Sleeping with the enemy : - On electoral support, bloc identification and cross-bloc regimes

Minority- and cross-bloc regimes in Swedish municipalities have more than doubled the last ten years. The phenomenon should be seen in light of the fact that the traditional blocks have lost support in favor of new parties in the municipal parliaments, such as the Swedish Democrats and different local parties. Historically, the municipal political arena is usually described as less ideological than the national arena. Nevertheless, in the 2014 elections, the turnout resulted in formations of weak center-right/center-left minority governments in one third of the muncipalities in Sweden. When municipal elections result in hung parliaments, remarkably many parties seems to favor minority governments instead of establishing cross-bloc majorities. Why? A possible explanation is that the party identification among the swedish electorate has been replaced by a strong bloc identification, which might induce the parties to avoid coalitions that jeopardize the support from bloc identificated voters. But is this fear rational? Do political parties that form cross-bloc coalitions lose more electoral support than parties that form bloc coalitions? Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide new knowledge about the Swedish electorate and the impact of bloc identification on Swedish politics, by investigating whether coalition parties election results are related to the choice between bloc and cross-bloc coalitions. This is done by statistical Mann-Whitney tests of election data from Swedish municipal elections between 1994-2014. The study shows that the average voter support does not differ significantly for parties in blocs compared to parties in cross-bloc coalitions. The exception is the Social Democratic Party, which on average loses fewer votes in cross-bloc coalitions compared to scenarios in which the party is ruling alone or in a traditional bloc. With these results, the study complement previous research on bloc identification and electoral behavior. Furthermore, the study does not support the hypothesis that a party's electoral support in cross-bloc coalitions differs, depending on whether or not the party is leading the cross-bloc coalition. In summary, the study does not provide rational support for non-scientific assumptions that cross-bloc coalitions are associated with particular declining electoral support, despite increasing political mobility and enhanced block identification among the electorate