Taking It to the Extreme:The Effect of Coalition Cabinets on Foreign Policy

Institutional constraints have been offered by some scholars as an explanation for why multiparty coalitions should be more peaceful than single-party cabinets. Yet others see the same institutional setting as a prescription for more aggressive behavior. Recent research has investigated these conflicting expectations, but with mixed results. We examine the theoretical bases for these alternative expectations about the effects of coalition politics on foreign policy. We find that previous research is limited theoretically by confounding institutional effects with policy positions, and empirically by analyzing only international conflict data. We address these limitations by examining cases of foreign policy behavior using the World Event/Interaction Survey (WEIS) dataset. Consistent with our observation that institutional constraints have been confounded with policy positions, we find that coalitions are neither more aggressive nor more peaceful, but do engage in more extreme foreign policy behaviors. These findings are discussed with regard to various perspectives on the role of institutions in shaping foreign policy behavior.</p

Dutch Corporatism : Does It Still Work? Policy Formation and Macroeconomic Performance 1980-2005

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Rotten Parents and Disciplined Children: A Politico-Economic Theory of Public Expenditure and Debt

This paper proposes a dynamic politico-economic theory of debt, government finance and expenditure. Agents have preferences over a private and a government-provided publicngood, financed through labor taxation. Subsequent generations of voters choose taxation, government expenditure and debt accumulation through repeated elections. Debt introducesna conflict of interest between young and old voters: the young want more fiscal discipline.nWe characterize the Markov Perfect Equilibrium of the dynamic voting game. If taxes do not distort labor supply, the economy progressively depletes its resources throughndebt accumulation, leaving future generations “enslaved”. However, if tax distortions arensufficiently large, the economy converges to a stationary debt level which is bounded awaynfrom the endogenous debt limit. The current fiscal policy is disciplined by the concern ofnyoung voters for the ability of future government to provide public goods. The steady-statenand dynamics of debt depend on the voters’ taste for public consumption. The stronger the preference for public consumption, the less debt is accumulates. We extend the analysis to redistributive policies and political shocks. The theory predicts government debt to be mean reverting and debt growth to be larger under right-wing than under left-wingngovernments. Data from the US and from a panel of 21 OECD countries confirm thesentheoretical predictions