Coalitions and Voting Behaviour in a differentiating Multi-Party-System

Voters on the Move or on the Run?
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pp. 65-87
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Oxford
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Oxford University Press
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2014,

Bernhard Weßels, Hans Rattinger, Sigrid Roßteutscher, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck,
Huber, Sascha
ISBN: 978-0-19-966263-0 (print); 978-0-19-175619-1 (online)
DOI: 
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199662630.003.0004
Abstract

In this chapter, it will be examined whether vote choices in the German multi-party system are guided not only by party and leader evaluations but also by coalition evaluations. It is argued that coalitions are meaningful political objects for voters in multi-party systems that can have effects on vote choices independent from party and leader evaluations—not only for sophisticated voters. With a growing number of parties and an increasingly complex party system over time, coalition considerations might have become even more important—as political objects and as cues for voting behavior.