@article{2015:best:komplexe_k,
title = {Komplexe Koalitionen, perplexe Wähler, perforierte Parteiprofile. Eine kritische Revision jüngerer Befunde zur deutschen Koalitionsdemokratie und ein Reformvorschlag},
year = {2015},
note = {Due to the pluralization of the party system, government formation in
Germany is moving away from coalitions within the established
political camps and towards grand coalitions or other, sometimes
complex coalitions between parties from different camps . As it seems,
this development is not regarded as problematic by most scholars of
German coalition politics . The author disagrees for three reasons:
First, the bigger part of the electorate still prefers a coalition
within a political camp . For that reason, secondly, electoral
campaigns mostly re- volve around the respective pre-electoral
coalitions . This, however, is less and less reflected in the ultimate
government formation, causing a problem from the point of view of de-
mocracy theory . Third, party profiles risk to be blurred in
“coalitions of the unwilling” . Parties tend to be punished at the
polls for participating in them - in grand coalitions, it usually hits
the junior partner . Revitalizing the established coalitions seems
desirable, as they allow parties to better preserve their brand core
and provide the voters with clear alter- natives to chose from .
Therefore the introduction of a majority bonus based on the Italian
model is suggested . This would be a milder and at the same time more
effective reform than a British-style majority or a parallel voting
system, and would correspond to the parties’ respective interests .
[ZParl, vol . 46, no . 1, pp . 82 - 99]},
journal = {ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
pages = {82--99},
author = {Best, Volker},
volume = {46},
number = {1}
}