A number of factors determine Cabinet size, while Cabinet size itself affects public spending levels and policy outcomes

As Democratic Audit research has shown, the size of British Cabinet has grown exponentially in recent years. But does this itself have any impact on policy? Indridi H. Indridason presents evidence that it does, particularly in terms of public spending levels, and shows that cabinet size relates more generally to the size of the Government overall. Meanwhile, a number of factors, including political expediency, the growth of Coalition government, and the need to maintain party discipline all influence cabinet size

Uncertainty, complexity, and Gamson's law: comparing coalition formation in Western Europe

According to Gamson's Law, the allocation of cabinet portfolios in parliamentary democracies is proportional to the government parties' legislative seat shares. However, portfolio allocation departs systematically from perfect proportionality. This paper proposes a theory of portfolio allocation that seeks to explain the variance in proportionality across different bargaining situations. It argues that the degree to which the coalition formation process is characterised by uncertainty and complexity influences portfolio allocation. In uncertain and complex bargaining situations, parties that otherwise would be in an advantageous bargaining position will have a difficult time exploiting their bargaining advantage. As a result, portfolio allocation in such circumstances will be closer to proportionality. These patterns are observed in data on coalition formation in 14 West European parliamentary systems in the period 1945-1999

Replication data for: "Making Candidates Count: The Logic of Electoral Alliances in Two Round Legislative Elections" Journal of Politics 69(1): 193-205

Electoral systems have been shown to influence strategic voting and the development of party systems but the focus has rarely been on the strategies that parties adopt to take advantage of the electoral system under which they compete. Electoral pacts form one such strategy. We present a theory about the formation of electoral pacts in majority run-off elections and pay special attention to the consequences of the presence of extremist parties. Analyzing the 2002 French legislative elections we find that the Socialists and the Greens were more likely to form an alliance (and to agree on a common candidate) in closely contested constituencies and where there was a potential of coordination failure on the right. Finally, we show that the agreement primarily benefited the larger party

Betting on the underdog : The influence of social networks on vote choice

People are commonly expected not to waste their vote on parties with small probabilities of being elected. Yet, many end up voting for underdogs. We argue that voters gauge the popular support for their preferred party from their social networks. When social networks function as echo chambers, a feature observed in real-life networks, voters overestimate underdogs’ chances of winning. We conduct voting experiments in which some treatment groups receive signals from a simulated network. We compare the effect of networks with a high degree of homogeneity against random networks. We find that homophilic networks increase the level of support for underdogs, which provides evidence to back up anecdotal claims that echo chambers foster the development of fringe parties.Sociala nätverk och val av parti: att utveckla nya språkbaserade verktyg för att studera väljarbeteend

Betting on the underdog : The influence of social networks on vote choice

People are commonly expected not to waste their vote on parties with small probabilities of being elected. Yet, many end up voting for underdogs. We argue that voters gauge the popular support for their preferred party from their social networks. When social networks function as echo chambers, a feature observed in real-life networks, voters overestimate underdogs’ chances of winning. We conduct voting experiments in which some treatment groups receive signals from a simulated network. We compare the effect of networks with a high degree of homogeneity against random networks. We find that homophilic networks increase the level of support for underdogs, which provides evidence to back up anecdotal claims that echo chambers foster the development of fringe parties.Sociala nätverk och val av parti: att utveckla nya språkbaserade verktyg för att studera väljarbeteend