Coalition Government, Subnational Style: Multiparty Politics in Europe's Regional Parliaments

By William M. Downs

Challenges familiar assumptions of democratic theory and offers a clearer understanding of representation and cooperation in parliamentary democracies.

Coalition Government, Subnational Style directs attention to the dynamic but often overlooked world of subnational parliamentary politics. Examining Germany, France, and Belgium, William M. Downs shows how parties negotiate government formation when no single party secures a majority--an increasingly common feature of democratic life. These postelection bargaining processes reveal the core mechanics of representative governance: how parties interpret electoral signals, adjust campaign commitments, weigh policy against power, and collaborate, however uneasily, with long-standing rivals. In these negotiations, the everyday work of collective decision making becomes visible, along with the complications that shared responsibility creates for democratic accountability.

Drawing on cross-national surveys, extensive elite interviews, and three decades of systematic studies across state, regional, and provincial parliaments, Downs demonstrates that subnational coalition building carries high stakes for parties, voters, and the eventual ideological composition of governments. Far from peripheral, these struggles illuminate how institutional context shapes political behavior and how power is distributed and exercised beyond the national stage. Ultimately, Coalition Government, Subnational Style challenges familiar assumptions of democratic theory and offers a clearer understanding of representation and cooperation in the complex, multi-level systems that define contemporary parliamentary democracies.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814207480
• ISBN13: 9780814207482
• Release Date: January 2021
• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"