Political alliance is an agreement between two or more political parties to collaborate on a wide range of issues, from campaigning together to forming a government after elections. Arrangements can be formal or informal, temporary or long-term. They can be negotiated and documented through memoranda of understanding (MoUs). Political parties, groups and movements often form alliances to enhance electoral prospects, improve their chance of winning a seat in parliament or local government, reduce vote splitting, increase negotiating power in policymaking, or broaden their political reach.
Alliances are an essential tool for navigating the complexities of democratic governance. They can strengthen the electoral prospects of weaker parties, increase their negotiating leverage in policymaking, and bolster their capacity to win elections by bringing together dissimilar voters. They can also recast the politics of a nation, and create new political blocs that either consolidate or alienate specific demographic groups.
Despite the importance of these arrangements, existing scholarship has not been particularly focused on the ethics of political alliances. Pacts have been treated as a problem of coalition formation, and when normative questions have been raised they have largely focused on the informational question: Could voters be reasonably expected to know about pre-election alliances? This article seeks to fill this gap, starting with an examination of the formal features of an alliance that distinguish it from a merger or association, and moving on to examine the reasons for which such arrangements may be justified. Intrinsic arguments that appeal to epistemic or democratic criteria, and instrumental arguments that cite areas of shared programme or imperfect institutions, are considered in turn.
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