Strong investiture rules and minority governments in Romania

The chapter examines the process of government formation in post-communist Romania by seeking to explain the combination of a high incidence of minority cabinets, on the one hand, and the strong investiture rules characteristic of positive parliamentarism, on the other hand. This chapter investigates this puzzle by focusing on three questions: (1) how do the rules of investiture shape government formation? (2) what accounts for the emergence and gradual evolution of the rules of investiture since 1990? (3) how can we explain the coexistence of strong investiture requirements and the frequent incidence of minority cabinets? The chapter also makes a contribution to the broader literature on government formation in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe