A Theory of Coalitions and Clientelism: Coalition Politics in Iceland 1945-2000 Indriði H. Indriðason* Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
[email protected] Address for Correspondence: Indridi H. Indridason Political Institutions and Public Choice Program Department of Political Science 303 S. Kedzie Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1032 E-mail:
[email protected] Tel: (517) 432-2613 * I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Fulbright Foundation and the Department of Political Science, University of Rochester that awarded me a Richard F. Fenno Research Grant for the collection of the data. I am also grateful to Torbjörn Bergman, Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson, Ólafur Þ. Harðarson, Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, Wolfgang Müller, Mark Souva, Kaare Strøm, and participants at the Coalition Governance in Western-Europe Conference, Canterbury for their comments and willingness to answer my questions. Finally, I thank Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson and Steingrímur Hermannsson for their time and clear answers that gave me a glimpse of the insider’s view of coalition politics. A THEORY OF COALITIONS AND CLIENTELISM 2 Abstract This paper serves a dual purpose. First, it considers the effects clientelism has on coalition politics through the inflated importance of the particularistic benefits the executive office offers. The patterns of coalition politics in the Nordic countries are compared to offer preliminary evidence in support of the theory. Secondly, it provides detailed information about coalition formation and termination in Iceland from 1945-2000 following closely the format of Müller and Strøm’s, eds., (2000), which contains analysis for each of the other Western European democracies.