Coalition Governments and Party Competition: Political Communication Strategies of Coalition Parties*

Coalition parties have to reconcile two competing logics: they need to demonstrate unity to govern together, but also have to emphasize their own profile to succeed in elections. We argue that the electoral cycle explains whether unity or differentiation prevails. While differentiation dominates at the beginning and the end of the legislative term in close proximity to elections, compromise dominates the middle of the term when coalition governments focus on enacting a common policy agenda. To test our theoretical claims, we draw on an innovative quantitative text analysis of more than 21,000 press releases published by coalition parties from 2000 until 2010.