The electoral consequences of coalition bargaining

Do coalition negotiation outcomes influence the electoral prospects of coalition parties? Before taking over government, coalition parties bargain about the allocation of ministerial posts and the policy agenda for the upcoming term. While coalition research has devoted considerable attention to explaining who gets into the cabinet and how payoffs are distributed, the question of how coalition bargaining outcomes affect the electoral support of coalition parties has not been investigated thus far. Using an unexpected event during survey design, we shed light on precisely this question. More specifically, we exploit the publication of the coalition negotiation outcomes during the fieldwork of post-electoral election surveys to estimate the effect of payoff allocation on voter support. Contrary to what has commonly been expected in the literature, we show that coalition bargaining has largely no effect on voter support. Our results have major implications for our understanding of the relationship between coalition negotiations, elections, and political representation.