THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY AND THE DURABILITY OF EUROPEAN COALITION CABINETS - NEW VARIATIONS ON A GAME-THEORETIC PERSPECTIVE
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This paper concentrates on establishing the link between the political economy and particular aspects of coalition behavior. Specifically, it examines the effect which rising prices and the loss of jobs in society has upon the longevity of seventy-seven coalition cabinets in six European democracies. The study is viewed as a first step toward the integration of political economy and the formal theories of coalition behavior. The basic premise guiding this analysis is that by focusing attention directly upon two of the more salient phenomena of the economic environment, namely, inflation and unemployment, additional insight can be gained into the conditions which constrain the survivability of cabinet coalitions in European democracies, thereby highlighting the important role which the environmental context plays in theories of coalition behavior. The findings suggest that (1) simply identifying the types of coalitions is not enough to gauge accurately the endurance of cabinets in the face of inflation and unemployment; (2) the independent effects of inflation on the longevity of coalition cabinets are less significant, when controlling for unemployment and the ideological displacement of the cabinet itself; and (3) the tenure of undersized and minimum winning coalitions is substantially and significantly shortened by unemployment, while oversized coalitions are free from the effects of either inflation or unemployment. The implications of these findings, as well as implied paths for future research, are discussed at the conclusion. 1983, Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
