CHAPTER 8 Lessons from Measure P and the Megaloads: Native–Non-Native and Latinx-White Coalition Outcomes

Collaboration with diverse partners is challenging but essential for the implementation of prevention programs and policies. Increased communication with partners from diverse sectors may help community coalitions overcome the challenges that diversity presents. We examined these issues empirically in a study of 17 substance use prevention coalitions in Mexico. Building on coalition and workgroup literatures, we hypothesized that sectoral diversity would improve outcomes but undermine coalition processes. Conversely, we expected uniformly positive effects from higher levels of intersectoral communication. Data are from a 2015 survey of 211 members within the 17 community coalitions. Regression models used sectoral diversity and intersectoral communication to predict coalition processes (cohesion, leader-member communication, efficiency) and outcomes (community support, community improvement, sustainability planning). Sectoral diversity was negatively associated with coalition processes and was not associated with coalition outcomes. Intersectoral communication was positively associated with two of the three measures of coalition outcomes but not associated with coalition processes. Our findings concur with those from prior research indicating that sectoral diversity may undermine coalition processes. However, more communication between sectors may facilitate the coalition outcomes of community support and sustainability planning. Skilled team leaders and participatory decision making may also help coalitions promote intersectoral communication, thereby engaging diverse community sectors to implement preventive interventions and actualize sustained public health impact.

The year 2011 is a Superwahljahr in Germany, with five states (Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bremen) holding Land-level elections in the spring and two more (Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) following in the autumn. The debate on the ‘second-order’ nature of Land elections – whether they are to be understood by their own regionally specific dynamics or whether they primarily serve as a proxy for national electoral trends – provides the frame for this election report and its discussion of campaigns, election results and coalition outcomes. These elections could perhaps best be described as ‘one-and-a-half-order’ elections: in some of these elections there was evidence of national electoral trends and national political issues, and voters undoubtedly rendered something of a judgement on the federal coalition government. Nevertheless, election and coalition outcomes probably had more to do with the specific political conditions prevailing in each of these states than with any overarching national dynamic.

The formation of the ‘yellow-green’ government that took office in Italy after the general election held on 4 March 2018 looked puzzling to many commentators as the two coalition partners – the Five Star Movement and the League – appeared to be quite distant on the left–right continuum. In this article, we argue that despite being widely used in the literature, a unidimensional representation of parties' policy positions on the encompassing left–right scale is inadequate to explain the process of coalition governments' formation. We focus first on coalition outcomes in Italy in the period 2001–18. Our statistical analysis including, among other variables, parties' policy distance on the left–right dimension performs rather well until 2013 but fails to predict the coalition outcome in 2018. To solve the puzzle, we propose a two-dimensional spatial account of the Conte I government formation in which the first dimension coincides with the economic left–right and the second one is related to immigration, the European Union issues and social conservatism. We show that the coalition outcome ceases to be poorly understandable once parties' policy positions are measured along these two dimensions, rather than on the general left–right continuum.

We outline here two formal models that predict coalitions and payoffs in sequential three-person games. The theories share the same structure, differing only in the planning horizon that we assume players use in calculating their strategies. Proceeding from a priori assumptions concerning the players’ preference orderings over the various possible coalition outcomes and heuristic rules-of-thumb the players use in calculating their strategies, and assumptions about the nature of the bargaining process among the three players, the models predict both the probability that each coalition forms and the division of payoffs between coalition partners.

Abstract. Many previous theoretical analyses of multiparty coalition behaviour have been based either on a one‐dimensional policy model or on a constant‐sum game interpretation. For theoretical and empirical reasons this paper focusses on a competitive two‐dimensional model. In this model parties are concerned with policy outcomes but choose party positions both with a view to electoral consequences and as a basis for coalition bargaining. The political heart is proposed as the set of possible coalition outcomes. The heart is either the core of the political game or is determined by a small number of party positions. Under certain conditions an equilibrium in the choice of party positions can be shown to exist. The model suggests that parties can be categorized as either strong or weak core parties, anti‐core parties or peripheral parties. This categorization of parties implies a typology of party systems, which gives some theoretical foundation for the occurrence of minority, minimal winning and surplus coalitions in many of the European countries in the postwar period.

Many previous theoretical analyses of multiparty coalition behaviour have been based either on one‐dimensional policy model or on a constant‐sum game interpretation. For theoretical and empirical reasons this paper focusses on a competitive two‐dimensional model. In this model parties are concerned with policy outcomes but choose party positions both with a view to electoral consequences and as a basis for coalition bargaining. The political heart is proposed as the set of possible coalition outcomes. The heart is either the core of the political game or is determined by a small number of party positions. Under certain conditions an equilibrium in the choice of party positions can be shown to exist. The model suggests that parties can be categorized as either strong or weak core parties, anti‐core parties or peripheral parties. This categorization of parties implies a typology of party systems, which gives some theoretical foundation for the occurrence of minority, minimal winning and surplus coalitions in many of the European countries in the postwar period.

