Radoslaw Zubek publishes new article on coalition politics in European democracies

DPIR’s Associate Professor Radoslaw Zubek has published a new article in The Journal of Politics exploring how multi-party governments shape legislative institutions in European democracies.

Previous work shows that robust legislative oversight institutions strengthen the ability of coalition governments to enforce policy agreements. This raises the question of whether coalitions choose such institutions strategically.

In a novel analysis of committee procedure reforms undertaken in 14 European parliamentary democracies over more than 60 years, the article shows that legislative institutions tend to be strengthened more extensively under multiparty coalitions in which preference divergence between coalition partners is substantial and in which coalition parties have similar probability of making proposals to implement coalition policy.

These findings open interesting avenues for future work on how parties shape legislative institutions in parliamentary democracies.

This publication forms part of Radoslaw Zubek’s broader research agenda on coalition politics and legislative institutions. 

You can find out more by visiting Radoslaw Zubek's personal website.