“[a] party leader attempting to follow the various possible bargaining moves made by other
parties is faced with a difficult and, in highly fractionalized situations, a virtually impossible
task. [...] In estimating the relative strength of parties, any given party leader must observe the
internal party relations of each party, or at least must feel that he would be aware of serious
internal conflicts. In a parliament consisting of only three relevant parties, a party leader could
well assume that he possessed reliable information as to the internal behavior of the other two
parties. By contrast, in a parliament of ten relevant parties, a party leader would face a more
difficult task (Dodd 1976, 63-64).”
To gain the information necessary to make an acceptable cabinet proposal when legislative fragmen-
tation is high, the formateur is likely to have to negotiate with many potential coalition partners and the
number of offers and counter-offers may well be quite high. Assuming that it takes time to make and
evaluate offers and counter-offers (something that bargaining models implicitly assume when they include
multiple bargaining rounds), legislative fragmentation should lead to longer delays in forming governments.
Consider the following description of the formation process in Austria following the 1983 parliamentary
elections.
“The president entrusted the SPÖ [Social Democratic Party] nominee with the official govern-
ment formation task. The SPÖ aimed at a coalition with the FPÖ [Freedom Party] but started
negotiations with both the ÖVP [People’s Party] and the FPÖ. [...] Both the ÖVP and the FPÖ
tried to improve their position vis-à-vis the SPÖ through parallel talks with each other. These
were cancelled by the FPÖ, however, once it realized that the SPÖ was serious about forming a
government with the FPÖ” (Müller 2000, 97).
In this example, the parties involved in the government formation process tried to negotiate a better deal by
signalling their willingness (real or simulated) to end negotiations and form a government with a different
partner. It took some time (there were a number of offers and counter-offers) before the FPÖ “realized that
the SPÖ was serious”. Only after this back and forth did the FPÖ have a reasonably clear idea of the best
offer that it could receive from the SPÖ and, therefore, the ability to evaluate it against the expected utility
of trying to form a government with the ÖVP. Had there been fewer potential government partners in Austria
at this time, it seems likely that the government formation process would have taken less time.
Note the causal logic here. Like DvR, I accept the central insight from bargaining models that uncer-
tainty is the primary driving force behind delays in the government formation process. Without uncertainty,
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Convention