Gamson's Law and voters’ perceptions of portfolio allocation

Abstract

The assignment of ministerial portfolios to parties is one of the most contested and consequential processes in coalition politics. Accordingly, a great deal of scholarship has investigated how many portfolios different parties obtain in coalition negotiations as well as which parties are assigned which portfolios. However, to our knowledge, no one has ever examined how voters perceive the outcomes of this process – perceptions which must be fundamental to any assessment of policy responsibility in systems with coalition government. This article uses original survey data from four Western European countries to examine voter perceptions of the distribution of cabinet portfolios across parties. In addition to describing the extent to which voters know this distribution, the article also examines whether their perceptions are consistent with a number of different heuristics that voters might use to infer characteristics of the cabinet portfolio distribution. The results suggest that many voters use party role and size heuristics to infer the number of portfolios allocated to different parties as well as an ‘importance rule’, a ‘topical affinity rule’ and a ‘historical regularity rule’ to infer which parties hold which portfolios, but also that a significant number of voters have direct knowledge (not inferred using heuristics) of which parties hold which ministries.

What You See Is Not Always What You Get: Bargaining before an Audience under Multiparty Government

“…Empirical work finds clear support for this idea. For example, Lin et al (2017) demonstrate that voters employ a "proportionality heuristic": voters expect that, in coalition governments, parties will secure shares of cabinet ministries that correspond to their relative size. 3 Duch and Stevenson (2013) show that voters rely on a "responsibility attribution heuristic" to draw inferences about policy influence based on the agenda power of particular cabinet members (such as the prime minister).…”

“…Some are highly salient, information about them is readily available, and the relative success of parties in obtaining them can be evaluated by voters using simple heuristics. For example, voters can easily perceive whether the share of cabinet portfolios received by a party corresponds to its relative size (Lin et al 2017). Most voters are also likely aware of whether the most prestigious cabinet ministries (such as the Prime Ministership) are awarded to the largest coalition party.…”

“…More importantly, future work should move beyond the evidence we have presented here-which focuses on the behavioral implications of our argument for bargaining outcomes-to include an analysis of supporter (especially voter) behavior. Specifically, building on such work as that of Lin et al (2017), Duch and Stevenson (2013), and Bowler, Gschwend, and Indridason (Forthcoming), it is critical to investigate the following questions: To what extent do supporters employ heuristics to evaluate party performance under coalition governance? And to what extent does future support for a party depend on meeting supporter expectations induced by these heuristics?…”

Portfolio allocation patterns and policy‐making effectiveness in minority coalition governments

“…In addition, as illustrated in Figure A2, our data also suggests that the traditional area-driven portfolio allocation does not always prevail. For instance, defence and economy are considered to be the main areas associated with the center-right party Det Konservative Folkeparti (see, Lin et al 2017), yet the party does not always control portfolios related to these areas. We consider this as another piece of evidence that corroborates our argument.…”

Who Gets What in Foreign Affairs? Explaining the Allocation of Foreign Ministries in Coalition Governments

“…This gap has not yet been filled (Raabe and Linhart 2015), and research on ‘who gets what’ in coalition negotiations very much remains the ‘ugly sister’ (Ecker et al 2015: 814) of studies on the quantitative distribution of portfolios. In particular, there is very little systematic work into the allocation of individual portfolios among coalition partners (Lin et al 2017: 929; for a notable exception, see Ecker et al 2015) beyond the unsurprising finding that the largest coalition partner is most likely to hold the office of prime minister (Warwick and Druckman 2001). Virtually no work has specifically investigated the drivers behind the allocation of foreign ministries.…”