In most representative democracies, citizens elect representatives but not government members. Becoming a ruler often depends on the capacity to build alliances with other parties in one of the key junctures of the political process: the government formation process. Beyond traditional variables...

An increasing number of studies exploit the occurrence of unexpected events during the fieldwork of public opinion surveys to estimate causal effects. In this paper we discuss the use of this identification strategy based on unforeseen and salient events that split the sample of respondents into...

At an extreme, partners in coalition governments can divide tasks and individually decide policy in their ministerial jurisdictions. At the other extreme, parties sharing o ce can compromise and collectively set policy in each dimension regardless of portfolio allocation. This paper provides a...

Although it is said that voters fi nd it more diffi cult to attribute blame and credit for policy-making when a coalition is in offi ce, it is also true that coalitions can manage decision-making in di fferent ways, shaping how the electorate can see the lines of responsibility. We adapt Duch...

Decentralization shapes the way policy authority is shared between the national and regional levels and that, I argue, will have consequences for government formation. In particular, I contend that the allocation of portfolios in regional coalition governments will be affected by the degree of...

When governments are in a parliamentary minority they have to negotiate with opposition parties over the annual budget. We argue that, as a consequence, the preferences of the opposition concerning fiscal outcomes should be reflected in the yearly budget balances. We present a theoretical...