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Cabinets based on a coalition with majority in the parliament ideally are more stable and longlived than minority cabinets. While the former are prone to internal struggles, they have less reason to fear votes of non confidence, although majority governments based on a single party are usually even more stable as long as its majority can be maintained.

Coalition cabinets are common in countries where the parliament is proportionally representative for several political parties. It does not appear at all in countries where the cabinet is chosen by the president rather than the lower house (such as France, the United States and Russia). Countries that often have a coalition cabinet include the Nordic countries, the Benelux, GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east, ItalyThe Italian Republic or Italy ( Italian: Italia is a country in the south of Europe, consisting mainly of a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. To the north, where it borders France, Switzer, TurkeyTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the, IsraelThis article discusses the State of Israel. For other meanings of Israel see Israel (disambiguation). The State of Israel Medinat Yisrael in Hebrew, Daulat Israil in Arabic) is a country in the Middle East on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. and IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy.. Sometimes a coalition government is also created in times of large difficulties, for example war, to give the government a high degree of political legitimacy and acceptability diminishing internal political strife.

To deal with a situation where no clear majorities appear, parties either form coalition cabinets, supported by a parliamentary majority, or minority cabinets which can consist of one or several parties.

In GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east, for instance, coalitions are the norm as it is rare for either the CDU/ CSU or SPD to win a majority of their own. Thus coalitions are formed with at least one of the smaller parties. Helmut Kohl's CDU governed for years in coalition with the FDP, Gerhard Schröder's SPD today is in a coalition with the Greens. If a coalition collapses a confidence vote is held. Only once has the government lost a confidence vote.

A similar situation exists in Israel with its dozens of parties. The centre-right Likud thus forms coalitions with far right and orthodox groups, while Labour allies itself with more leftist and pacifist parties.

In both countries, grand coalitions of the two large parties also occur, but these are rarer and large parties usually prefer to associate with small ones.

A coalition can consist of any number of parties. In Germany, a coalition rarely consists of more than two parties (i.e. if we count CDU and CSU as one party), while in Belgium, where there are separate Dutch language and French language parties for each political group, coalitions of six parties are quite common. India's governing coalition, the National Democratic Alliance, consists of thirteen different parties.

In Australia, the conservative Liberal and National parties are united in an effectively permanent coalition.

In the United Kingdom, coalition governments (known as National Governments) have since 1915 only been appointed at times of national crisis. The most prominent was the National Government of 1931-1940. In other circumstances when no party has had a majority, minority governments have been the rule.