Our basic argument is that in multi-party systems we should not only analyze party preferences but also coalition preferences in order to explain voting behavior. We distinguish between coalition leaning and coalition preference and are interested in explaining under what conditions an explicit preference for a particular coalition of parties will be formed. Our hypothesis is that only for clearly identifiable pre-electoral coalition options we can expect to observe the formation of a coalition preference. We test this hypothesis with data from the German Federal election in 1998 and 2002. We find that parties sending clear coalition signals to the public are able to have an impact on individuals' decision-making process.
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