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Coalition Termination in Norway: Models and Cases
Author(s) -
Narud Hanne Marthe
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1995.tb00153.x
Subject(s) - ideology , salient , cleavage (geology) , political science , position (finance) , government (linguistics) , politics , political economy , order (exchange) , diversity (politics) , law and economics , economic system , public administration , economics , law , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , geotechnical engineering , finance , fracture (geology)
This article focuses on coalition termination in Norway and explores the questions: Which issues are severe enough to bring down a coalition government? To what extent are coalition crises caused by a complex bargaining environment? On the basis of a unified model for government solution, three cases are examined: the termination of Borten II in 1971, Willoch III in 1986, and Syse in 1990. The analysis demonstrates that the complexity of the bargaining environment is conditioned by the dimensionality of the party system. The stability of coalitions is restricted by the cleavage structure and the ideological diversity of the system, as parties are polarized along several conflict dimensions. Terminal issues are fundamentally related to the parties' position in the policy space. In order to preserve party identity and unity, political parties change from a cooperative to a competitive strategy when issues belonging to the “heartland” of the parties concerned become salient.