ABSTRACT
To what extent do the different types of party systems have different outcomes in terms of governments? Do two-party systems (almost) always yield single-party majorities? Are dominant parties in multiparty systems also dominant around the cabinet table? This chapter will provide relevant data and answers for these questions. First of all, though, for a party system to have any causal effect on a system's government there must be a linkage between the composition of parliament and the resulting government. Such a linkage occurs by definition in a parliamentary system. However, in a presidential system wherein the government is not accountable to the legislature, the composition of the cabinet reflects presidential wishes, not legislative outcomes. Thus the governments in the two presidential systems of this analysis-Cyprus (Greek) and now Georgia-cannot be analyzed as reflections of their party systems. A similar exclusion should also be done for Croatia, Russia, and Ukraineall three are semi presidential systems, but ones with extremely strong presidencies where the parliament and parliamentary elections matter little for the composition of government. In all the remaining polities, and thus in the vast majority of European party systems, we can analyze their subsequent governmental patterns.
