Coalition Support Research Articles

Getting Acceptance for Tough Decisions

This article discusses research-based strategies that organizational leaders can use to effectively implement unpopular decisions and gain acceptance of necessary changes from employees and stakeholders. It outlines the importance of clear communication to explain the rationale and context behind tough choices. Leaders must be transparent in their decision-making process and involve stakeholders to address concerns and build ownership of outcomes. Addressing the negative emotions that arise and exploring alternative options or ways to mitigate impacts can help address psychological and practical issues. Enlisting champions and coalitions of supporters to reinforce the reasoning for decisions can boost consensus. Continued communication on outcomes and progress reinforces that the difficult period was necessary. Ultimately, navigating tough times requires combining these communication strategies with empathetic and honest leadership that cultivates trust and shared commitment to organizational goals and vision despite short-term hardship.

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.

The moral and strategic clarity of supporting Ukraine’s self-defense: Why accepting Russian colonialism should remain a taboo

In response to Toal’s article “The Territorial Taboo: Explaining the Public Aversion to Negotiations in the Ukraine War Support Coalition”, I argue that the alleged silencing of those who push for Ukraine’s territorial concessions to Russia is an exaggerated problem. The reason why such voices are not gaining traction is because, as of summer 2024, neither Ukraine nor key European states had a majority in favor of territorial concessions. This is reassuring: it means that there is little appetite for endorsing Russian colonialism and abandoning Ukrainians on the occupied territories to Russian terror in the hope of an illusory “peace”. In contrast to the majority opinion, Toal calls for sacrificing (a part of) Ukraine in order to freeze the conflict and reduce great power tensions. To make such a colonial proposition seem palatable, Toal tries to shift the blame for the continuation of the war from Russia, the aggressor, to Ukraine, the victim. In reality, Ukrainians want peace, just not on Russia’s terms. Any settlement that does not involve the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity is unjust and likely unsustainable. It would give Russia an opportunity to re-arm, extracting resources from the newly occupied Ukrainian territories. Russian officials showed no intention of abiding by any potential agreements with Ukraine, reiterating their goal of destroying the Ukrainian nation and state. Since aggression against Ukraine did not attract widespread opposition within Russia and garnered quite a few enthusiastic supporters, a change in Russian policy seemed improbable as of summer 2024. The continuation of armed resistance against the Russian invasion is Ukraine’s only choice.

The territorial taboo: Explaining the public aversion to negotiations in the Ukraine war support coalition

Despite severe and mounting war costs, many in the international coalition supporting Ukraine have publicly expressed strong aversion to negotiations with Russia, and Ukrainian territorial concessions, to end the war. What explains this aversion to negotiations and seeming taboo on territorial concessions? This commentary, drawing particularly on US policy debate, suggests that proclaimed sacred values helps explain this disposition. Ukraine’s war support network is a discursive coalition bound together by three shared narratives about the war and universal values. Stories about international law and territorial integrity, about war crimes and genocide, and about freedom and democracy, render talk about territorial concessions to Russia, as the aggressor state, taboo in different ways. Psychological factors, from commitment problems to hawkish biases, bolster this taboo. The Gaza war, however, has exposed Western sacred values as geographically limited. The territorial taboo disguises tragic trade-offs and the enormous costs of Ukraine’s fight, burdening the country with an unwinnable mission. Any settlement of the war is likely to see the territorial taboo abandoned, in de facto if not de jure terms.

Diplomatic Ukraine in the international arena: miscalculations and gains in wartime conditions

The key tasks of domestic diplomacy in strengthening the international coalition in support of Ukraine are argued, promoting the ideas of improving the security system and forming new formats of international cooperation to effectively confront modern threats. The necessity of reforming international security organizations in view of increasing their efficiency and ability to quickly and decisively respond to violations of international law and the use of force is justified, promoting the ideas of creating effective mechanisms of collective security and preventive diplomacy. The strategic directions of Ukrainian diplomacy during the war, regarding active sanctions actions, which included fourteen packages of economic and personal sanctions against the Russian Federation adopted by the Council of the EU, were analyzed. The effectiveness of sanctions pressure and the possibility of achieving peace are characterized. It was emphasized that close coordination of efforts with partner countries, on the one hand, and coordination of sanctions policy, on the other, as well as the provision of military and financial assistance, development of the national defense industry, are the key to the stability of the Ukrainian state. The research used a number of scientific methods, including systematic, comparative, historical, expert evaluation methods, as well as analysis and synthesis methods.

