Executive Policy Agenda Drift in Coalition Governance

Political parties, who form a government together, will usually do so after lengthy negotiations. Any compromises reached between the parties will be formalized in a coalition agreement. As such, the coalition agreement embodies what the coalition parties agree upon, what they want to achieve during their reign and how they want to achieve it. As such, the coalition agreement sets the agenda for government. However, this paper shows that coalition agreements in the Netherlands do not completely fix the agenda. On the contrary, there is low correspondence between the coalition agreement and the annual Executive Speech (the Queen¿s speech) in which the government addresses the nation and explains what the government has done in the previous year and what its intentions are for the year to come. This paper discusses how correspondence between coalition agreements and the Queen¿s speeches varies over time, and what the consequences are of this agenda drift for coalition failur