Existence of Dominant Players and their Role in the Formation of a Cabinet Coalition

Abstract

A party is dominant if there is a majority coalition to which that party belongs such that it affords this party more possibilities to form an alternative winning coalition than any of the other members of the coalition. I present empirical evidence showing that an allocation of seats in a parliament is biased toward the high frequency occurrence of a dominant party and the low frequency occurrence of a dictator. If a dominant party forms a cabinet coalition, and if that cabinet coalition has a majority in parliament, then the dominant party tends to form a coalition which it dominates.