University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Is the Grass Really Greener? The Rationale and Reality of Support Party Status: A New Zealand Case Study

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 23:05 authored by Tim Bale, Christine Dann
The motives, behaviour, treatment and fate of parties which, rather than joining governments provide them with a working legislative majority, are not well studied. In the light of coalition theory, we explore these issues by way of observation research on New Zealand's Green Party - since 1999 a support party to a minority centre-left government. We isolate three factors important in coming to this type of arrangement - ideology, calculation and the institutional environment - all mediated by party system variation. The relative importance of each factor, however, is less significant than the links and trade-offs between and within them. We go on to show how non-institutionalized support arrangements are unlikely to be `win-win' situations, leading to frustrations which themselves may become a factor in the decision to support or join after the next election.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Party Politics

ISSN

1354-0688

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

3

Volume

8

Page range

349-365

Pages

17.0

Department affiliated with

  • Politics Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC