Party Competition and Coalition Formation

Abstract

Formal theory has often been criticized for shying away from empirical testing, which brought some to wonder about its empirical relevance altogether. Theorists, on their side, often responded by accusing much of the empirical work in political science as being devoid of any theoretical guidance. This paper argues that part of the problem is due to the problematic fit between traditional quantitative research and abstract theoretical models. Here, we illustrate how one could bridge the gap by connecting the ever puzzling realities of Italian parliamentary politics with a theoretical model of multiparty parliamentary systems. The empirics of Italian politics raise more questions than answers and the theoretical model we apply seems awfully complex and frustratingly abstract. With the use of relatively simple visual tools, we believe that we help make some sense of the complex realities of Italian politics and, in the process, demonstrate the empirical relevance of the theoretical model we chose to apply.

Government survival the Italian way: The core and the advantages of policy immobilism during the First Republic

“…Precisely for this reason, the prospect of electoral unpopularity incurred from continuing to support a government policy programme particularly distant from the one favoured by a party's own constituency could lead a party to move to the opposition. After all, opposition parties do not have access to any office benefits deriving from participation in a majority coalition, but at least avoid the (electoral) cost of endorsing policies that deviate (significantly) from their declared positions (see Giannetti & Sened 2004: 489).…”

Coalition-Formation as a Result of Policy and Office Motivations in the German Federal States

“…the uncovered set (Giannetti and Sened, 2004;Sened, 1996;cf. Shepsle and Weingast, 1984), the structural stable core (Sened, 1996;cf.…”

“…1 Despite its theoretical innovation, the application of Sened's model to empirical data has been meagre. While there are some applications in the literature (Giannetti and Sened, 2004;Sened, 1996;Linhart and Shikano, 2007), they remain more akin to a 'stylized case study' rather than systematic quantitative empirical evidence. Most importantly for the purpose of this article is that, to date, there are no systematic quantitative estimates of the weights that parties put on these two complementary motivations.…”

Religious Parties in a Secularizing Political Space: The Case of Italy

“…62 For the 1994 parliamentary elections, the CCD ran as part of the Polo della Libertà, winning under its own name 29 seats (of 630) in the Camera and 12 (of 315) in the Senate. 63 The party itself claimed that during the election it allied with the Polo della Libertà in order to block the anticipated victory of the left. Leaders of the Polo invited the CCD into the cabinet in order to make a goodwill gesture towards Catholics.…”