Eric C. Browne

Aspects of Coalition Payoffs in European Parliamentary Democracies

One important proposition about the distribution of coalition payoffs is found in W. A. Gamsons theory of coalition formation: “Any participant will expect others to demand from a coalition a share of the payoff proportional to the amount of resources which they contribute to a coalition.” This proposition is tested in a universe of cabinet coalitions existing in thirteen European democracies during the postwar period. Here, payoffs to partners are indicated by the percentage share of cabinet ministries received by parties for their percentage contribution of parliamentary seats/votes to the coalition. The proportionality proposition is shown to hold strongly. Disproportionality, however, is observed to occur in distributions at the extremities of party size—large parties tend to be proportionately underpaid and small parties overpaid, the larger or smaller they become. This effect, however, is most pronounced when the size of the coalition is small, and tends to reverse itself as the size of the coalition increases.

The Process of Cabinet Dissolution: An Exponential Model of Duration and Stability in Western Democracies*

Contemporary research on cabinet stability has focused upon relating specific attributes of political actors and parliamentary settings with the duration of cabinets over time. Statistical testing, however, has failed to produce convincing evidence for explanations based on such deterministic models. Our contention is that such models are misspecified. They focus upon elapsed time in office as the surrogate measure for cabinet stability. We present an alternative model, the central element of which describes the dissolution of cabinets as determined by a stochastic process, specifically, a Poisson process. We tested this model with data describing cabinet dissolutions in twelve Western European democracies from 1945 to 1980. In the final section of the paper, we discuss the substantive and research implications of our findings. For many years, scholars have sought to discover why governments in Western parliamentary democracies frequently dissolve before the time constitutionally mandated for holding elections. Their research has typically been focused on ascertaining the durability of cabinets (particularly coalition cabinets) in parliamentary settings. In general, proposed explanations of this phenomenon have generated only limited empirical support. Several variables representing the size of coalitions and ideological diversity of both coalition cabinets and parliamentary systems have been shown to be only weakly related to the length of time cabinets survive. It shall be our contention in this research that the efforts, both theoretical and empirical, that have been expended on the government duration problem have assumed an overly deterministic, and consequently misspecified, model of cabinet duration. Simply, the research tradition has held that individual instances of cabinet duration can be predicted with accuracy. We shall hold, to the contrary, that the dissolution of cabinets (the event that establishes a cabinets duration) is the result of a process that contains

An “Events” Approach to the Problem of Cabinet Stability

This article seeks to develop the argument that existing theoretical work investigating cabinet stability in parliamentary democracies is in need of reorientation. In the first part, we offer an extended critique of historical and contemporary literature, focusing heavily on contributions from coalition theory and recent empirical research on situational determinants of cabinet longevity. Arguing that the various models associated with both these research traditions are likely to be misspecified, in the second section we offer the sketch of a preliminary model of cabinet stability based upon “events” arising in the political environment of cabinet actors and capable of bringing on the termination of their governments. Unlike earlier theoretical treatments, our “events” focus suggests that a major component of a successful model of cabinet stability should be stochastic. In the final section, we seek to demonstrate the versatility and efficacy of an “events” approach to cabinet stability by providing a research agenda for further investigation of the problem. Two such projects are described: one pertaining to inductively oriented work relating “events” to the dissolution of cabinets, and the other a discussion of the consequences of an “events” approach for the deductive modelling of cabinet formation and persistance over time.

Allocating Coalition Payoffs by Conventional Norm: An Assessment of the Evidence from Cabinet Coalition Situations

A problem in the application of formal theories of coalition formation has been whether a conventional rule governs payoff allocations. Specifically, it has been suggested that certain ministerial portfolios are much more desirable than others, and so are allocated in a manner substantially different from that which might characterize the payoff distribution seen as a whole. Using data from 132 European coalition governments (1945-1978), this paper presents strong evidence that a proportionality rule governs all aspects of coalition payoffs. We consider the differences in the findings of previous research with an eye to both methodological and theoretical adequacy. In particular, the difficulties of basing inferences on comparisons of correlation coefficients are discussed. Finally, we demonstrate that such slight deviations from the rule of proportional division (a rule based on the size of party actors) as occur are also related to the size factor-i.e., smaller actors may be overpaid when their larger partners feel the coalition is secure.

Contending Models of Cabinet Stability

A spirited debate has arisen over the best approach to the analysis of the durability of governing coalitions in parliamentary democracies. In this controversy, Kaare Strom enters a number of criticisms of the stochastic modeling approach offered by Eric C. Browne, John P. Frendreis, and Dennis W. Gleiber, and by Claudio Cioffi-Revilla. In turn, Browne and his colleagues join the issue.

