Policymaking activities of caretaker governments in Western Europe

Abstract

In parliamentary democracies, coalition government formation often takes a certain amount of time, during which the outgoing incumbent government remains in office as the “caretaker” until the new government can be formed. While the literature has reached a consensus that caretaker governments retain the policy status quo, empirical evidence remains limited. This article uses original data on government bills from 238 cabinets in 11 Western European countries as descriptive evidence to challenge this long-standing assumption. I propose a timeframe-based, political definition of the caretaking period within the coalition lifecycle and discuss the normative issues with its presence. The over-generalization of the prevalent policy status quo assumption raises critical issues concerning practical caretaking rules, as well as coalition governance and bargaining.