Monitoring coalition partners in the EU: strategic committee appointments in the European Parliament

Battered by Geopolitical Winds, Bulgaria Struggles to Restart Much Needed Reforms

Subsidies provided to private investors by governments have played an important role in shaping industrial development in Turkey. ' However, the manner through which they are distributed to businesses has been a concern for both scholars and the public in general.2 The main worry has been that the political ambitions of individual politicians and their personal (and perhaps clientelistic) networks usually take precedence over priorities for economic development in the allocation of these subsidies. Yet a systematic analysis of how electoral competition through channels of political institutions such as coalition governments affects the particularistic distribution of these subsidies has not been con ducted. A statistical analysis of investment subsidies that were received by provinces in Turkey between 1992 and 1997 and examination of how parties in coalition governments allocated these subsidies across their stronghold provinces can fill this gap. Responsibility-claiming mechanisms under coalition governments affect particularistic distribution of material goods like subsidies. When a single party in a coalition govern ment has almost complete control over the allocation of a good, it limits the access of its coalition partners' constituencies to this benefit in order to prevent its coalition partners from claiming the responsibility for providing this good. Studies of economic development and industrial policy have emphasized how governments can use distribution of subsidies as a policy tool to change the investment decisions of private and public industrial actors and characteristics of the industrial sec tor. Subsidies can help regional development within a country, aid the growth of certain sectors, and/or be distributed along factor lines.3 Since politicians' survival and success depend on their popularity and relations with their constituencies, it is expected that politicians' choices on how to allocate subsidies are shaped by the preferences of their constituencies.4 However, at the same time, as studies of the developmental state have emphasized, it is critical to prevent the degeneration of the use of selective subsidies into rent-seeking mechanisms.5 In order for the subsidies to be effective, the state needs to have the capacity to impose performance criteria on the private actors in the economy to ensure that these subsidies are used for improving industrial production.6 However, if particularistic (clientelistic/patronage) networks constitute the predominant mode of linkage between politicians and their constituencies, it is harder for the state to have this desired monitoring capacity.

Subject Italy's League party. Significance Italy’s far-right League (the former Northern League) seeks to expand its influence in southern Italy, which has been a stronghold for the League’s coalition partner, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S). The League’s growing popularity in the south could force it to call a general election after May’s European Parliament (EP) elections. Impacts The Italian government will bolster its anti-immigrant agenda ahead of the EP elections. Further electoral success of Italy’s ruling parties could encourage populist movements elsewhere in the EU. The continued success of far-right politics in Italy will damage financial-market confidence in Italian bonds.

The growing number of coalition governments in European states, many of which are minority governments, raises questions about how they form and function. The case of Denmark, where such governments have long become a part of political everyday life, helps to identify the main specific features of foreign policy portfolio allocation in the cabinet and the Danish parliament, since the Kingdom is one of the most successful examples of cooperation between the government and parliament in the field of foreign policy and defence. The article analyses the mechanisms and factors for the foreign policy portfolio allocation in 2001-2023, taking into account successive "blue" and "red" party blocs. Various theories of coalition formation and portfolio allocation in coalition governments are used to explain the distinguishing features of such allocation at a particular historical stage. In addition, general features of the development of the Danish political system at the present stage, the main trends and prospects for this development are considered. The authors conclude that when allocating portfolios in the government, preference is given to "junior" coalition partners, while in parliament - to "senior" ones; the opinion of the Danish People's Party is taken into account by coalition partners without the Party’s inclusion in the government; the choice is given in favour of popular and authoritative politicians constituting the foreign policy elite of Denmark over the past three decades; the functioning of the Foreign Policy Committee provides some kind of balance of power in the Danish Parliament on foreign and defence policy. It is also found out that the strategies for coalition formation and foreign policy portfolio allocation do not significantly differ between the "blue" and "red" party blocs, but follow the same logic aimed at maintaining the stability of the minority government’s position.

Although central banks possess a similar function across the industrial democracies, their institutional structures—their levels of independence—differ greatly. My explanation of this variation emphasizes the informational asymmetries of monetary policymaking. Government ministers have informational advantages in the policy process, potentially creating conflicts with backbench legislators and, in a multiparty government, coalition partners. An independent central bank can help alleviate these conflicts. Politicians will choose an independent bank (1) if government ministers, party legislators, and coalition partners have different monetary policy incentives and (2) if government ministers fear that party legislators and coalition partners will withdraw their support over a policy dispute. I statistically test the argument against the cross-national variation of central bank institutions. I also use the theoretical framework to examine episodes of institutional choice and reform in Germany, Britain, and Italy.

Policies in place throughout the world: action by the European Union

Abstract. Government formation is guided by several principles such as majority, plurality and electoral gain. According to the principle of electoral gain, parties that increase their share of seats in the elections should form the government, with parties that lose seats joining the opposition. We analyse conformity with this principle in 15 West European countries with multiparty coalition governments between 1945 and 1999. With the exception of the largest party, electoral performance is a rather poor predictor of getting into government. The results show interesting variation between countries, with the loss of seats increasing the probability of entering government in Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy. High electoral volatility is positively related to the degree to which the electoral gain principle applies, but there was no association between this principle and party system fragmentation or aggregation. Prime ministers come more often from parties that are big winners, but winning does not explain the probability of becoming a coalition partner – if a party wants to be a coalition partner, then avoiding the loss of seats is more important.

