Policy horizons and parliamentary government

by Paul Warwick

"Policy Horizons and Parliamentary Government introduces a new hypothesis concerning the formation and survival of coalition governments in West European parliamentary democracies. The essence of this hypothesis is that parties in West European parliamentary systems have discrete thresholds or 'policy horizons' that mark the maximum extent of policy compromise that they are prepared to undertake in order to participate in government. Because this represents a fundamental change in our understanding of how parliamentary systems function in the absence of a majority party, it requires new evidence and new computer software to analyse that evidence."--Jacket.