Coalition Government and Party Mandate

Catherine Moury is Assistant Professor at NOVA University, Lisbon, and researcher at CIES-IUL. Her research focuses on institutional change in the European Union and on coalition governments.

• 1. Introduction 2. Theorizing coalition agreements 3. Methodological choices 4. case study one: Germany (by Catherine Moury and Mark Ferguson) 5. case study two: Belgium 6. case study three: the Netherlands (by Catherine Moury and Arco Timmermans) 7. case study four: Italy 8. Coalition agreements and Cabinet decision-making in four countries 9. Explaining variation across cases: Preliminary Findings 10. Conclusion

"Professor Moury has provided us with the first true comparative empirical understanding of what goes on inside Western Europen coalition governments. She does so by examining in depth the part which 'coalition agremements' play and shows that part to be truly very large. As a result of her many empirical findings, moreover, one overall conclusion which emerges is that, deep down, coalition agreements help to maintain the true nature of cabinet govenrment: they do so by promoting 'collectivism' against the widespread tendency of prime ministers to assume a controlling function and against the potentially overwhelming desire of parties - and in particular of party leaders - to dominate the actions of cabinet ministers." - Jean Blondel, Professor Emeritus of The European University Institute