Blame-Game Politics in a Coalition Government

Abstract

An important question in political economics concerns delays in the adoption of socially beneficial reforms. The present paper explores this issue in the context of a representative democracy where the government is a coalition and citizens observe neither the decisionmaking process, nor the policy preferences of the politicians. It shows that a governing party favoring a reform may nonetheless choose to veto its adoption and blame its coalition partners for the non-adoption. This is referred to as blame-game politics. The rationale for playing such a game is to prevent some parties from acquiring a better reputation as supporters of the reform. At a more general level, the argument applies to situations where several agents, whose types are private information have each to take an action while the principal observes only the aggregate outcome.

The Salient Issue of Issue Salience

“…Implicit commitment is one of the reasons for policy manipulation in our analysis. A third way to trigger a change of salient issue is by preventing the policy choice to reveal the policy preferences of the other policy makers (Dellis, 2007). This arises when the government is a coalition.…”

“…An incumbent's use of his policy choice to signal his competence are examined by Rogoff and Sibert (1988), Rogoff (1990), Hess and Orphanides (1995), Biglaiser and Mezzetti (1997), Canes‐Wrone, Herron, and Shotts (2001), and Mani and Mukand (2007). An incumbent's use of his policy choice to signal or hide his preferences are studied by Alesina and Cukierman (1990), Coate and Morris (1995), Schultz (2002), and Dellis (2007). Finally, studies that explore an incumbent's use of his policy choice to signal which policy is best include Canes‐Wrone, Herron, and Shotts (2001) and Schultz (2002).…”

The Space Between: Demonization of Opponents and Policy Divergence

“…This question is relevant given the state of U.S. politics and the policy gridlock in Washington, but it also informs how we understand local policy conflicts and the ability of policy actors to overcome barriers to compromise. While some of the gridlock and distance between espoused policy positions can be attributed to intentional political strategy (Dellis, ; Dodge & Lee, ; Hood, ; Moe, ), there is an element of nonrational, or unintentional, behavior about the motives and threats posed by political actors and these presumably stand in the way of policy compromise. Without compromise, debates become hollow except to the extent that they reinforce partisan identity viewpoints.…”