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Modelling Government Formation in Denmark and Beyond

Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, skjaeveland{at}ps.au.dk

This article proposes a new model of government formation: the Dual Power Base Model. The starting point is the median voter theorem, but an institutional limitation suggested by Laver and Shepsle (2000) is added. The claim is that it takes a certain number of MPs to cope with the practical tasks of running a government — that is, to have ‘Office Capacity’. If the median party has Office Capacity, the model predicts that the median party will form the government. If the median party does not have Office Capacity the median party will choose the closest party or parties that do have Office Capacity. This model is applied most thoroughly to government formation in Denmark, but also to the Norwegian and Swedish cases. When party positions are measured by previous voting behaviour on bills in parliament, the model explains 23 out of 25 government formations in Denmark in the period 1953 to 2007.

Key Words: Denmark • government formation • median party • party size • Scandinavia

Party Politics, Vol. 15, No. 6, 715-735 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1354068809342529


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