Coalitions in European Union Negotiations

Coalitions will probably become an increasingly important theme in European Union (EU) politics. The spread of decision making by majority voting promotes coalition‐building behaviour. The impending enlargement is predicted to differentiate and polarize policy standpoints within the EU. Increasing levels of policy conflict imply increased propensities for coalition building. Still, the role and nature of coalitions in EU negotiations are obscure. This article raises important research questions: What characterizes coalition building in the EU? How important are coalitions? What coalition patterns are discernible?Using data from a questionnaire to Swedish participants on EU committees, it is shown that coalitions are more frequent when majority voting occurs than when unanimity rules. Coalition behaviour is, however, important also under unanimity. The existence of consensus norms diminishes the propensity to form coalitions. As regards coalition patterns, there is a prevalence of coalitions based on policy interests and/or on cultural affinity. Contrary to conventional wisdom, consistent and durable coalition patterns seem to exist. The north–south divide is one such persistent pattern. The Swedish respondents thus reveal a close cooperation between the Nordic member states and Great Britain, whereas France and Spain are seldom approached for coalition‐building purposes. As to future research, evidence from other member states and from case studies is needed in order to learn more about the bases for coalition building in EU negotiations.     

Pedagogy from and for Social Movements: A Conversation Between Theory and Practice

Much radical writing on academia is grounded in a mystified view of knowledge in which an ecosocialist pedagogy would be “theory from above.” This article argues for a different understanding of knowledge as materially situated in social and ecological relationships; oriented towards practice; developmental and contested from below, demystifying third-level education from the perspective of movement-generated knowledge. Concretely, this means starting from participants’ existing praxis and “learning from each other’s struggles”—using “frozen” movement theory and activist experience—to move towards a wider, more radical understanding. In Ireland such pedagogy is rooted in working-class community self-organising, rural environmental justice alliances, women’s and GLTBQ activism, and the anti-capitalist “movement of movements,” encapsulating Audre Lorde’s dictum, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The article focusses in particular on a “Masters for activists.” The course supports movement participants to deepen and develop their activist practice but also to situate it within these wider and more radical understandings and emancipatory alliances. Taking movement praxis—rather than “contemplative” knowledge—as a starting point raises very different questions about theory and practice, forms and distribution of knowledge and the purpose and shape of learning.     

Coalition formation on the U.S. Supreme Court: 1969–2009

We apply a fallback model of coalition formation to decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on the seven natural courts, which had the same members for at least two terms, between 1969 and 2009. The predictions of majority coalitions on each of the courts are generally borne out by the 5–4 decisions, whereas the predictions of the Martin-Quinn (Political Analysis 10(2):134–153, 2002) model, which assumes a single underlying dimension along which the justices can be ordered, are not. The present model also provides insight into the dynamic process by which subcoalitions build up into majority coalitions and, in addition, identifies “kingmakers” and “leaders” on the natural courts. Furthermore, it provides evidence, from coalitional memberships, that a few justices shifted over time from one ideological camp to another.     

The political hand: Policy implementation and youth employment programs

Outstanding studies in the past decade have illuminated the sources of ineffective implementation and thus have suggested what not to do. To learn more about what to do, we analyzed a broad range of cases of effective implementation of youth employment programs in eight cities. The goal was to build an impressionistic model of the conditions contributing to flective implementation. We found that executives in the successful programs often acted as “fixers,” repairing the implementation process and protecting and correcting their programs, especially through coalition building and constant intervention in administrative detail. Some executives created patterns of interest convergence among the relevant actors, using incentives to turn mild interests into active support. They thus provided the public sector's missing “political hand,” analogous to the market's “invisible hand.”     

“Acceptable risk”: The case of nuclear power

The key policy question in managing hazardous technologies is often some variant of: “How safe is safe enough?” A typical response of regulatory agencies has been to lay down minimum requirements for how hazardous facilities should be built and operated, without specifying the level of safety that it is hoping to achieve. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, charged with regulating safety in nuclear power plants, has recently tackled the safety question directly, by adopting “safety goals” that facilities must meet. The NRC's approach proves to be sophisticated in some respects, incomplete in others. More generally, it points up the inherent difficulties that exist with the concept of “acceptable risk” and with any attempt to build policy instruments around it. Lessons from the NRC case apply to other hazardous technologies, as well as to public policies unrelated to safety.     

Do Voters’ Coalition Preferences Affect Government Formation?

