Mechanisms of Government-Opposition Cooperation: Empirical Evidence from a Four Country-Comparison

An emerging literature on the relationship between government and opposition parties has given insights into why government and opposition sometimes cooperate and at other times seek conflict with each other. Quantitative analyses of parliamentary behaviour, such as votes in parliament, suggest that opposition parties act adversarially to seek electoral fortunes or to replace the government whereas they seek cooperation to exert influence on government policies or to increase their chances for future coalition cooperation. These findings are largely based on cross-sectional analyses of quantitative measurements with limitations to comparisons between parliaments. This paper aims to further investigate government-opposition dynamics using a qualitative approach. Analyzing interviews with members of four parliaments in very different political systems (United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, and Denmark) this paper aims to investigate the drivers of government-opposition relations more closely and tap more directly into what motivates the behaviour of parliamentarians of government and opposition parties. This also enables a four-country comparison of the causal mechanisms of government-opposition cooperation which sheds light on how members of parliament fulfill their representational roles in government and opposition.