European Journal of Political Research 22: 245278,1992. 0 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Coalition theories: empirical evidence for dutch municipalities

Abstract. The paper analyzes coalition formation in Dutch municipalities. After discussing the main features of the institutional setting, several theories are discussed, which are classified as size oriented, policy oriented and actor oriented models. A test statistic is proposed to determine the predictive power of these models. The empirical analysis shows that strategic positions as well as some of the distinguished preferences are important in the setting of Dutch municipalities. Especially, the dominant minimum number principle yields highly significant results for coalition formations in the period 1978-1986. 1