Coalition Participation Research Articles

Determinants and facilitators of community coalition diffusion of prevention efforts

This study examines how individual characteristics and network features of coalition participation in an intervention predict coalition members’ diffusion of Knowledge and Engagement in childhood obesity prevention. The study involved six communities in the U.S. measured across two to five time points from 2018 to 2021. Each community participated in the Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion theory-informed intervention, a three-phase intervention that employs group model building and technical assistance with convened stakeholders to build Knowledge, Engagement, and utilize research evidence in community-led, childhood obesity prevention actions. Findings indicate that key individual-level characteristics (e.g., years of experience, gender, eigenvector centrality) and network-level features (e.g., hierarchy, clustering) are associated with higher increases in intervention outcomes of Knowledge and Engagement in childhood obesity prevention. We attend to issues of perceived influence and power in community coalitions, finding that younger, less experienced women who are not well connected to other well-connected coalition members experience smaller increases in intervention outcomes. Our discussion focuses on how individual- and network-level characteristics are associated with coalition support for evidence-based practice adoption and implementation.

Organizational and coalition strategies for youth violence prevention: A longitudinal mixed-methods study.

This longitudinal study identifies espoused change orientations and actual youth violence prevention (YVP) practices over five years by 99 public and nonprofit organizations in one city. Annual key informant interviews provided both qualitative and quantitative data, including organizational collaborative network data. Data were also obtained on participation in a citywide YVP coalition, juvenile arrests and court referrals. On average, organizations both in and outside the coalition adopted a problem-focused as often as a strengths-based change orientation, and were only marginally more oriented toward empowering community members than professionals and changing communities than individual youth. Most surprisingly, YVP coalition members adopted more of a tertiary (reactive/rehabilitative) than primary prevention orientation compared to nonmembers. The number of different YVP strategies implemented increased over five years from mainly positive youth development and education interventions to those strategies plus mentoring, youth activities, events and programs, and counseling youth. Network analysis reveals dense initial collaboration with no critical gatekeepers and coalition participants more central to the city-wide organizational network. Coalition participation and total network collaboration declined in Years 3-5. Youth violence arrests and court referrals also declined. The coalition was marginally involved in successful community-collaborative, school-based interventions and other strategies adopted, and it disbanded a year after federal funding ended. Despite, or possibly due to, both national and local government participation, the coalition missed opportunities to engage in collective advocacy for local YVP policy changes. Coalitions should help nonprofit and public organizations develop more effective change orientations and implement commensurate strategies at the community level.

Electoral coalition signals and voter perceptions

AbstractHow do electoral coalition signals affect voters' perceptions of party positions and coalition behavior in parliamentary democracies? Scholars have found that coalition signals can influence how voters view policy positions of parties. Extending research on the impact of government coalition participation on voter perceptions, a recent study found that Spanish voters update their perceptions of party positions when they receive a signal that a party joined an electoral coalition, believing it to be farther to the left (right) if the signal was of a left- (right-)leaning coalition. That study also found, in agreement with the literature, that electoral coalition signals lead to expectations of future coalition behavior. Much of the literature on electoral coalitions focuses on parliamentary democracies in Europe that use proportional representation. Since the effects of electoral coalitions might vary across contexts, we conduct a similar survey experiment in Japan, a parliamentary democracy that uses a mixed electoral system with an important disproportional component. We find no evidence that electoral coalition signals affect how Japanese voters view the ideological positions of parties, a result that matches a similar analysis conducted in Sweden. However, some coalition signals – if they contain new information – do increase Japanese respondents' expectations that certain coalitions are more likely to form in the future.

