IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v104y2010i03p503-518_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Conditional Impact of Incumbency on Government Formation

Author

Listed:
  • MARTIN, LANNY W.
  • STEVENSON, RANDOLPH T.

Abstract

Previous research on coalition politics has found an “incumbency advantage” in government formation, but it has provided no clear explanation as to why this advantage exists. We classify existing theories as either preference-based or institutions-based explanations for why incumbent coalitions might be likely to form again, and we integrate these explanations into a coherent theoretical argument. We also claim that it is possible, to some extent, to distinguish these explanations empirically by taking into account the “historical context” of coalition bargaining. Using a comprehensive new data set on coalition bargaining in Europe, we show that coalitions, in general, are more likely to form if the parties comprising them have worked together in the recent past, and that incumbent coalitions are more likely to re-form if partners have not experienced a severe public conflict while in office together or suffered a recent setback at the polls. The incumbency advantage disappears completely if partners have become mired in conflict or have lost legislative seats (even after accounting for the impact of seat share on coalition size). Moreover, in certain circumstances, institutional rules that grant incumbents an advantage in coalition bargaining greatly enhance their ability to remain in office.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin, Lanny W. & Stevenson, Randolph T., 2010. "The Conditional Impact of Incumbency on Government Formation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 503-518, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:104:y:2010:i:03:p:503-518_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055410000213/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Giovannoni & Daniel Seidmann, 2014. "Corruption and power in democracies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 707-734, March.
    2. Anna Bassi, 2021. "Parties’ Preferences for Office and Policy Goals," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, January.
    3. Sergiu Gherghina & George Jiglău, 2013. "Outside the Government: Why Ethnic Parties Fail to Join the Post-Communist Cabinets," Working Papers 335, Leibniz Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies).
    4. Goodhart, Lucy, 2013. "Who Decides? Coalition Governance and Ministerial Discretion," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 8(3), pages 205-237, June.
    5. Enzo Lenine, 2020. "Modelling Coalitions: From Concept Formation to Tailoring Empirical Explanations," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, November.
    6. Martin Gross & Marc Debus, 2018. "Gaining new insights by going local: determinants of coalition formation in mixed democratic polities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 61-80, January.
    7. Zhuo Chen & Prashant Kale & Robert E. Hoskisson, 2018. "Geographic overlap and acquisition pairing," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 329-355, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:104:y:2010:i:03:p:503-518_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.