Coalition governments have traditionally been criticised for creating low clarity of responsibility and thus impairing voter's ability to hold representatives accountable. However, recent scholarship has suggested that voters are evaluating not only the policy output of the coalition as a whole, but also the performance of the individual coalition members in the government formation period. The answers to two open-ended questions included in the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) in 2019, provide unique insights into the considerations that voters' have when evaluating the formation of a government coalition as well as one of the key payoffs in coalition negotiations - the allocation of ministerial portfolios. First, we explore what voters think about when evaluating coalitions, and secondly, we test whether voters with high levels of political sophistication are more motivated by policy achievements or aspects related to ingroup-outgroup dynamics. Our results will have important consequences for coalition formation, governance and political communication.