United for health to improve urban food environments across five underserved communities: a cross-sector coalition approach

BackgroundCross-sector coalitions can be a powerful vehicle to promote adoption and implementation of evidence-based programs and policies across diverse racial/ethnic communities with a high chronic disease burden. Few studies have examined coalition composition, function, or capacity to promote learning among members.MethodsWe used a mixed methods approach to examine the United for Health coalition’s implementation of multiple food environment interventions across five low-income communities of color in Los Angeles, California (USA). At the coalition-level, key measures included the collaborative environment, membership characteristics, process and structure, communication, resources, strengths, challenges/barriers, and community impact. At the organizational- and individual-levels, we collected data on participation, leadership development, intraorganizational change, perceived benefits, and learning outcomes.FindingsOverall, the United for Health coalition produced five community gardens, three pop-up produce markets, and one farmers’ market; members also expanded Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) access at three existing farmers’ markets. Findings indicate early coalition strengths included having a mutual purpose, which was maintained throughout the study period. Coalition participation and engagement was consistently high, while coalition and inter-organizational communication improved over time. Strengths were membership diversity and the availability of learning opportunities. Benefits included leadership development and strategic alignment across organizations. Members demonstrated an increased awareness of the importance of culturally adapted interventions and knowledge of community health planning topics. Key implementation challenges were a lack of resources and social context barriers.ConclusionsExamining coalition function and maturation in a real-world context reveals important lessons for scholars and practitioners committed to addressing nutrition-related health disparities in marginalized and historically underserved communities. Future work should investigate the sustainability of externally funded cross-sector coalitions after funding ceases.

Which aspects of coalition functioning are key at different stages of coalition development? A qualitative comparative analysis.

Coalitions are increasingly utilized to promote positive community health outcomes. Typically, coalitions produce more desirable outcomes when coalition functioning is strong and the coalition model is implemented with fidelity. Although theory indicates that coalitions proceed through predictable stages of development, minimal research explicitly examines functioning and fidelity at these different stages. Within a larger evaluation of Washington State Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative, this cross-sectional study employs qualitative comparative analysis to illuminate the coalition functioning conditions necessary and sufficient to produce high model fidelity at different stages of development in 43 substance misuse prevention coalitions in one state. In the formation stage, only the presence of high levels of coalition leadership was sufficient to produce high model fidelity. In the maintenance stage, three combinations of conditions were sufficient: (1) sustainability planning if, and only if, accompanied by the absence of coalition participation costs, (2) coordinator leadership, and (3) a combination of coalition leadership and team cohesion. In the institutionalization stage, two solutions were sufficient: (1) coalition leadership if, and only if, accompanied by the absence of sustainability planning, and (2) sustainability planning if, and only if, accompanied by the absence of coordinator leadership. This study illustrates several tangible steps technical assistance providers may take to increase the likelihood of achieving model fidelity. In the formation stage, skillful and inclusive coalition leadership is important. In the maintenance stage, technical assistance should focus on reducing participant-perceived costs; increasing sustainability planning; enhancing coordinator-specific leadership; and developing team cohesion and coalition leadership. For coalitions in the institutionalization stage, coalition leadership and sustainability planning may be prime targets for technical assistance.Plain Language Summary: Community coalition approaches to addressing social problems are common and have some evidence of producing positive community outcomes. Research shows that coalitions produce more desirable outcomes when coalition functioning is strong and the coalition model is implemented as it was designed. Although theory suggests that coalitions proceed through predictable stages of development, few studies look at which supports are most needed, at each stage, to improve coalition functioning and implementation. This study aims to help answer that question by determining which aspects of coalition functioning, in which combinations, are key to strong, well-functioning coalitions at different developmental stages in a sample of prevention coalitions in Washington State focused on youth substance misuse. The results suggest that having a strong coalition leadership team is key for all coalitions, regardless of development stage. For coalitions earlier in their formation, this was especially true. For coalitions further into their development, the combination of strong coordinator leadership and strong team cohesion was particularly important. Finally, for the most well-established coalitions, if sustainability planning was weak, strong coalition team leadership was key; but if coordinator leadership was weak, strong sustainability planning was critical to offset the lack of strong leadership. The results can be used to inform the types of technical assistance provided to support coalitions at different developmental stages.

United we stand and divided we fall: Coalitions in the GATT/WTO negotiations

Coalition formation is considered an important tool to leverage bargaining power in GATT/WTO negotiations. While most of the literature has focused on developing countries, we show that sizable economies are the primary users of coalitions at the GATT/WTO. We also find evidence that middle powers do not exhibit distinctive collectivist behavior at the WTO. There is a linear and strong relationship between countries’ economic power—measured as real GDP—and coalition participation within the GATT/WTO system. We explain these results, presenting evidence that large economies—countries that have greater trade negotiations power—join coalitions more often because they are better equipped to absorb transaction costs and more prepared to deal with the uncertainty of WTO negotiations. We also found a relationship between coalition entry and trade openness, with countries more open to trade joining coalitions more often.

