Coalitions

Coalitions are cross-party alliances within a single country. They let parties pool their political identity and, in the US specifically, aggregate their legislative seats into a single voting bloc for chamber leadership races.

What a Coalition Does

In the US, coalitions have a direct mechanical effect on chamber leadership:

• Parties in the same coalition have their seats combined into a bloc
• The largest bloc is the majority bloc; the second-largest is the minority bloc
• Any member of any party in the majority bloc can declare or vote for majority-side Speaker, Majority Leader, and similar roles
• The same applies to the minority bloc and minority-side leadership

This means a three-party left-of-center coalition with 52% of seats can lock out a larger single party that holds 48% — as long as each member party commits to the coalition.

Outside the US, coalitions are organizational and signaling only. UK, CA, DE, and JP use their own government-formation systems and do not consult coalition membership when forming governments.

Coalition Structure

Every coalition has:

• A name (3–60 characters) and abbreviation (2–10 characters)
• A hex color for display
• A chair party — the party that manages the coalition
• A chair character — the national chair of the chair party, stored in chairCharacterId
• An ordered members list tracking each party's join date

Coalitions are scoped to a country — a US coalition cannot include UK parties.

Viewing Coalitions

On the /parties page, there is a Parties / Coalitions tab switcher. The Coalitions tab shows all coalitions for the selected country as a card grid. Coalition detail pages are at /parties/coalition/[id]?country=X.

Each coalition detail page shows:

Membership Size Effects

The larger your coalition, the stronger your bloc — but also the more parties that need to agree on how to use it. A coalition with 5 parties has 5 chairs who can initiate or vote on disband, meaning defections require broader consensus.

Coalition vs. Party

Coalitions and parties are distinct. A character belongs to a party, not directly to a coalition. The coalition is a relationship between parties at the national chair level. Individual members of a party inherit the coalition's bloc status in chamber leadership math, but they are not "members of the coalition" — they are members of a member party.

Related

• Coalition Formation — How to create, invite, join, and disband.
• Party Leadership — National chair role required to manage coalitions.
• Political Parties — How parties relate to coalitions.