Coalition preferences and party systems

Giovanni Sartori suggested that in order to understand party systems, we need to focus on interactions between parties. These interactions have been conceptualised by Sartorian scholars as the structure of competition for control of the executive, and operationalised as patterns of government formation. This ‘government formation’ approach to party systems has limitations, chief among which is that it focuses on relations among government parties, but ignores other inter-party relations. To mitigate these shortcomings while retaining a focus on interactions associated with competition for the control of the executive, this study makes a case for describing party systems using data on parties’ coalition preferences. I demonstrate this ‘coalition preference’ approach by applying it to the Irish party system, a case characterised by significant party system change. The case study demonstrates that this new approach provides a lens through which we can systematically describe party systems, and which can complement existing approaches.