The Political Economics of Non-democracy

We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economics of non-democracies. Nondemocratic regimes face multiple challenges to their rule, both internal, such as palace coups or breakdown of their support coalition, and external, such as mass protests or revolutions. We analyze strategic decisions made by dictators from the standpoint of maximizing the chances of regime survival in the light of these challenges, and show how it explains multiple common patterns, from hiring political loyalists to positions that require competence, to restricting media freedom at the cost of sacrificing bureaucratic efficiency, to running propaganda campaigns, organizing election fraud, purging opponents and associates, and repressing citizens. (JEL D72, D73, D82, D83, L82, O17)

Redistributing Power: Land Reform, Rural Cooptation, and Grassroots Regime Institutions in Authoritarian Taiwan

Can redistributive policies such as land reform help authoritarian regimes coopt rural societies? Given that land reform has the potential to disrupt preexisting sociopolitical orders, this article highlights an unresolved puzzle of how regimes balance between the objectives of expanding its rural coalitional support through transformative redistribution and stabilizing its political control over rural institutions during land reform. Using a novel dataset of Taiwan’s 1950s rural reforms under the Kuomintang authoritarian regime, I find that stronger redistributive effects facilitated cooptation of new land reform beneficiaries through a key institution – the farmers’ association (FA). However, I also find that the restructuring of rank-and-file FA membership was still subject to meddling by the native landlord class. I thus argue that land reform, while allowing regimes to broaden their rural coalitions through socioeconomic redistribution, can also paradoxically compel regimes to concede power during institutional cooptation.

Can democracy at work deliver mutual gains in the digital economy?

Digital and AI-based technologies provide new tools to discipline workers, intensify monitoring, and deskill jobs. This article asks under what conditions these technologies can instead be used to generate mutual gains for employers, workers, and the broader public. Two developments are discussed, which provide opportunities for new coalitions in support of strengthened collective worker voice in technology adoption and deployment. First, the growing use of these tools in a range of service occupations provides opportunities for coalitions with customers or service users focusing on technologies' impact on service quality. Second, the importance of worker knowledge and skills as both inputs to and output of new AI-based technologies provides opportunities for a more collaborative approach to improving their accuracy and performance. To realize these opportunities for mutual gains, governments and labor unions first need to place institutional constraints on employers that strengthen bargaining rights and that protect minimum employment standards, workers' privacy and control over data, and job security.

'Our Roots Run Deep': Historical Myths as Culturally Evolved Technologies for Coalitional Recruitment.

One of the most remarkable manifestations of social cohesion in large-scale entities is the belief in a shared, distinct and ancestral past. Human communities around the world take pride in their ancestral roots, commemorate their long history of shared experiences, and celebrate the distinctiveness of their historical trajectory. Why do humans put so much effort into celebrating a long-gone past? Integrating insights from evolutionary psychology, social psychology, evolutionary anthropology, political science, cultural history and political economy, we show that the cultural success of historical myths is driven by a specific adaptive challenge for humans: the need to recruit coalitional support to engage in large scale collective action and prevail in conflicts. By showcasing a long history of cooperation and shared experiences, these myths serve as super-stimuli, activating specific features of social cognition and drawing attention to cues of fitness interdependence. In this account, historical myths can spread within a population without requiring group-level selection, as long as individuals have a vested interest in their propagation and strong psychological motivations to create them. Finally, this framework explains, not only the design-features of historical myths, but also important patterns in their cross-cultural prevalence, inter-individual distribution, and particular content.

