Replication data for: Policymaking activities of caretaker governments in Western Europe
| Item Type: | Dataset |
|---|---|
| Title: | Replication data for: Policymaking activities of caretaker governments in Western Europe |
| Date: | 2026 |
| Creator: |
Zhang, Mingyi  ORCID: 0009-0000-3538-0013
|
| Divisions: | Außerfakultäre Einrichtungen > MZES |
| Publisher: | Harvard Dataverse |
| DDC Classification: |
320 Political science |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | In parliamentary democracies, coalition government formation often takes a certain amount of time, during which the outgoing incumbent government remains in office as the 'caretaker' until the new government can be formed. While the literature has reached a consensus that caretaker governments retain the policy status quo, empirical evidence remains limited. This article uses original data on government bills from 238 cabinets in 11 Western European countries as descriptive evidence to challenge this long-standing assumption. I propose a timeframe-based, political definition of the caretaking period within the coalition lifecycle and discuss the normative issues with its presence. The over-generalization of the prevalent policy status quo assumption raises critical issues concerning practical caretaking rules, as well as coalition governance and bargaining. (2026-04-12) (English) |
| External Identifier for Data: | https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/5YABZU |
| URL: | https://madata.bib.uni-mannheim.de/1220/ |
|---|---|
| Access (Controlled): | Only Metadata |
| License (Controlled): | Creative Commons: CC0 | Universal 1.0 (recommended) |
| Related Publication(s) in MADOC: | Zhang, Mingyi (2026), Policymaking activities of caretaker governments in Western Europe |
Full text not available from this repository.
| Date Deposited: | 10 Sep 2026 14:31 |
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| Last Modified: | 10 Sep 2026 14:31 |
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