COOPERATIVENESS IN A MULTI‐PARTY SYSTEM: A MEASURE AND AN APPLICATION*

In: European journal of political research: official journal of the European Consortium for Political Research, Band 3, Heft 2, S. 181-197

Abstract

ABSTRACTMost measures of legislative voting behavior have been created to suit two‐party systems. Many special characteristics of multi‐party systems (e.g. coalition formation) can thus not be taken into account sufficiently. Consequently, there has been an increasing interest in methods that especially fit multi‐party systems. This article proposes one such method and illustrates it visually by simple vector algebra.The method is applied to data which consist of 450 divisions of the Finnish Parliament from 1964 to 1966. An attempt is made to interpret the results by taking into consideration the special characteristics of the Finnish political system and the country's political dynamics. The interpretation also uses Gunnar Sjöblom's classification of the basic goals of political parties. Finally, the observations concerning political coalition theory are condensed into broader generalizations, which, however, need further study.