Government formation periods vary greatly across multiparty democracies, yet little is known about the bargaining processes involved.

New Dataset on European Coalition Bargaining: We introduce a novel dataset covering 303 government formation attempts in nineteen European countries from [Specify Time Period if provided].

Factors Influencing Duration: Our analysis reveals that several actor-specific factors shorten coalition bargaining:

* Preference tangentiality (how similar parties are)

* Ideological proximity between parties

* Incumbency status of the party

* Party leadership tenure

These findings, uncovered through a copula approach addressing non-random selection issues, demonstrate that these factors significantly impact duration.

Systemic Context Matters: Importantly, they also interact with systemic context factors:

* Post-election bargaining dynamics

* Complexity of the party system

This study underscores the necessity of examining both actor-specific and broader institutional factors to fully understand government formation timelines in European multiparty democracies.