Coalition governments are a basic pattern of parliamentary democracy that is put to the test by new alliance necessities and options, among other things. Our research focusses primarily on the formation of coalitions: How are coalition negotiations organised? How do the internal party decision-making processes take place when forming a government? And what do coalition agreements achieve?
If you are interested in our research on coalitions, please contact Dr Danny Schindler at schindler@iparl.de or Oliver Kannenberg at kannenberg@iparl.de.
The coalition negotiations after the Austrian National Council elections in 2024 developed into the longest government formation of the Second Republic and led to an oversized three-party coalition of the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS for the first time since 1949. Oliver Kannenberg traces the three coalition negotiations chronologically, paying particular attention to the informal practices, party-political blockades and constitutional leeway.
Communication is both a key task and a complex challenge for political parties. Danny Schindler spoke to the ZDF programme "Berlin direkt" about the tension between election campaign rhetoric and finding compromises in coalition negotiations.
For the Politikum podcast by WDR5 Danny Schindler explained why political leadership and the ability to compromise on a daily basis are needed for coalition talks. Extensive coalition agreements on the other hand are not necessarily needed.
In view of new coalition options and necessities, internal party processes are becoming increasingly important when forming a government. In their article for the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Oliver Kannenberg and Danny Schindler analysed the decision-making process of the Berlin SPD after the 2023 repeat election - from a power-political perspective and from the point of view of inner-party democracy.
The newly formed government of Mongolia is currently negotiating a coalition agreement and is modelling itself on the German traffic light government. At the invitation of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Danny Schindler and Oliver Kannenberg advised a delegation from the government on the upcoming coalition negotiations.
The federal traffic light coalition is currently perceived as divided and disunited. Compromises are often found after lengthy and mostly public conflicts. But what is the situation in the governing parliamentary groups and members of parliament? In a new blog post for the American-German Institute, Florian Bastick and Franziska Carstensen analyse written questions from members of the Bundestag to find out whether conflicts between the coalition partners are also visible here.
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