What is a coalition government? Discuss the advantage and disadvantages of a coalition government.
Answers
Answer:
coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any one party within that "coalition". The usual reason for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the election
Advantages:
Enlarges your base of support, networks and connections; gives strength in numbers: you can achieve more together than you can alone.
Provides safety for advocacy efforts and protection for members who may not be able to take action alone, particularly when operating in a hostile or difficult environment.
Magnifies existing financial and human resources by pooling them together and by delegating work to others in the coalition.
Reduces duplication of effort and resources.
Enhances the credibility and influence of an advocacy campaign, as well as that of individual coalition members.
Helps develop new leadership skills amongst members.
Assists in individual and organizational networking.
Facilitates exchange of information, skills, experience, materials, opportunities for collaboration etc.
Brings together a diverse range of people and organizations. Diversity can strengthen a campaign by broadening perspective and understanding of the issue. It can also assist outreach by appealing to a wider population base with differing priorities and interests.
Provides peer support, encouragement, motivation and professional recognition.
Disadvantages:
Can lack clear objectives, or be difficult to agree common objectives.
Forming and managing a coalition can be a very time-consuming and bureaucratic process that can take away time from working directly on campaign issues and organizational tasks.
May be dominated by one powerful organization. Power is not always distributed equally among members; larger or richer organizations can have more say in decisions.
May require you to compromise your position on issues or tactics.
Shared decision-making can be slow and may paralyze progress.
Can often be constrained by a lack of resources.
Potential for donor interference (e.g. a donor is interested in funding certain activities but there is a danger of planning activities only because you know you can get the funds).
You may not always get credit for your work. Sometimes the coalition as a whole gets recognition rather than individual members. Or certain members get or claim more recognition than others, causing conflict and resentment.
If the coalition process breaks down it can harm everyone's advocacy by damaging members' credibility.
Coalition activities can be difficult to monitor and evaluate.