Identifying key players in the government-formation process: strong and dominant parties in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Coalition governments are the norm across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While a number of empirical studies have attempted to understand why certain governments form in the region there has, as yet, been no consideration of why certain parties emerge as the key players in the government-formation process. This paper uses two models to identify key actors in government formation in CEE: the dominant and central players model; and the portfolio allocation model. The results show that each of these models contributes significantly to our understanding of which parties are key actors in CEE. The key actors identified by each model are overwhelmingly likely to become members of the cabinet and provide the Prime Minister of the government. Key players are also more likely to accrue a greater share of portfolio payoffs from the coalition bargaining process as well as acquiring the most salient portfolios.

Keywords:

• government formation
• dominant and central players
• strong parties
• key actors
• Central and Eastern Europe
• coalition governments

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council grant number ES/J003425/1. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

Notes

For a comprehensive review of the motivations of politicians in the government formation process, see Laver and Schofield (1990, ch. 3).

Baron refers to central rather than median parties but does suggest that the central party is analogous to the median party.

There are of course times when this varies. For example, a ‘super-majority’ in the legislature is often required to make changes to the constitution of most states. This may be set at two-thirds (66.7%) of the voting power in the legislature.

This is based on the desirability relation as outlined by Peleg (1981) which can be simply stated as follows: party S can form a winning coalition with set of parties T but not with set of parties Q. In this situation, T is more desirable than Q for party S. The dominant player is derived from this relationship. Coalition T is dominated by player j if j can form a winning coalition with a set of parties outside of T but T cannot do the same without j. In this situation, j is said to be dominant (van Roozendaal, 1992, 8).

This is not an uncontroversial assumption, and some dispute the level of autonomy that Laver and Shepsle ascribe to individual portfolios (Dunleavy and Bastow 2001).

A more detailed discussion of this expert survey data can be found in Savage (2012).

Winset Calculator, http://homepage.tinet.ie/~doylep/Winset/ws_index.htm, accessed 2 February 2012,

A detailed account of the process that led to this peculiar coalition bargaining process can be found in Roberts (2003).

I treat both Very Strong and Merely Strong parties as Strong in this analysis. Only three parties were considered Merely Strong in Table, the MSZP in 2002 and 2004 (Hungary) and KDU-CSL in 1998 (Czech Republic). Very and Merely Strong parties should both be key players in the government formation process and therefore it is practical and logical to treat them as one in this evaluation (Martin and Stevenson 2001).

A further six portfolios were allocated to non-partisan independents.

The Defence and Interior portfolios were also considered to be presidential rather than cabinet appointments at the time.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lee Michael Savage

†Current address: Department of European and International Studies, King's College London, East Wing, Strand, London, WCR2 2LS, UK.