Studies on coalition formation assume that political parties have two major goals: they aim to maximise office and policy payoffs. This paper shows that decision-making in the government formation game is also determined by the voters’ coalition preferences. Since the coalition formation process is not a one-shot game, parties have to take the coalition preferences of the electorate into account when they evaluate the utility of potential coalitions. If parties fail to comply with the coalition preferences of voters, they are likely to be penalised in future elections. The argument is tested by an analysis of government formation in the 16 German states between 1990 and 2009. The results support the argument: the formation of coalitions – at least in the German states – is not only determined by office- and policy-seeking behaviour of political parties, but also by the preferences of voters regarding their preferred outcome of the coalition game.     

Parties as pay-off seekers: Pre-electoral coalitions in a patronage democracy

The study of party coalitions largely focuses on national elections in western democracies. How are coalitions formed in political systems in which competition occurs on a clientelistic rather than programmatic foundation? To examine coalition formation outside the context of western party systems, we study pre-electoral coalitions formed in subnational executive government elections in Indonesia. Using a unique dataset of 5048 such coalitions in combination with fieldwork conducted in several provinces, we analyze coalition patterns. In contrast to conventional ideological and office-seeking explanations we find that, at least until recently, in forming coalitions parties regularly prioritized immediate pay-offs from candidates – which mostly come in the form of cash payments – over longer-term office and patronage benefits. Attributing this finding to the limited influence that parties exert over politicians once they are elected in regional Indonesia, we highlight the interaction between coalition formation and the incentives that politicians have once in office.     

Regierungsbildung in Mehrebenensystemen: Zur Erklärung der Koalitionsbildung in den deutschen Bundesländern

The German federal governmental system is conceptualized as a full-fledged two-level system, in which the Länder governments participate in federal policy decisions via the second chamber Bundesrat and in which the stakes of state coalition building are high for the federal parties. Our research question is whether we can find systematic empirical evidence for an influence of federal on state parties to build state governments whose party composition is concordant with federal politics, containing either exclusively federal governmental or non-governmental parties. We answer this question by indirect evidence. We show that such concordant majority coalitions occur above average even if important coalition predictors are controlled as minimal winning coalitions or participation of dominant and/or central players. We predict the 182 actual Land governments which were formed in the period from 1949 to 2003 compared to the possible governments in each situation.     

Persistently Biased: The Devil Shift in Water Privatization in Jakarta

This article operationalizes an underinvestigated element of the Advocacy Coalition Framework—the “devil shift”—on the controversial issue of water privatization. In doing so, it offers a methodological premise for investigating intractable opposition to policies that are politically salient and high in technical content. It uses the Q methodology on the case of Jakarta, Indonesia to uncover seven discourse coalitions within the anti‐privatization groups. They confirm two key hypotheses within the devil shift, namely the underestimation of a coalition's resources compared with their opponents and the exaggeration of opponents’ unreasonableness. Intriguingly, it finds that the “devil” is constructed in three different ways by this coalition—the profiteer, the Goliath, and the ineffectual governor. The narrative strength of the combination of these beliefs answers an apparent paradox in the devil shift viz that of rational actors persisting in unreasonable beliefs concerning their opponents. It also offers some specific solutions on how to deal with public hostility in water privatization in Jakarta.     

Tutors and Pupils: International Organizations, Central European Elites, and Western Models

In the past decade, political elites in Central and Eastern Europe have often sought to imitate Western organizational and institutional models, while organizations like the EU and NATO have often acted as “institutional tutors” in the region. Using evidence from Hungary and the Czech Republic, this paper demonstrates why imitating Western structures has been both administratively expedient and useful in building political coalitions. It also stresses that the short‐term benefits of doing so are followed by longer‐term costs. The paper answers four questions: How have certain models been held up to CEE elites? Why might some such models be targets for elites to imitate? How does such imitation occur? And what results from imitation? Contrary to expectations that institutional modeling would be merely technocratic and used only yearly in the transformation, the paper's threefold heuristic of templates, thresholds, and adjustments shows that the process is both politically contentious and sustained.     

Mind the (Mobilization) Gap: Comparing Climate Activism in the United States and European Union

The barriers to concerted political action on climate change mitigation are steep, especially in multilevel systems where power is diffused and authority contested. This article seeks to explain how mobilization—galvanizing resources and people to participate actively—occurs in complex multilevel systems. It compares two different polities—the United States and the European Union—to tease out the key features of multilevel systems and how they affect climate activism and mobilization. To capture this dynamic, it proposes a three‐staged model of mobilization: awareness building, alliance building, and network creation. The latter stage features “mobilization networks”—stakeholder networks able to transcend levels and institutional inertia and steer polities toward particular climate goals. The article demonstrates how each stage of mobilization is highly contingent on stakeholders' ability to exploit—or at least navigate—multilevel institutional barriers.     

