Coalition Politics Revisited

Though the events of recent years have bruised its image, the idea of political coalitionism is still very much with us. Among some of the young and disaffected, coalition politics may not be this season’s vegetable but it remains this season’s political strategy—provided we recognize that its virtue rests not in repetition but in changing political relationships and styles.

The argument is not all that abstract. It is a plain and demonstrable fact that politics by coali...