ABSTRACT
Introduction Arend Lijphart’s simple differentiation between majoritarian and consensus democracies remains a valid method of creating a typology of governments. On the one hand, there is the Westminster majoritarian winner-takes-all principle of electoral competition, and, on the other, minority or coalition governments based on compromise and consensus. In this chapter, we examine government in the strictest sense of the word, looking for variations among our five consensus democracies. Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Strøm’s pioneering study on coalition government in Western Europe will be an important basis for this analysis, due to its scholarly quality and encyclopaedic collection of data through the year 2000 (Müller and Strøm 2000; I had the great privilege to be part of their research group). Switzerland also has coalition governments of the four parties in the ‘magic formula’ (Zauberformel); however, as this chapter will describe, it diverges considerably from the other countries in several ways. The chapter starts with a comparison of government structures (i.e. prime minister and Cabinet). The second section deals with patterns of government formation in the five countries. The third section discusses the rules of the game within coalition governments and how party discipline is enforced inside and outside the Cabinet. Finally, some information is provided on how governments are terminated.
