Downs' Coalition Government

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the countries of Belgium, Germany, and France in the context of Downs's book. It explains how Downs attempts to conduct his analysis with two main ideas guiding his study. The first and most important is the volatility of voters; the other is to understand constraints under which politicians make coalition bargains.

From the Paper:

"William Downs presents an in-depth study of the effectiveness of coalition politics when presented on a regional or subnational level. A "coalition is when two or more groups or parties agree to pursue a common goal or a common set of goals, pool their resources in pursuit of this goal, and communicate and form binding coalitions concerning this goal" (20). In particular, Downs examines the regional governments of three countries: Belgium, Germany and France."

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