‘Natural because it had become just that.’ Path dependence in pre-electoral pacts and government formation: A New Zealand case study

Abstract

Formal models of government formation frequently find their predictions confounded in the real world and/or fail to explain empirical observations, leading to calls for new approaches. The formation of New Zealand's 1999 minority coalition government—one which ran counter to the predictions of all conventional coalition theories—illustrates the potential contribution of path dependence to those approaches, particularly when we are trying to explain why pre-electoral pacts are relatively good predictors of government composition.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the helpful comments of the anonymous referees and the participants of the workshop on ‘Government Formation: A Theoretically Informed Inductive Approach’, held at the ECPR Joint Sessions in Torino, 22–27 March 2002. Their attendance at that event was made possible by the New Zealand Political Change Project funded by the NZ Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.

Notes

¹We would like to thank the members and staff of that government who agreed to be interviewed for this research. For the Labour Party: Chris Carter, Labour MP and Junior Whip (28 February 2002); Michael Cullen, Labour Deputy Leader and Minister of Finance (26 February 2002); Jonathan Hunt, Labour MP and Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives (23 January 2002); Steve Maharey, Labour MP and Minister of Social Services and Employment (5 February 2002); Tony Timms, Office of the Prime Minister (27 February 2002). For the Alliance Party: Jim Anderton, Alliance Leader and Deputy Prime Minister (23 January 2002); Laila Harre, Alliance MP and Minister of Women's Affairs and Youth Affairs (21 February 2002); Andrew Ladley, Office of the Deputy Prime Minster (31 January 2002); Sandra Lee, Alliance Deputy Leader and Minister of Conservation and of Local Government (12 March 2002); Matt McCarten, Alliance President and Campaign Manager (7 February 2002); Jon Pagani, Press Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister (23 January 2002). We also interviewed, and would like to thank, Rod Donald, Green Co-leader (7 February 2002); Jeanette Fitzsimons, Green Co-leader (9 February 2002).

²Special votes are those votes which, for various reasons (illness, travel, etc), have not been cast straightforwardly but are nonetheless valid (in the sense that they are cast by enrolled electors who have made a ‘special declaration’). ‘Specials’ constitute about 10% of all votes cast, and are added to election-night totals within 10 days.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Bale

Tim Bale is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sussex, which he joined in 2003 from Victoria University of Wellington. His text ‘European Politics: A Comparative Introduction’ has just been published by Palgrave.

Jonathan Boston

Jonathan Boston is Professor of Public Policy and Deputy Director of the Institute of Policy Studies within the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington.

Stephen Church

Stephen Church works in the New Zealand Parliament as an advisor to the United Future Party. He taught political science and public policy at Victoria University of Wellington from 1999 to 2002.