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Voter expectations of government formation in coalition systems: The importance of the information context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Shaun Bowler Open the ORCID record for Shaun Bowler [Opens in a new window] ,
Gail Mcelroy Open the ORCID record for Gail Mcelroy [Opens in a new window]  and
Stefan Müller Open the ORCID record for Stefan Müller [Opens in a new window]
Shaun Bowler
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, USA
Gail Mcelroy
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Stefan Müller
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Ireland
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Abstract

Can voters in multi‐party systems predict which coalition will form the government with any degree of accuracy? To date, studies which explore voter expectations of coalition formation have emphasized individual level attributes, such as education, but the complexity of the environment at the time the coalitions are forming should also be consequential in enabling (or handicapping) voters in forming expectations. We examine the relative effects of individual level attributes (e.g., education, cognitive mobilization) versus contextual factors (e.g., information availability) in 19 German state elections and 3 German general elections between 2009 and 2017. We find that the ease of identifiability of alternative future governments varies significantly across multi‐party systems. We find that respondents are more likely to predict governments that they would like to see in office, that have a higher probability of receiving a majority of seats, and that consist of ideologically proximate parties. Combining survey data with a novel indicator of coalition signals, measured through a quantitative text analysis of newspaper coverage, we also find that voters consider positive pre‐election coalition signals when predicting the government. Finally, we find that the information environment is much more relevant for correct coalition predictions than individual‐level characteristics of respondents. Although individual attributes do influence predictive ability, these factors are strongly dominated by the context in which the prediction is taking place. The information environment has by far the largest effect on predicting coalition outcomes. Our results have implications for the literature on strategic voting in multi‐party settings, as well as the literature on accountability.

Keywords

electoral expectationscoalitionscoalition signalsstrategic voting

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
European Journal of Political Research , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 111 - 133
Copyright
© 2021 European Consortium for Political Research

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