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One of the biggest challenges parties in multiparty governments face is making policies together and overcoming the risk of a policy stalemate. Scholars have devoted much attention to the study of how various institutions in cabinet and parliament help coalition parties with conflicting policy preferences to be efficient in the policy-making process. Coalition agreements are one of many instruments coalition partners can use to facilitate policy making. However, many scholars describe such agreements' actual role as cheap talk, due to their legally non-enforceable nature. Do coalition agreements make a difference in the policy-making productivity of multiparty governments? To address this question, this article focuses on governments' policy output and investigates whether coalition agreements increase the policy-making productivity of multiparty cabinets. Its central argument is that written agreements between coalition partners strengthen the capacity of coalition governments to make policy reforms, even when there is a high degree of ideological conflict among partners. To evaluate this argument, the article analyzes data on economic reform measures adopted by national governments in 11 Western European countries over a 40-year period (1978–2017), based on a coding of more than 1000 periodical country reports issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The results show that while coalition agreements foster policy productivity in minimal winning cabinets, they play a weaker role in minority and surplus governments. Coalition agreements limit the negative effect of intra-cabinet ideological conflict on reform productivity, suggesting that such contracts help parties overcome the risk of policy stalemate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success and longevity of coalition governments depends on the ability to keep conflicts between coalition members at bay. The risk of such conflicts is often assessed by drawing on proxy measures, such as the ideological heterogeneity among government parties. This article presents a new approach to measuring the atmosphere between government parties. The 'coalition mood' is a time-varying measure that draws on applause patterns between coalition partners during legislative debates. The article exemplifies the measurement approach based on automated analyses of over 105,000 plenary debates in Germany and Austria. The article then assesses the measure's face, concurrent and predictive validity. It finds the measure well aligned with qualitative evidence, shows that the coalition mood is correlated with poll ratings of the government parties and helps to predict the duration of legislative processes. The conclusion highlights future applications of the coalition mood for research on coalition politics and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of government portfolios – that is, the distribution of competencies among government ministries and office holders – has been largely ignored in the study of executive and coalition politics. This article argues that portfolio design is a substantively and theoretically relevant phenomenon that has major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics. The authors use comparative data on portfolio design reforms in nine Western European countries since the 1970s to demonstrate how the design of government portfolios changes over time. Specifically, they show that portfolios are changed frequently (on average about once a year) and that such shifts are more likely after changes in the prime ministership or the party composition of the government. These findings suggest a political logic behind these reforms based on the preferences and power of political parties and politicians. They have major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the state is relevant for explaining differences in the dynamics of West European parties and party systems, presenting a comprehensive framework illustrated by a number of empirical examples, followed by a systematic comparison of Austria and France. The state was highly relevant for party and party system dynamics in France. In Austria the state helps to explain both the long party system stability and more recent changes, offset by changes in the institutional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several stalagmite records have yielded important but discontinuous insights into northern Iberian climate since the Last Glacial. Here we present the first continuous Iberian stalagmite-based reconstruction of climate since the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, from a single stalagmite sample (GAR-01 from La Garma Cave, Cantabria). The ∼13.5 ka GAR-01 record provides the opportunity for replication, continuation, and aggregation of previously published records from northern Spain. The GAR-01 record reveals shifts in oxygen isotope ratios that are inexplicable by appealing to a single control (i.e., exclusively temperature, rainfall amount, etc.). Herein we explore the potential role of rainfall and temperature seasonality shifts on the new δ18O record using a simple Monte Carlo approach to estimate the seasonal distribution of rainfall and the annual temperature range at 100-year timeslices across the record. This model is corroborated by intervals of monthly-resolved laser ablation trace element data, providing glimpses into past Iberian seasonality shifts. The most salient features of the modelled results include extremely dry Younger Dryas winters (∼12.9–11.6 ka BP) and several intervals during the mid-Holocene with almost no summer rainfall (e.g., at 4.2 and 9.0 ka BP). By 1.6 ka BP, a near-modern rainfall seasonality was established. According to the modelling results, seasonal rainfall and temperature distribution variability can account for 95% of the record. The model presented here provides a new tool for extracting critical missing seasonality information from stalagmite δ18O records. Intervals where the model does not converge may represent transient climate anomalies with unusual origins that warrant further investigation. • First continuous stalagmite reconstruction of North Iberian palaeoclimate spanning the Younger Dryas and Holocene. • The ∼13.5 ka GAR-01 record provides replication, continuation, and aggregation of existing regional stalagmite records. • N. Iberian stalagmite δ18O records largely covary but with a δ18O offset that reflects cave altitude and inland position. • Using a simple Monte Carlo approach, shifts in GAR-01 δ18O are explained by changing temperature and rainfall seasonality. • Monthly-resolved LA-ICPMS data provide glimpses into past Iberian seasonality shifts and corroborate the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]