Clear commitments and signals of support: The inclusion of Finnish parties' electoral pledges in coalition agreements




Ylisalo, Juha; Nieminen, Sakari; Makkonen, Kimmo

PublisherSAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

LONDON

2025

Party Politics

PARTY POLITICS

PARTY POLIT

12

1354-0688

1460-3683

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1177/13540688251319515(external)

https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688251319515(external)

https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/484815161(external)



Multiparty governments often draft extensive coalition agreements to enforce policy compromises made at the government formation stage. Given that such agreements have important policy consequences, parties have strong incentives to ensure that their key objectives are included. This study addresses the inclusion of parties' specific electoral pledges in the coalition agreements of three Finnish governments, based on over 1000 pledges. The results show that pledges falling into issue areas that were salient to parties' campaigns were relatively likely to be included, especially if the level of salience was approximately the same to the other government parties as well. In contrast, the probability of inclusion was lower where a party had made more pledges in an issue area. The analysis suggests that a notable share of government parties' pledges never became part of coalition agreements, but the pledges that were included reflected the most salient campaign themes.


This work was supported by the Research Council of Finland (grant number 340660) and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation ('The life cycle of an electoral pledge in a multiparty democracy' project).


Last updated on 2025-05-03 at 13:39