Abstract:

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pops.12072/abstract Byline: Shaul R. Shenhav, Odelia Oshri, Dganit Ofek, Tamir Sheafer Keywords: narrative; political narratives; narrative theory; narrative analysis; coalition formation; national stories; story coalitions; Israel This article explores the potential of incorporating narrative theory into the study of coalition formation. Following a discussion of the role of narratives in group-formation processes in a coalition-driven dynamic, we offer a theoretical framework to examine the ways political stories espoused by people are mirrored by the partisan system. We integrate theoretical assumptions of narrative studies with coalition-formation theories in an attempt to frame coalition-formation models in terms of voters' political stories. We test our theoretical framework by simulating various possible coalitions in the Israeli 2009 elections and as