Jon Bøe Valgermo

• Breeman, Gerard; Cavari, Amnon; Jungblut, Jens; Shpaizman, Ilana; Timmermans, Arco & Valgermo, Jon Bøe (2026). Policy Agendas in Coalition Agreements: The Enduring Influence of Policy Inheritance. Policy Studies Journal (PSJ). ISSN 0190-292X. 54(4). doi: 10.1111/psj.70169. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  New governments frequently inherit issues from their predecessors, and as a result, various policy problems tend to remain on the agenda for many years. Previous research examining the role of policy inheritance has focused mainly on the agenda during a government's term in office. These studies find that because governments must first contend with the problems they inherit, there is considerably less room for new issues to emerge on the agenda. This study seeks to examine the idea of policy inheritance through the lens of coalition agreements. Coalition agreements, a feature of multiparty governments, are drafted shortly after elections and reflect the outcome of the political struggle. For this reason, one can expect that coalition agreements contain mostly issues that parties regard as important. By implication, changes in the coalition agreements' issue agenda would be a function of the political change produced by the electoral cycle, rather than of inheritance. Analyzing coalition agreements in three countries—Israel, the Netherlands, and Norway—across 42 elections, we find no evidence for this assumption. Agendas in coalition agreements do not vary with changes in the party composition of the coalition, changes in the ideological distance between parties, or changes in the party holding the office of Prime Minister. This indicates that even when new coalition governments are preparing for their term in office, inheritance remains the primary driver of agenda‐setting.

• Shpaizman, Ilana; Valgermo, Jon Bøe & Jungblut, Jens Patrick Wilhelm (2025). Power in the Pre-Decisional Stage: Stability Sentences and Non-Decisions in Coalition Agreements in Israel and Norway. Policy Studies Journal (PSJ). ISSN 0190-292X. doi: 10.1111/psj.70044. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Non-decisions are manifestations of power in the policy process. This paper shows that in parliamentary democracies with coalition governments, stability sentences in coalition agreements entail non-decisions. These sentences address policies which coalition partners explicitly decide not to change. Since coalition agreements provide the policy agenda for the incoming government, explicit statements maintaining the status quo are non-decisions that matter for future policymaking. Most research on coalition agreements focuses on changes that the incoming coalition wishes to promote. This paper investigates which issues coalition partners choose to safeguard from potential change and what can explain why they do so. The paper is based on an analysis of all coalition agreements from the last four decades in Norway and Israel. It finds that stability sentences address divisive and conflict-laden policy issues that, if placed on the agenda, could threaten the survival of the coalition. Moreover, they are repeated often across multiple government coalitions and represent a policy agenda that is distinct from the usual decision-oriented one.

• Jungblut, Jens Patrick Wilhelm; Kavli, Tuva Marie & Valgermo, Jon Bøe (2023). Different governments, similar agendas? Analyzing more than seven decades of Norwegian policy agendas presented in executive speeches. Scandinavian Political Studies. ISSN 0080-6757. 46(3), p. 167–193. doi: 10.1111/1467-9477.12252. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Norwegian politics have undergone significant changes since 1945. This paper analyzes over seven decades of policy agendas outlined in Norwegian executive speeches focusing on the composition and development of the agenda using categories from the Comparative Agendas Project. The analysis focuses on (a) the dynamics of agenda changes over time, (b) the diversity and distribution of attention, and (c) in how far external shocks or partisan factors drive major agenda shifts. Our results show that the Norwegian executive agenda has become more encompassing over time, that it is comparatively diverse, and that diversity increases as Norwegian politics becomes more complex. While there is generally a high degree of stability in the agenda, sudden punctuations also occur. Partisan factors only play a limited role in explaining these attention shifts, while external shocks seem to be more relevant.

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• Askim, Jostein; Kolltveit, Kristoffer; Rommetvedt, Hilmar & Valgermo, Jon Bøe (2024). Opposition in Government. Opinion Polls, Electoral Cycles, and the Partisan Distinctiveness Behaviour of Governing Parties. Full text in Research Archive

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