Evaluating Conflict of Interest Theory: Western European Cabinet Coalitions, 1945–80

More than a decade has elapsed since Robert Axelrod first published his theory of political coalitions. At the time, it represented a significant departure from existing theoretical work by defining as a major component of an actors utility function a preference to join winning coalitions which minimize the degree of ‘conflict of interest’ among potential partners. Axelrod has defined the degree of conflict of interest in terms of the incompatibility of actor goals (e.g., policy preferences), thus deriving the expectation that forming coalitions will minimize the degree of preference disagreement among their members. Subsequent theoretical research has tended to retain this emphasis upon closely shared preferences among prospective coalition partners.

Qualitative Dimensions of Coalition Payoffs: Evidence From European Party Governments, 1945-1970

on the earlier research of Browne and Franklin (1973; Browne, 1973: ch. 5), who attempted to describe the quantitative properties of payoff distributions in this same context. These authors take as their point of departure Gamson’s (1961: 376) major assumption concerning payoff distributions: &dquo;Any participant will expect others to demand from a coalition a share of the payoff proportional to the amount of resources they contribute to a coalition.&dquo; Operationalizing payoff share as the percentage of ministries received by partners in the coalition and the resources of each member as the percentage of parliamentary seats it furnishes in the coalition, a very high degree of association was found between the variables (r = .926), and the relationship was almost perfectly proportional (Y -0.01 + 1.07X).

The Study of Cabinet Dissolutions in Parliamentary Democracies

While earlier research stressed the importance of attributes of the government, parliament, and political system in determining the point of governmental dissolution, the most recent studies emphasize the random character of this phenomenon. This article describes the points of convergence and divergence between these distinct research phases. Ultimately these differing approaches are seen to be complementary, both conceptually and in their ability to predict postwar governmental dissolutions in 12 western parliamentary democracies. The next theoretical step should be the formulation of a model combining both static and random elements, a model which identifies the ways in which political events change the ability of governments to continue in office.

Factional rivals and electoral competition in a dominant party: Inside Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, 1958–19901

Formally organized factions in dominant parties face an electoral dilemma - namely, they need to cooperate sufficiently to ensure party control of government while competing with each other for members. This article examines the efforts of Japans Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) factions to reconcile these conflicting interests during the period 1958-1990. In particular, we are interested in how institutional constraints imposed both by the electoral system and the party affected the ability of the various factions to increase membership. Following the literature, which identifies incumbency, the party endorsement and mainstream faction status as important determinants of electoral success, we investigate the relative ability of individual factions to increase membership by refocusing analysis on the partys non-incumbent candidates. Consistent with earlier research, we confirm the importance of the party endorsement and mainstream faction status for the electoral success of these candidates. Contrary to current belief, however, we establish empirically that the electoral advantage enjoyed by the non-incumbent candidates of mainstream factions is not due to a disproportionate number of party endorsements, but rather is heavily influenced by their disproportionate assignment to run in districts with attributes that enhance their electability.

A Bargaining Theory of Coalition Formation

Central both to formal theories of coalition formation and many, actual, collective decision-making processes is the distribution of some reward, or payoff as it is commonly called, among those participants able to control a decision. The payoff constitutes an object of value for the players, or the stakes of the game, the disposition of which becomes a primary focus of bargaining among them. It is usual to assume that participants in coalition-forming contexts are rational actors, and this is often interpreted to mean that they pursue strategies intended to maximize their individual shares of the available payoff. Theories based upon this general structure have furnished a variety of important propositions, focusing mostly upon the composition of winning coalitions. Taking the formal problem of coalition formation in its entirety requires consideration of many factors, such as: the desirability to one individual of being in coalition with another, the fact that individuals will assess payoffs with different value schedules, that these value schedules will change with time as well as with the composition of the winning coalition, the nature of any pre-existing formal agreements among players, and so forth. The usual approach taken in constructing formal models of the coalition process involves the suppression of many of these variables in order to produce a tractable problem that can be handled mathematically. What this paper will argue is that such simplifications in existing models have been too severe, leaving them deficient both in terms of predictive accuracy and normative interpretation. What we offer in place of the formal model is the sketch of a multi-step model, only part of which is formal. In the first section of the paper we shall discuss several well-known coalition models, concluding that they suffer from irreparable faults. The second and third sections deal with two central ideas, the payoff distribution rule and the notion of policy-distance minimization, both of which will be incorporated into our model. In the fourth section we discuss the modelling consequences of the rationality assumption for complex social situations, and in the last we offer a bargaining model of the payoff-distribution process, the only part of our model which is formal.