shifts to the left as Asymmetry increases Asymmetry is at its mean Asymmetry is one standard deviation above its mean Expected Coalition Size

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