Under what conditions do political parties employ junior ministers to keep tabs on their coalition partners in multiparty cabinets in presidential democracies? Existing literature on coalition governance in presidential systems has focused mainly on the role of presidents in monitoring coalition partners. Political parties have yet to be noticed. This paper contributes to the literature by placing parties front and center as strategic actors in presidential coalition governance. Specifically, we look at the conditions in which political parties employ junior ministers to shadow their coalition partners. Using an original data set covering 25 cabinets in seven presidential democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, we find that parties strategically use junior ministers to curb delegation perils and implement their collectively agreed-upon policy preferences. Our findings show that parties shadow nonpartisan ministers more extensively where presidents are strong. Furthermore, we show that democratic experience cements the use of coalition governance tools, suggesting an institutional learning process.

Studies on policy monitoring and ministerial survival within coalition governments are usually conducted separately. In this study, we bring these topics together and argue that the strategy of coalition partners to oversee the implementation of one another's policies has surprising consequences on the duration of office‐holding ministers. Our main theoretical insight suggests that the degree to which ministers behave as faithful agents of the government depends on their expectations about their partners' monitoring behavior, such that when they expect to be under high scrutiny, they moderate their drifting behavior. Using evidence from legislative information requests on the activities of individual ministers over all multiparty cabinets formed in Brazil between 1995 and 2014, we demonstrate that: (1) greater policy monitoring by coalition partners is observed under more ideologically heterogeneous cabinets, and (2) more frequent policy‐monitoring efforts by coalition partners lead to a lower ministerial replacement within the government term.

This article argues that opportunities for unilateral influence within international bureaucracies create a delegation problem akin to that in coalition governments. Parties in coalitions that suspect each another of diverting from the coalition bargain avail themselves of mechanisms, such as junior ministers and parliamentary scrutiny, to monitor their coalition partners’ actions within the executive. Similarly, states that suspect cooperating partners of abusing their unilateral influence within the bureaucracy employ mechanisms, reminiscent of those in coalition governments, in order to ‘keep tabs’ on one another. I illustrate the plausibility of this claim using the case of the European Commission. However, this delegation problem of interstate control can be expected to apply more widely. The article has implications for the study of international organization, international delegation and informal governance.

Despite coalition governments being the most widespread form of government, many aspects of coalition politics are still poorly understood. This is especially true for questions relating to the role of the prime minister party within the coalition. Being the prime minister party seems to imply considerable influence, but little evidence actually exists as to the factors shaping the influence of the prime minister. This paper offers a new approach to studying the factors conditioning the influence of the prime minister party in a coalition. The approach is focused on the extent of issue overlap between the party manifesto of the prime minister party and the first government speech after the election. This approach makes it possible to actually analyze the factors shaping the influence of the prime minister party. The results show that the PM party is constrained by the issue emphasis of its coalition partners but less so when it holds dissolution power and more, also when it has many coalition partners when controlling for the seat share of the PM party. The paper, thus, both offers a new approach to study the coalition compromise and new evidence on the factors shaping the influence coming from holding the PM position.

Under the proportional representation (PR) electoral system in Slovenia, after elections, coalition governments have formed. However, the coalition partners have also adopted a ‘dropping out from government’ strategy between elections, which in some cases has led to minority governments. This has occurred despite a frequent use of several conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution mechanisms. One such mechanism, coalition agreements, are mostly understood in terms of policy agreements. After each election in the period 1992–2000, the leading party, the LDS, signed a coalition agreement with each coalition partner. Since 2013, such coalition agreements include a mechanism of explicitly stating in coalition agreements that certain issues are to be avoided. Regardless, governments termination in majority cases happened due to different (policy or personal) conflicts within the government. Early in the period, government coalitions were ideologically mixed. This was characteristic for governments under LDS leadership from 1992 to 2004, while after the 2004 elections, the governmental coalitions were much more ideologically homogenous. Alternation between like-minded ideological coalitions (centre-left or centre-right) took place. Simultaneously, the main lines of conflict changed. In the 1990s, initially a mostly ideological cleavage between ‘transformed’ and ‘newly established’ political parties was present, while after the 2004 elections, the economic cleavage became more salient. All parliamentary parties, except the Slovenian National Party, have at least briefly participated in governments, while the Democratic Party of Retired Persons have been since the mid-1990s the party with the biggest coalition potential. Since 2011, small parties have received pivotal roles in coalition formation. Generally speaking, participation in the government has not been electorally rewarding for the political parties.

Coalitions that Clash: California's Climate Leadership and the Perpetuation of Environmental Inequality

In coalition governments, parties need to agree on a common policy position. Whose preferences prevail? The proportionality hypothesis, the idea that coalition partners’ influence on policy is proportional to their share of seats, has been used widely in the literature on democratic representation, ideological congruence, and coalition politics. In my analysis of competing theories aimed at determining what influences policy compromise in multiparty governments, I reject the proportionality hypothesis. My results suggest instead that coalition partners exert equal influence on policy compromises, independent of their number of seats. More extensive analysis also provides evidence for increased party influence on policies when the party is the formateur or closer to the parliamentary median, ceteris paribus. As a by-product of my analysis, I provide a simple and better proxy for measuring a government's position when this position is not directly observable.

According to theories on coalition formation, parties with a key position in the coalition game receive higher office and policy payoffs than their coalition partners. In this article, I use two models of government-formation — the portfolio allocation model and the political heart model — to identify key players in the coalition game. Both models are modified to incorporate institutional and political constraints on coalition-formation, and the predictions of key parties from the four models are compared with the governments that actually formed in five European countries: Austria (1983—2002), Belgium (1985—2003), Germany (1980— 2005), Ireland (1982—2002) and The Netherlands (1977—2003). I argue that the modified models are preferred to the original ones on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Using the key parties identified by the modified models, I find that if a coalition member is a key party, then it is able to assert its policy views more effectively than its coalition partners can, but, contrary to expectations in the literature, that it is unable to capture a surpassing share of cabinet offices.