"Till Elections Do Us Part": Coalition governments in Europe and Canada

Last week I attended a conference sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, “Till Elections Do Us Part: What Makes a Coalition Government Work?” The event brought European and Canadian scholars and members of parliament together in a dialogue about creating and maintaining coalition governments, including lessons learned from Canada’s pre-Christmas experiment with a coalition.

The dialogue was extremely informative, and the comparative insights provided a lot of food for thought. It was particularly useful to view Canada’s system through outside eyes, and German journalist Gerd Braune provided a wakeup call to Canadians that while we smugly view our system as the best in the world, seen from another perspective our system is rather dysfunctional!

In fact, several features of our political system were identified as problematic: our use of a first-past-the-post electoral system, our reliance on parliamentary conventions in selecting the prime minister, the prime minister’s ability to abuse parliamentary prerogative, and the uncertainty and the lack of transparency regarding the role of the Governor-General.

Canada is one of the only countries in the world to have a plurality or majoritarian electoral system and not have a stable two party system. This means that majority governments are an increasingly unlikely possibility, even as our system generally discourages political parties from getting along.

Research also shows that there is a relationship between electoral systems and political culture. For instance, Grant Amyot of Queen’s University showed evidence of a correlation between proportional representation and coalition governments with greater support for the welfare state.

Several presenters suggested that electoral reform is necessary in Canada to change the mindset – predominant in most Westminster political systems – that coalition governments are bad. However, some of the presenters felt that because opposition to electoral reform is so strong in many political parties, it is more likely that Canada will see coalition governments first, and that coalition governments will change the mindset about electoral reform.

Coalition governments certainly are easier to achieve in a system of proportional representation. However, in Canada’s recent track record of minority governments, the governing party always relies on at least one other party supporting it. To date, they have been happy to receive support while reluctant to share power. In the future, that could change, and the Liberal-NDP deal may have laid the groundwork for a future willingness to work together.

One of the lessons learned from Germany and the Netherlands is that coalitions don’t need to be announced during the campaign. In those countries, coalitions are concluded once the electoral results are in, and the will of the electorate is known. However, political parties usually make it clear which parties they would be willing to make a coalition with, and which parties they would not.

The coalitions in those countries are also very transparent about the process of forming a coalition. They take their time to negotiate a written, contractual agreement that includes a detailed legislative agenda for their coalition government. The current “grand coalition” government of Germany has a 190 page contract.

This was one of the key lessons for Canada, where the speed and the secrecy of the coalition negotiations led to accusations of backroom dealing.

Dutch and German voters are very open to coalitions, and in fact believe that they result in better policy because they accommodate multiple viewpoints. Supporters become accustomed to their political party participating in a coalition, and in fact they prefer it to a pure, principled opposition that doesn’t make any concessions but also has no impact on governance.

Building and maintaining a coalition can be hard work. Coalition governments depend on mutual respect that creates a space for both parties and recognizes the right of the other party to continue to exist in its own right. Creating a coalition requires that both sides have strong negotiating skills, are willing to make concessions, and force decisions on their coalition partner as seldom as possible. While every government has a “coalition crisis” when unforeseen events occur, early conflict resolution is key to maintaining the coalition.

But while coalition governments can offer positive alternatives, there are still challenges even within coalition governments or proportional representation systems. It is easy for power to rest with the elites, whether through strict party discipline or by removing the negotiating process from Parliament to the committee room. It is important to ensure that parliament maintains a meaningful role, and that representation means more than casting a ballot. Similarly, there needs to be a role for civil society in public debate and policy development.

Electoral reform also doesn’t necessarily make it easier for new parties to break into the political system. In Germany, which has a 5% threshold for obtaining seats in the legislature, only the Greens have done it successfully.

However, coalition governments do promote greater cooperation between political parties and accommodate a wider range of viewpoints. In Canada, where minority governments over the past five years have governed as if they had the right to impose whatever they wanted, a little cooperation and accommodation would be a very welcome thing.