Post-Election Coalition-Building in a Comparative Politics Classroom

Embedded in a unit on legislative institutions in an Introduction to Comparative politics course, students work through the process of post-election coalition-building, a frequent occurrence in parliamentary democracies. The activity is based on politics in the UK. Students have an entire class session (1 hour 15 minutes) to form coalitions that will be cohesive enough to withstand pressures from competing elites and the public. The purpose of this activity is to enhance student understanding of parliamentary electoral systems while also gaining a more detailed understanding of parties and institutional rules in parliamentary democracies. Most importantly, this simulation strives to foster student understanding of the complexities inherent to strategic bargaining, thus demonstrating how both formal and informal institutions structure the behavior of elites.