Coalition Governments in Western Europe is the most comprehensive empirical analysis to date of coalition politics. Based on a large cross-national data collection, covering the entire post-war period from 1945 to 1999, it is the first systematic study of the institutions of governance and conflict resolution in coalition governments. The book is also an unparalleled source of information on cabinet formation, membership, termination, and electoral performance of coalition parties. The volume also analyses the institutional frameworks in which coalition politics takes place in the individual countries and discusses which constraints for government formation, coalition governance, and coalition termination result from them. The information has been collected in standardized form by first rate country experts, and is presented in the form of standard tables.