Competitive ability determines coalition participation and partner selection during maturation in wild male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii).

Social mammals often live in groups in which a dominance hierarchy is an important determinant of access to mates. In addition to competing individually, males may form coalitions of two or more to attack or intimidate rivals. Coalition formation could be particularly advantageous for adolescent males by helping them compensate for their physical and social immaturity. However, adolescents may struggle to attract effective coalition partners because of these inadequacies. Here, we examine the behavior of maturing male chimpanzees to test whether coalitions are more frequent among more or less powerful individuals. Our longitudinal study followed 18 males (ages 5 through 25 years) and utilized 1517 coalitions across 12 years of observation of the Kanyawara chimpanzee community in Kibale National Park, Uganda. We found that rates of coalition formation increased across maturation and that this increase was independent of a rise in the overall use of aggression. Juveniles formed coalitions almost exclusively with their mothers, while adolescents partnered primarily with peers and adult males. When adolescents and adult males formed coalitions with each other, the adolescents were more likely to join the adults than vice versa. Finally, adolescents engaged in joint behavior with adult males more often in non-aggressive vocal displays than in aggressive coalitions. Taken together, our results suggest that adolescent males are largely unable to attract the most powerful coalition partners and that they "make the best of a bad job" by joining adult males in less competitive situations, when the risk of receiving aggression from opponents is lower.

The cost of coalition compromise: The electoral effects of holding salient portfolios

This article highlights the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios within a coalition government. For voters, holding ministries can be seen as a symbol of a party’s success within the coalition. As a voting heuristic, parties not controlling the portfolios on issues important to their platforms signal their failure to achieve these goals. Following this perspective, we hypothesize that the difference between coalition parties that hold salient portfolios and those that do not partially predicts the extent of the electoral cost of coalition participation. Using a data set that covers 11 European parliamentary democracies between 1966 and 2002, we show that for junior coalition partners there is an electoral reward for holding their most salient portfolio. There is also an electoral benefit for a junior partner to hold a larger number of portfolios if they do not control their most salient portfolio. Conversely, holding their most salient portfolio and a larger number of additional ministries results in greater electoral losses in the subsequent parliamentary election. These results indicate that parties’ success at negotiating for their policy priorities in coalition governments holds consequences for their future electoral success.

Should we talk about the weather? How party competition and coalition participation influence parties’ attention to economic issues

Media narratives of political campaigns paint a complex picture of parties carefully selecting communication strategies in response to the current social and economic climate as well as the strategic choices made by rival parties. Current empirical efforts based on simple ordinary least squares, however, fail to honor those complexities. We argue that ignoring the spatial and temporal dynamics at play produces misleading inferences about parties’ behavior. In an application of German parties’ attention to economic issues in official communications, we demonstrate that once scholars test the theories with a method that honors the inherent complexity of the process, the inferences about parties’ degree of responsiveness change. Indeed, proper specification of the model shows that scholars who ignore spatial dependence tend to overstate the degree to which parties are responsive to changing conditions (such as public opinion or economic indicators) and understate the role of other constraints. Most notably, we find that parties have varying levels of path dependence, parties emulate the strategies used by ideological neighbors, and coalition partners appear to coordinate their strategies. These findings have implications for understanding variation in parties’ messaging strategies and how voters perceive parties’ positions.

