Editing Coalition government (section)

==Support and criticism==
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2014}}
Advocates of proportional representation suggest that a coalition government leads to more consensus-based politics, as a government comprising differing parties (often based on different ideologies) need to compromise about governmental policy. Another stated advantage is that a coalition government better reflects the popular opinion of the electorate within a country; this means, for instance, that the political system contains just one majority-based mechanism. Contrast this with district voting in which the majority mechanism occurs twice: first, the majority of voters pick the representative and, second, the body of representatives make a subsequent majority decision. The doubled majority decision undermines voter support for that decision. The benefit of proportional representation is that it contains that majority mechanism just once. Additionally, coalition partnership may play an important role in moderating the level of affective polarization over parties, that is, the animosity and hostility against the opponent party identifiers/supporters.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hahm |first1=Hyeonho |last2=Hilpert |first2=David |last3=König |first3=Thomas |date=2023-03-30 |title=Divided We Unite: The Nature of Partyism and the Role of Coalition Partnership in Europe |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=118 |language=en |pages=69–87 |doi=10.1017/S0003055423000266 |s2cid=260582136 |issn=0003-0554|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Those who disapprove of coalition governments believe that such governments have a tendency to be fractious and prone to disharmony, as their component parties hold differing beliefs and thus may not always agree on policy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moury |first1=Catherine |last2=Timmermans |first2=Arco |title=Inter-party conflict management in coalition governments: Analyzing the role of coalition agreements in Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands |journal=Politics and Governance |date=25 July 2013 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=117–131 |doi=10.17645/pag.v1i2.94 |url=https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/94 |access-date=4 September 2018|doi-access=free }}</ref> Sometimes the results of an election mean that the coalitions which are mathematically most probable are ideologically infeasible, for example in [[Flanders]] or [[Northern Ireland]]. A second difficulty might be the ability of minor parties to play "[[kingmaker]]" and, particularly in close elections, gain far more power in exchange for their support than the size of their vote would otherwise justify.

Germany is the largest nation ever to have had proportional representation during the interbellum. After WW II, the German system, district based but then proportionally adjusted afterward, contains a threshold that keeps the number of parties limited. The threshold is set at five percent, resulting in empowered parties with at least a minimum amount of political gravity.

Coalition governments have also been criticized{{By whom|date=May 2014}} for sustaining a [[Consensus decision-making|consensus]] on issues when disagreement and the consequent discussion would be more fruitful. To forge a consensus, the leaders of ruling coalition parties can agree to silence their disagreements on an issue to unify the coalition against the opposition. The coalition partners, if they control the parliamentary majority, can collude to make the parliamentary discussion on the issue irrelevant by consistently disregarding the arguments of the opposition and voting against the opposition's proposals — even if there is disagreement within the ruling parties about the issue. However, in winner-take-all this seems always to be the case.

Powerful parties can also act in an [[Oligocracy|oligocratic]] way to form an alliance to stifle the growth of emerging parties. Of course, such an event is rare in coalition governments when compared to [[two-party system]]s, which typically exist because of stifling of the growth of emerging parties, often through discriminatory [[nomination rules]] regulations and [[plurality voting system]]s, and so on.

A single, more powerful party can shape the policies of the coalition disproportionately. Smaller or less powerful parties can be intimidated to not openly disagree. In order to maintain the coalition, they would have to vote against their own party's platform in the parliament. If they do not, the party has to leave the government and loses executive power. However, this is contradicted by the "kingmaker" factor mentioned above.

Finally, a strength that can also be seen as a weakness is that proportional representation puts the emphasis on collaboration. All parties involved are looking at the other parties in the best light possible, since they may be (future) coalition partners. The pendulum may therefore show less of a swing between political extremes. Still, facing external issues may then also be approached from a collaborative perspective, even when the outside force is not benevolent.