Bargaining processes and coalition outcomes

Community coalitions are well-positioned to address local conditions affecting health. Coalitions rely on interactions among members to address community issues and plan for sustainability. Individuals and agencies participate voluntarily, and substantive decisions are generally made as a group. Hence, coalitions operate largely through advice rather than top-down directives. This study examined whether advice-seeking patterns within coalitions influenced members' perceptions of their collective outcomes. Indegree advice-seeking is centered on consulting a few specialized sources and outdegree advice-seeking draws upon a few people to reach out to numerous others. Surveys at two timepoints collected data from an unduplicated total of 1256 members of 62 coalitions in Pennsylvania and Missouri on their advice-seeking ties, with responses aggregated to the coalition level. Regression analyses examined how coalition patterns of intersectoral communication and indegree and outdegree centralization, respectively, were associated with changes in perceived community improvement, sustainability planning, and coalition sustainability. Intersectoral communication was not related to coalition outcomes. Indegree advice-seeking centralization was negatively associated with planning for coalition sustainability (B = -0.43, β = -0.22, 95% confidence interval [-0.84, -0.01], p < .05); and outdegree advice-seeking centralization was negatively associated with coalition sustainability (B = -0.88, β = -0.31, 95% CI [-1.65, -0.10], p < .05). These findings suggest that decentralized advice-seeking patterns foster coalition sustainability.

This paper examines how volunteer and staff participants influence coalition functioning and outcomes. We compare two environmental coalitions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: the Clean Rivers Campaign (CRC), which was supported by a general progressive movement community and led by organizational staff members, and Protect Our Parks (POP), an all-volunteer alliance that was part of a more specific anti-fracking movement community. While much research on social movement coalitions focuses on their formation, we show how coalition structure and types of participants affect the mobilization, longevity and goal achievement of our two cases. Both coalitions succeeded in mobilizing supporters for their campaigns, but the CRC enjoyed greater longevity and had a clearer impact on public policy. Paid staff and organizational members were better able to recruit new activists, maintain commitment and transform coalition goals, affecting longevity and goal achievement. This finding contributes to our understanding of the impacts of different types of structures and activists on coalition outcomes, suggesting that paid organizers do not necessarily limit the range of coalition tactics and goals.

This paper discusses a theory of bargaining processes in three-person coalition games and investigates the relation between these processes and the outcome of bargaining. The bargaining theory uses an information-processing approach to model each of the three player's cognitive processes and interrelates three such models to predict who says what to whom next in the bargaining for coalition partners and payoff allocations. The theory succeeds in predicting the act-by-act communications observed in three laboratory studies of sequential games of status in which each player seeks to maximize the rank of his total score in relation to the other players' total scores. In addition, the process theory succeeds in predicting outcomes. It was used in computer studies to simulate bargaining processes to their resulting outcomes, thus producing artificial data on which coalitions form and what payoff allocations are made to coalition members. These artificial data on outcomes agree with the pattern of outcomes observed in the laboratory studies and also conform to Laing and Morrison's (1973) heuristic model predicting coalitions and payoffs in three-person sequential games of status. These investigations lead to an interesting discovery about the effects of variations in the process on the pattern of resulting outcomes. The duration of the bargaining process has systematic effects on which coalitions form and how payoffs are allocated to coalition members. The results suggest that more theoretical attention to social processes can pay important dividends, even when the primary objective is to predict outcomes.

This article describes the experience of a Latino health coalition, “Proyecto Unidos”/“Project United.” Proyecto Unidos was implemented by Concilio Latino de Salud, a nonprofit community-based organization solely dedicated to health promotion and disease prevention to improve the overall health of the Latino community of Maricopa County, Arizona. The organization and development aspects of Proyecto Unidos incorporated three basic stages: (1) coalition formation, (2) coalition implementation and maintenance, and (3) coalition outcomes. The major features of each of these stages are described, including the plan of action that yielded several outcomes, from a total of eight areas. A summary of the major accomplishments are presented by outcome area. Strengths and weaknesses of Proyecto Unidos as a viable coalition are also discussed. Proyecto Unidos was successful in providing a forum for individuals and groups to address Latino health concerns under an organized structure.

Community-based coalitions are popular structures for creating community benefits. But desired effects have been reported only for single cases, the overall documented evidence to date for positive coalition outcomes being weak. Methodological obstacles may account for much of the missing evidence, and research possibilities for addressing these obstacles are suggested. Alternative interpretations include the positions that coalitions in general are not effective intervention mechanisms, that traditional scientific methodology is poorly suited for capturing fine-grained coalition outcomes, and that coalitions and similar collaborative organizations are too complex to be adequately evaluated by the methodology that is now available.

Effects of alternatives in coalition bargaining

This paper begins by identifying a framework in which we can study democratic representation and accountability, namely the neo-institutional rational choice literature on delegation and agency. I suggest why I believe that the enforcement of accountability is becoming a more and more central democratic issue. I then go on to share some data from Norwegian election surveys that indicate that voters, at least in this country, are increasingly available to play the part that democratic accountability requires. Finally, I present evidence that political leaders in coalition bargaining anticipate and are constrained by this electoral accountability, sometimes with surprising results. There is even a silver lining to this part of my story, in the sense that coalition outcomes that may at first sight seem deviant or even pathological, may in fact play a perfectly normal part in the democratic process.

This paper examines coalition strategies and outcomes through a case study of an NGO network organization for advocacy over the Convention on Biological Diversity. Prior studies have not fully articulated the outcomes of coalitions and the roles of environmental advocacy movements. By analyzing the collective outcomes of a coalition's diverse membership, this study finds that “inclusive strategies”, designed to promote various members' participation, lead to increased political influence but also limit the coalition's ability to systematize its work or focus effectively on specific activities. This reduced ability to focus and empower grass-roots members is consistent with existing concerns about the effectiveness of environmental advocacy movements.