Compromising for Worldly Rewards? The Short-term Consequences of Coalition Agreements on Voters

As government formation becomes increasingly difficult in multiparty systems, coalition talks and the content of coalition agreements receive heightened media and public attention. How do people react to these coalition agreements? This paper examines the short-term consequences of coalition agreements on voters in European democracies relying on survey panel data and original content analysis of coalition agreements. It tests a set of theoretical expectations that deal with what makes voters less likely to be satisfied with government agreements, focusing on variation across coalition agreements and across voters. The results indicate that coalition agreements have important consequences on voters, but more so for party identifiers and on issues that voters consider important. These findings have important implications for our understanding of public opinion and provide important insights into the current difficulties and challenges of representative democracy.