Community Readiness to Adopt the Communities That Care Prevention System in an Urban Setting

This manuscript highlights initial activities from a 5-year project to build a community coalition focused on the promotion of family, school, and community connectedness; academic investment; and social and emotional well-being among black male youth and their families, as well as the prevention and reduction of risk behaviors. Project activities were planned according to the step-by-step coalition-based prevention system, Communities That Care. During Year 1 (2013/2014), semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 community members (parents, school administrators and teachers, and community leaders and volunteers) to evaluate readiness to adopt Communities That Care. Participants were asked to (1) define community; (2) identify community strengths; (3) recommend methods to strengthen community relationships; (4) envision ideal coalition functions; (5) identify current community resources; (6) recommend prevention targets and methods; (7) identify potential barriers to coalition participation; and (8) assess overall community readiness to adopt Communities That Care. Analyses were conducted in Year 3 (2015/2016). Participants expressed eagerness and readiness to adopt Communities That Care. They identified community strengths and local resources that could contribute to coalition success, as well as potential barriers to participation and group cohesion that if left unaddressed could diminish coalition impact. Participants believed that links between multiple environments (home, school, community) should be strengthened in order to promote the well-being of youth. They envisioned the Communities That Care coalition as a task force of community members with varying talents invested in youth across their entire life course. Community members' insights may be used to guide implementation of Communities That Care by this coalition and others. This article is part of a supplement entitled African American Men's Health: Research, Practice, and Policy Implications, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Measuring Sense of Community Responsibility in Community-Based Prevention Coalitions: An Item Response Theory Analysis.

Research on sense of community (SOC) has traditionally been approached from a resource perspective. Recently, however, research on the experience of SOC has evolved to include a related but distinct construct of sense of community responsibility (SOC-R), or feelings of accountability for the well-being of a community. This study applied item response theory to examine the psychometric properties of a SOC-R scale used in anevaluation of community-based substance abuse prevention coalitions. Data were collected in 2017 from coalition members (analytic sample=309) in the northeastern United States. Findings indicate that the scale was reliable, unidimensional, and functioned well, particularly at low and moderate levels of the construct. The addition of two items intended to capture higher levels of the construct improved the scale's functioning at higher levels of SOC-R. The adapted SOC-R scale was also shown to have moderately strong relationships with conceptually relevant variables, including SOC, coalition participation, number of roles performed in the coalition, and engagement in community action activities. These findings provide empirical evidence to support the reliability and validity of the SOC-R scale, and have critical implications for our conceptualization of the SOC construct, its measurement, and for the evaluation of community-based prevention interventions.

The electoral cost of coalition participation

It is a well-established empirical finding that governments on average lose votes during their time in office. This exploratory analysis examines whether all members of coalition governments suffer...

Bandwagon for Status: Changing Patterns in the Nordic States Status-seeking Strategies?

ABSTRACTWhy do the small Nordic states engage themselves in militarized interventions alongside the United States? The article argues that the Nordic states gradually have begun to perceive militarized coalition participation as an important tool to gain reputation and improve their status position. A good relationship with the United States is considered as a means to either consolidate or improve their relative status position and also secure protection or ‘shelter’ against regional competitors by improving their reputation. Empirically, the article contributes to our understanding of the status-seeking strategies of the Nordic countries and how they might have utilized a more militarized activism to seek status that departs from the traditional Nordic internationalism. Theoretically, the article contributes to our understanding of the concept of ‘status’ in international relations by offering a new explanation of the puzzling willingness of small states to use military means in international conflicts where immaterial gains play a larger role than otherwise assumed in the realist small-state literature.

Buying Friends? The Importance of Economic Flows in Assembling the Iraq War Coalition

AbstractEconomic ties between countries are likely to influence the alignment of their international policies. This paper investigates whether countries’ historical economic ties with the United States and their expectation of changes in future economic flows had a role in their decision to join the US-led coalition in Iraq from 2003 onwards. We use data on 115 countries over the period 2003–2009 to estimate panel random effects probit models of war coalition participation. We measure the intensity of economic ties with three variables: bilateral trade flows between the partner country and the US as well as FDI and aid flows from the US to the partner country. Our results suggest that both good trade relations prior to the conflict and the prospects of their further improvements increase the willingness of countries to join the coalition. In spite of the anecdotal evidence, we find no empirical evidence that the dependence on American FDI or aid affected countries’ decision on Iraq war participation.

