Public Policy Making in Coalition Government: Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

One of the most interesting scenarios of the political scenes in several countries in the contemporary period is the emergence of the coalition government. The governance by an amalgam of various political parties is based primarily on negotiations among them and striking balance between conflicting interests and ideas. The paper aims to study, explore and skim through the literature available about the processes of public policy-making in a coalition government. The methodology of the study is based on a systematic review of Government coalitions and challenges faced in policymaking. A total of 50 studies have been searched considering the literature on a coalition government, Solutions to identified issue, delegation and agent issues and challenging ministerial discretion. Out of them, ten studies have been extensively reviewed, three on modelling of the coalition government, four Challenging ministerial discretion and three on delegation and agent issue. The study arrives at two factors which guide decision making in public policy formulation in coalition government. The study concludes that the country with divergent and coalition government is recommended to formulate an agreement at the very beganing to reduce the future impact of divergent preference of political parties in policy formulation. Along with it, the presence of ideological differences on important aspects like liberalisation, secularism, expectations of instability lead to the rise of minority coalitions which lead to difficulties in planning and implementation of policies.