Party Policy and Government Coalitions

Abstract

Coalitions are the commonest kind of democratic government, occurringfrequently in most countries of Western Europe. It is usually assumed thatpolitical parties came together in a government coalition because they agreealready, or can manage to reach an agreement, on the policy it should pursue.This book checks this idea out, in 12 countries of Western Europe plus Israel,using evidence from party election programmes and government programmes. Itdemonstrates that party policies do influence government programmes, but notto the extent they would if policy-agreement were the sole basis of coalition.