Accountability and Coalitions: Evidence from a Negotiation Experiment

This article tests the effect of accountability on negotiation outcomes in a face‐to‐face classroom experiment. Student participants were asked to form coalitions in groups of three. In the treatment condition, negotiators were held accountable by a personal forum during the formation of the coalition. In the control condition, negotiators were not held accountable. Results show that accountability leads to lower group performance in coalition negotiations. Accountability also reduced the willingness of negotiators to include all negotiators in a “grand coalition.” Rather, accountable negotiators reached agreement with a subset of negotiators. Accountability increased the odds of reaching no agreement. These findings challenge the idea of increased performance as a result of public accountability in the context of coalition negotiations.     

How Cabinet Size and Legislative Control Shape the Strength of Transparency Laws

Prevailing thinking surrounding the politics of secrecy and transparency is biased by assumptions regarding single‐party and small coalition governments. Here, the “politics of secrecy” dominates: Leaders delay or resist strong transparency and freedom of information (FOI) policies when they control parliament, and yield to strong laws because of imposition, symbolic ambition, or concessions when they do not. In effect, leaders weigh the benefits of secrecy against gains in monitorial capacity. Their support for strong transparency policies grows as the number of parties in their cabinet rises. So while the costs of surrendering secrecy trump the benefits of strong transparency reforms in single‐party governments, in broad multiparty coalitions leaders trade secrecy for tools to monitor coalition “allies.” Drawing on vivid international examples, patterns of FOI reform in Latin America, and an in‐depth study of FOI in Brazil, this article generates new theoretical insights into transparency and the “politics of monitoring.”     

Exiled to Main Street: How government's use of social media diminishes public space

Public administrators have long treated their connections with citizens as tools for efficiently achieving results. As Dwight Waldo once commented, their key political concern has been, “How much democracy can we afford?” Increasing use of social media technologies appears to expand citizen input at greatly reduced cost. On the basis of phenomenological investigation of virtual citizen–government relationships, we argue that the political consequences of social media have yet to be noticed fully. Social media exile citizens to Main Street—everyday life—instead of fostering connections in public space.     

Preemptive strikes and the war on Iraq: a critique of Bush administration unilateralism and militarism

Bush administration foreign policy has exhibited a marked unilateralism and militarism in which US military power is used to advance US interests and geopolitical hegemony. The policy was first evident in the Afghanistan intervention following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and informed the 2003 war against Iraq. In From 9/11 to Terror War, I sketched out the genesis and origins of Bush administration foreign policy and its application in Afghanistan and the build‐up to the Iraq war. In this study, I update and develop my critique of the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes and its application in the 2003 Iraq invasion, concluding with a critique of unilateralism and militarism, and defense of multilateral and global solutions to problems such as terrorism, so‐called “weapons of mass destruction,” and “rogue regimes.”     

Koalitionsbildungen zwischen Ämter- und Politikmotivation. Konstruktion einer interdependenten Nutzenfunktion

While newer coalition theories take into account that parties are both office and policy motivated, one problem remains unsolved: the fact that offices (ministries) and policies are inseparably connected with each other. In this essay, we solve this problem by constructing a utility function which considers the interdependency of office distributions and policy outputs. This utility function — which can be used as a basis for further coalition theories — is able to capture the interdependencies also in empirical applications, as we illustrate for the example of the coalition building process after the Bundestag elections of 2002.     

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.     

Foucault and the Telos of Power

In this paper, I argue that the unique contributions of Foucault’s late work to critical social theory can be identified in the ways in which power relations are refined as the material condition of “politics” as distinguished from that of law, where “politics”: (a) includes both competitive and goal-oriented strategic actions and interactions, (b) excludes the coercive technologies of law embodied in State institutions, (c) presupposes “incomplete” reciprocity between actors engaged in directing others, (d) always entails modes of revealing truth and acting upon the self. By contextualising the break between pastoral power and direction in the 1979–1980 lectures, I show how for the late Foucault, power relations constitute the material condition of “politics” precisely because, unlike relations of control or coercion, their aims and objectives remain open to the possibility of building new relationships and potentially more “political” forms of social action. I conclude by situating this major distinction within Foucault’s unfulfilled project to study the “military dimension” of society, and the relevance and urgency of this project for contemporary struggles against new forms of militarism and austerity.     

Why can voters anticipate post-election coalition formation likelihoods?

A number of scholars have argued that, in contexts with multi-party governing coalitions, voters can use historical patterns to anticipate the ideological composition of likely post-election coalitions and make vote choices accordingly. In this paper we analyze historical coalition formation data from the period 1960–2007 in order to determine whether the historical regularities in the party composition of coalition governments are such that voters can use this information to assess the likelihood that different coalitions would form after an election. Specifically, we examine: (1) the likelihood of party pairs joining a coalition; (2) the likelihood of different coalition permutations; and (3) the likelihood of a party occupying the Prime Ministership.