Maintaining Partisan ties

Parties coordinate on a range of activities. They invite leaders from other parties to their national meetings, run joint electoral platforms and even form parliamentary factions and coalition governments. The implications of regular cooperation such as the case of pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) for party positioning are unexplored. Parties form PECs to reduce competition for voters with ideologically close competitors and to signal their ability to cohesively govern. Building on this logic, we argue that parties’ preferences converge in PECs to demonstrate their ability to govern together and diverge when parties observe that this tactic has failed to attract voter support in past elections. We demonstrate support for our approach using data on electoral coalition participation, party positions and parties’ internal speeches. Additional evidence from an extreme case of an enduring electoral coalition in Germany shows that PECs have dramatic effects on parties’ positions.

Too many problems at home to help you: Domestic disincentives for military coalition participation

Scholars have begun to examine the determinants of military coalition participation. Most studies pay closer attention to international (both systemic/dyadic) rather than domestic factors. While admitting the predominance of such international factors, this study claims that the domestic conditions of potential participants also determine if a state actually joins in a coalition. Specifically, domestic conditions work as suppressing factors for coalition participation. First, riots and violent domestic protests lead to a significant reduction in the probability of sending military troops for a coalition operation, because military resources cannot be deployed when they might be needed to maintain domestic order. Second, a state that is experiencing an economic recession cannot easily send its troops to a coalition operation because the domestic audience would prefer to prioritize resource allocations for domestic economic recovery.

Breaking the Dynamics of Emotions and Fear in Conflict and Reconstruction

AbstractThis paper is all about the construction of a new analytical framework to understand conflict and cooperation both at the international and at the domestic level with the aim of then finding mechanisms to reduce tensions and initiate conflict resolution schemes. The existing research literature on such analytical frameworks has so far been conducted a) mostly on standard social science disciplinary lines and has not incorporated the important work done on these questions by neuro-scientists and behavioral geneticists and b) is not really capable except in very specific instances to deal with the evolving dynamics of conflict and cooperation. Conflict over scarce resources (territory, mates, food) between members of the same species is a universal feature of evolution. Often conflict, especially armed conflict is supposed to be due to shows of force by two or more parties in order to appropriate or dominate resources. Force appears thus not to be the only decisive factor; perceived entitlement and powerful feelings of injustice thereby generated in the case of challenge, extended to group identity are also at the basis of conflict and aggression in humans. The relationship between environment and conflict, the role of emotions such as fear, and the absence of clear definition and enforcement of property rights within societies are also factors in the development of conflict. Thus we have here developed an analytically based numerical model that aims to include finding on these topics by Neuroscience and to emphasize the role of emotions in conflict and cooperation dynamics. This model has been simulated without specific reference to a particular country with the result that economic conditions drive our system since in one case sustained growth produces stability and end of combats whereas deteriorating capital growth and GDP collapse lead to increased hostile coalition participation and more fighting. However, the mere trigger of economic conditions is insufficient to explain conflict escalation, which results from increased participation in mutually hostile coalitions and greater fighting propensity where emotions such as fear and resentment play their role. Finally a detailed empirical analysis of the current Syrian conflict has been undertaken which shows the ability of the model to forecast actual historical developments. This study also indicates that worsening economic conditions are not the only triggering factors in civil conflict. Perceptions of opportunities due to a weakening of a regime’s authority also play a major role.

Abstract C10: Attrition in a cluster randomized controlled trial: Lessons learned from the Educational Program to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening (EPICS) pilot study

