Government Formation in Multi-Level Settings

Abstract

It is generally assumed that in multi-level political systems political actors desire to form regional coalitions that match the party composition of the coalition governing at the central level, and that where this matching attempt does not occur it is because a possible new coalition formula for the central level is being tested at the regional one. This article shows that the congruence of party composition of government coalitions across levels is in itself neither desirable nor undesirable for regional political actors. Its strategic potential is mediated by three other factors: the institutional setting regulating the intensity of cross-level intergovernmental cooperation in policy-making, the type of party in question and its respective relative bargaining weight at both levels of government. Empirical evidence from four Spanish regional government-formation cases supports this argument.