n.

1. An alliance, especially a temporary one, of people, factions, parties, or nations.
2. A combination into one body; a union.
3. A group of usually two to six male lions that drive off and replace the male lions in a pride in order to mate with the females and protect the resulting offspring.

[French, from Medieval Latin coalitiō, coalitiōn-, from Latin coalitus, past participle of coalēscere, to grow together. See coalesce.]

coalitionist co'a·li'tion·ist n.

noun

1. An association, especially of nations for a common cause: alliance, Anschluss, bloc, cartel, confederacy, confederation, federation, league, organization, union. See connect, group, politics.
2. A group of individuals united in a common cause: bloc, cartel, combination, combine, faction, party, ring. See group.
3. A bringing together into a whole: consolidation, unification, union, unity. See part/whole.

n

Definition: alliance, association
Antonyms: disassociation

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[ܖkōǝܒli˜ǝn]

ܖkōǝˈli˜ǝn n. an alliance for combined action, esapecially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government or of states: a coalition of conservatives and disaffected Democrats.

coalitionist -nist n.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Any combination of separate players (such as political parties) to win a voting game. The commonest form of coalition arises where legislation requires a majority to pass, but no one party controls as many as half of the seats in the assembly.

It is traditional in countries where single-party governments are common (such as the UK) for politicians to be suspicious of coalitions. They point out that ahead of an election in which no party wins half of the seats, the voters cannot know what coalition will result from their votes in aggregate and hence may be deprived of information they need in order to decide how to vote. The issue is entangled with the choice of an electoral system, because the plurality system tends to boost the proportion of seats held by the leading two parties, and hence the likelihood that one of them will form a government unaided; whereas proportional representation may increase the number of parties represented, and will decrease the likelihood that one party will win more than half of the seats. One consequence is that in a plurality system, large parties are themselves coalitions of widely differing points of view, so that the problems of coalition games are removed from the floor of the legislature only to surface in the party office.

Coalition theory is the study of which of the available coalitions tends to form. One prediction, derived from the theory of zero-sum games, is that, of the possible coalitions, the one which forms a majority with the smallest number of seats ‘to spare’ is the likeliest to form. The reasoning is that the prize—government and the spoils that flow from it—is of fixed size, which it is best to distribute among as few people as possible. The rival prediction is that those coalitions which are ideologically closest are the most likely to form. This seems better supported by the evidence, although it faces a problem in measuring ‘ideological closeness’. Measures of the power of a party in coalition bargaining include the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices.

(DOD) An ad hoc arrangement between two or more nations for common action. See also alliance; multinational.

An alliance of political groups formed to oppose a common foe or pursue a common goal.

In countries with many political parties, none of which can get a majority of the citizens' votes, the only way an effective government can be formed is by a coalition of parties. Such coalitions are often unstable.

IN BRIEF: A joining together of persons or groups, as for a political purpose.

A coalition was formed to work on the new government.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - koalition, forening

Nederlands (Dutch)
coalitie

Français (French)
n. - (Pol) coalition

Deutsch (German)
n. - Koalition, Zusammenschluß

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (συν)ένωση, συνασπισμός

Italiano (Italian)
coalizione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - coalizão (f)

Русский (Russian)
коалиция

Español (Spanish)
n. - coalición

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - sammansmältning, koalition

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
结合, 联合, 合并

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 結合, 聯合, 合併

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 연합, 제휴

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 一体化, 合体, 連合, 合同, 提携, 連立

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ائتلاف, أتحاد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮התחברות, קואליציה‬

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