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Analysing Payoff Salience in Coalition Allocation: Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Committee Chairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2018

Matt Evans
Matt Evans*
Affiliation:
Matt Evans, Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, Pennsylvania, US
*
*Corresponding author: Email: mde15@psu.edu
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Abstract

Research during the past six decades has found that parties joining coalition governments receive payoffs, in the form of government posts, in proportion to their coalition share. These findings, however, do not indicate which coalition partners receive payoffs that will most enable them to influence their preferred policies. This article joins recent qualitative analyses of coalition allocation and examines payoffs in terms of the salience of positions relative to the policy goals of the parties receiving them. The single-country study of eight Israeli governments from 1992 to 2015 integrates quantitative and qualitative analyses of coalition payoffs. This article contributes to coalition allocation research by expanding the scope of coalition payoffs to include junior ministers and committee chairs, and by distinguishing payoff outcomes for different party families. The results show an edge for formateur parties in obtaining policy-salient ministerial payoffs and an advantage to non-formateurs for policy-salient deputy (junior) minister positions.

Keywords

ministerscommittee chairsIsraelsaliencepolitical party behaviourcoalition allocation and formation

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 490 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2018. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press

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