POLICY, INSTITUTIONS, AND COALITION AVOIDANCE - NORWEGIAN GOVERNMENTS, 1945-1990

Norwegian party politics is characterized by coalition avoidance that defies conventional coalition theory. The failure Of coalescence can c aused either by policy pursuit (preference-induced) or by institutiona l constraint (structure-induced). We test the explanatory power of pol icy-based and institutional explanations, relying on content analysis of authoritative party and government documents for our policy measure s. The results show that the left-right policy dimension has powerfull y constrained Norwegian interparty bargaining and that policy-based co alition theory can account for many apparent anomalies in Norwegian co alition politics. A permissive institutional environment has also fost ered coalition avoidance. Although core-based coalition theory can thu s be successfully adapted to the Norwegian case, it rests on a number of critical assumptions that limit its general applicability.