Abstract Background: High attrition rates in community intervention trials limit study generalizability, threaten internal validity and decrease statistical power. Attrition can introduce selection bias in randomized controlled trials (RCT); however, cluster randomization minimizes this effect because cohorts formed at baseline are balanced on known covariates. Nonetheless, attrition is a challenge for research with traditionally difficult-to-follow populations, including African Americans. The purpose of this paper is to determine attrition rates for the Educational Program to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening (EPICS) cluster RCT, describe challenges encountered during a study pilot period and provide solutions to overcome threats to full-scale trial implementation. Methods: We intend to enroll 7,200 individuals in this study, with 1,800 in four dissemination arms (in-person with technical assistance, in-person without technical assistance, web-access with technical assistance and web-access without technical assistance). Based on data from a previously published study, we calculated an intracluster correlation coefficient to equal 0.0911 (9.1%). The effective sample size was 5,645, which still has high power (>99%) 320 with design effect of 1.2754. Quantitative and qualitative measures were used to obtain data from community coalitions targeting African Americans ages 50-74 years with no personal or family history and not current on colorectal cancer (CRC) screening for EPICS implementation. Community coalition participation, facilitator-training outcomes and participant enrollment were analyzed to determine attrition rates. Key informant interviews were conducted to identify challenges to trial implementation. Results: Thirty-three community coalitions were approached for participation; 13 did not meet inclusion criteria, eight were not available when the trial was offered and two declined participation. At baseline (Time 1), 20 community coalitions were randomized to passive or active study arms. At Time 2 (facilitator training), one community coalition was lost from each study arm (attrition rate=10%). Two hundred and fifty individuals were approached to complete facilitator training; 204 were trained and certified as EPICS facilitators (attrition rate=18%). At pilot testing (Time 3) 665 participants were enrolled; 436 completed all three EPICS sessions at Time 4 (attrition rate=34%). Conclusions: We previously reported a participant attrition rate for the Colorectal Cancer Screening Intervention Trial (CCSIT). We attribute the 9% difference in participant attrition between CCSIT (25%) and EPICS cRCT (34%) to research conducted in an academic versus real world settings. Difficulty recruiting and engaging participants may be overcome by offering additional locations and more convenient days/times for EPICS sessions. For community coalitions, results suggest that enhancing capacity to conduct research would limit attrition in trials such as EPICS. Interviewing potential facilitators, describing the cRCT and describing roles and responsibilities in greater detail may result in greater training participation. Citation Format: Selina A. Smith, Ernestine Delmoor, Joyce Q. Sheats, Mechelle D. Claridy, Francesca Damus, Ernest Alemah-Mensah, Daniel S. Blumenthal. Attrition in a cluster randomized controlled trial: Lessons learned from the Educational Program to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening (EPICS) pilot study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2013 Oct 27-30; National Harbor, MD. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2013;6(11 Suppl): Abstract nr C10.

Perceptions of Partisan Ideologies: The Effect of Coalition Participation

Recent scholarship in comparative political behavior has begun to address how voters in coalitional systems manage the complexity of those environments. We contribute to this emerging literature by asking how voters update their perceptions of the policy positions of political parties that participate in coalition cabinets. In contrast to previous work on the sources of voter perceptions of party ideology in parliamentary systems, which has asked how voters respond to changes in party manifestos (i.e., promises), we argue that in updating their perceptions, voters will give more weight to observable actions than to promises. Further, coalition participation is an easily observed party action that voters use as a heuristic to infer the direction of policy change in the absence of detailed information about parties’ legislative records. Specifically, we propose that all voters should perceive parties in coalition cabinets as more ideologically similar, but that this tendency will be muted for more politically interested voters (who have greater access to countervailing messages from parties). Using an individual‐level data set constructed from 54 electoral surveys in 18 European countries, we find robust support for these propositions.

Factors associated with collaboration among agencies serving children with complex chronic conditions.

Our objective was to identify agency-level factors that increase collaborative relationships between agenciesthat serve children with complex chronic conditions (CCC). We hypothesized that an agency will collaborate with more partners in the network if the agency had a coordinator and participated in a community coalition. We surveyed representatives of 63 agencies that serve children with CCC in Forsyth County, North Carolina about their agencies' collaborations with other agencies. We used social network analytical methods and exponential random graph analysis to identify factors associated with collaboration among agencies. The unit of analysis was the collaborative tie (n=3,658) between agencies in the network. Agencies participating in a community coalition were 1.5 times more likely to report collaboration than agencies that did not participate in a coalition. Presence of a coordinator in an agency was not associated with the number of collaborative relationships. Agencies in existence for a longer duration (≥11 vs. ≤10years; adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 2.1) and those with a higher proportion of CCC clientele (aOR: 2.1 and 1.6 for 11-30% and ≥31% compared to ≤10%) had greater collaboration. Care coordination agencies and pediatric practices reported more collaborative relationships than subspecialty clinics, home-health agencies, durable medical equipment companies, educational programs and family-support services. Collaborative relationships between agencies that serve children with CCC are increased by coalition participation, longer existence and higher CCC clientele. Future studies should evaluate whether interventions to improve collaborations among agencies will improve clinical outcomes of children with CCC.