Cohabitation and Prime Ministerial Policymaking Strategies

Abstract

In Chapter 2, I represented cohabitation as a political situation where the prime minister has a strong interest in pursuing a limited legislative agenda and in enacting as few important laws as possible. This strategy is designed largely to avoid being politically harmed by the president’s constant public criticisms against the governmental actions. I later showed empirically that cohabitation, under certain circumstances, indeed leads to policy paralysis.