Legislative Agreements and Association with the Government: Coalition Governance in Denmark

Within a broader literature of coalition governance (Hellström et al. 2021), there is a bounding interest in the impact of support parties during minority government (Anghel & Thürk 2021; Müller 2022; Krauss & Thürk 2022; Thürk & Krauss 2022). Voters associate support parties more with the government. Yet, in the Danish case, the results were not as clear. A possible reason may be the legislative agreements (forlig) prevalent within the minority governance of this particular political system (Christiansen & Pedersen 2014). These agreement are policy agreements between government opposition parties that are durable in time, and provide the participants with veto powers, and other institutional advantages of better access to information from the government. Hence, taking part in a legislative agreement associates a non-cabinet party with the government. So, frequent deal-making with the government may lead a political party to be considered almost as a support party, regardless of whether it is so or not. Yet, there are so many legislative agreements that it may become all blurred. Taking part in government as a junior partner may entail electoral losses (Klüwer and Spoon 2020). Some legislative agreements are broadly based, i.e. with political parties from both the left and the right. Others keep within their own bloc. It may be that there is stronger association with the government from narrow rather than broad agreements because this means, not only that the party supports some policies but at the same time support the survival of the government.One important aspect is to explain how the legislative agreement affect voting patterns in parliament, not only for those parties that are involved but also for the other parties. The aim of this paper is to find out whether it is possible for Danish non-cabinet parties to gain policy influence through legislative agreements, without having to suffer the electoral losses associated with being a junior partner, or what Thürk labels ‘a sweet spot’. Or, whether frequent association does come with a price to be paid. The author of this paper mapped legislative agreement until 2005 in Christiansen (2008). In this paper the data set is updated until 2022, but data on voter perceptions from electoral studies are also included used for the analyses. Literature: Anghel, Veronica, and Maria Thürk. "Under the influence: Pay-offs to legislative support parties under minority governments." Government and Opposition 56.1 (2021): 121-140. Christiansen, Flemming Juul, and Helene Helboe Pedersen. "Minority coalition governance in Denmark." Party Politics 20.6 (2014): 940-949. Klüver, Heike, and Jae-Jae Spoon. "Helping or hurting? How governing as a junior coalition partner influences electoral outcomes." The Journal of Politics 82.4 (2020): 1231-1242. Krauss, Svenja, and Maria Thürk. "Stability of minority governments and the role of support agreements." West European Politics 45.4 (2022): 767-792. Müller, Melanie. "Support Party Strategies on Important Policy Issues: Results from Swedish Minority Governments." Government and Opposition (2022): 1-22. Thürk, Maria, and Svenja Krauss. "The formalisation of minority governments." West European Politics (2022): 1-29.