2020/08/10 by Thomas König, Nick Lin · 18 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Argument (complex analysis) #Coalition government #Corporate governance #Democracy #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Finance #Government (linguistics) #Law #Multi-party system #Negotiation #Opposition (politics) #Parliament #Policy Transfer and Learning #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Portfolio #Public administration #Public economics #Scrutiny
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12416
published in European Journal of Political Research 60(3), 694-715 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2020/08/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Although minority coalition has become a relatively frequent form of governance, it is often considered politically ineffective in policy making. To obtain sufficient support in parliament, government bills must go through the scrutiny activities initiated by coalition partners and overcome the concerns of external support parties in opposition. By examining parliamentary scrutiny on government bills, this paper explains the surprising policy‐making effectiveness in minority coalition governments. Specifically, we argue and show that different patterns of portfolio allocation with the specific ideological locations of the ministerial office‐holder, the coalition partner and the external supporter, structure the extent to which government bills are scrutinized in parliament, and therefore, the effectiveness of the minority coalition on managing and implementing policies. We empirically examine bills initiated by 256 ministries in 13 Danish minority coalitions between 1985 and 2015, and we reveal robust evidence that corroborates our argument.