Organizational Formation for Priority Setting: Historical Perspectives and Thematic Analysis of India’s Health Technology Assessment Agency

ABSTRACT Countries pursuing universal health coverage must set priorities to determine which benefits to add to a national health program, but the roles that organizations play are less understood. This article investigates the case of the formation of an organization with a mandate for choice of technology for public health interventions and priorities, the Health Technology Assessment India. First, we narrate a chronology of agenda setting and adoption of national policy for organizational formation drawing on historical documentation, publicly available literature, and lived experiences from coauthors. Next, we conduct a thematic analysis that examines windows of opportunity, enabling factors, barriers and conditions, roles of stakeholders, messaging and framing, and specific administrative and bureaucratic tools that facilitated organization formation. This case study shows that organizational formation relied on the identification of multiple champions with sufficient seniority and political authority across a wide group of organizations, forming a coalition of broad base support, who were keen to advance health technology assessment policy development and organizational placement or formation. The champions in turn could use their roles for policy decisions that used private and public events to raise priority and commitment to the decisions, carefully considered organizational placement and formation, and developed the network of organizations for the generation of technical evidence and capacity building for health technology assessment, strengthened by international networks and organizations with financing, expertise, and policymaker relationships.

A Community-Engaged Approach to Understanding Suicide in a Small Rural County in Georgia: A Two-Phase Content Analysis of Individual and Focus Group Interviews.

Suicide is a significant public health problem, with disproportionate rates in rural areas. Rural communities face substantial structural and cultural barriers to suicide prevention. This study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the need for suicide prevention and gauge the appropriateness of prevention efforts in the context of a rural Georgia county by leveraging existing community resources and knowledge. Twenty one-on-one, semi-structured interviews and two focus groups were conducted, with participants recruited via purposive snowball sampling. Data analysis included qualitative deductive and inductive content analysis from individual interviews and focus groups with community stakeholders. The findings highlight how rural contexts exacerbate drivers of death by suicide and how the substantial loss of community members to suicide contributes to the ongoing crisis and reduces available support. Access to mental health care often depended on a connection to an established public system such as schools, a military base, or Veterans Administration. There were perceived gaps in crisis and post-crisis services, with participants actively trying to address these gaps and build community support through coalition building. This study contributes knowledge to contextual drivers of suicide in rural areas beyond individual-level risk factors. Community-engaged suicide prevention research in rural areas is promising, but there is a need to develop interventions to best support coalition building and capacity development.

Risk factors for poor engagement with a smart pillbox adherence intervention among persons on tuberculosis treatment in Ethiopia

BackgroundNon-adherence to tuberculosis treatment increases the risk of poor treatment outcomes. Digital adherence technologies (DATs), including the smart pillbox (EvriMED), aim to improve treatment adherence and are being widely evaluated. As part of the Adherence Support Coalition to End TB (ASCENT) project we analysed data from a cluster-randomised trial of DATs and differentiated care in Ethiopia to examine individual-factors for poor engagement with the smart pillbox.MethodsData were obtained from a cohort of trial participants with drug-sensitive tuberculosis (DS-TB) whose treatment started between 1 December 2020 and 1 May 2022, and who were using the smart pillbox. Poor engagement with the pillbox was defined as (i) > 20% days with no digital confirmation and (ii) the count of days with no digital confirmation, and calculated over a two evaluation periods (56-days and 168-days). Logistic random effects regression was used to model > 20% days with no digital confirmation and negative binomial random effects regression to model counts of days with no digital confirmation, both accounting for clustering of individuals at the facility-level.ResultsAmong 1262 participants, 10.8% (133/1262) over 56-days and 15.8% (200/1262) over 168-days had > 20% days with no digital confirmation. The odds of poor engagement was less among participants in the higher stratum of socio-economic position (SEP) over 56-days. Overall, 4,689/67,315 expected doses over 56-days and 18,042/199,133 expected doses over 168-days were not digitally confirmed. Compared to participants in the poorest SEP stratum, participants in the wealthiest stratum had lower rates of days not digitally confirmed over 168-days (adjusted rate ratio [RRa]:0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.65, 0.96). In both evaluation periods (56-days and 168-days), HIV-positive status (RRa:1.29; 95%CI: 1.02, 1.63 and RRa:1.28; 95%CI: 1.07, 1.53), single/living independent (RRa:1.31; 95%CI: 1.03, 1.67 and RRa:1.38; 95%CI: 1.16, 1.64) and separated/widowed (RRa:1.40; 95%CI: 1.04, 1.90 and RRa:1.26; 95%CI: 1.00, 1.58) had higher rates of counts of days with no digital confirmation.ConclusionPoorest SEP stratum, HIV-positive status, single/living independent and separated/ widowed were associated with poor engagement with smart pillbox among people with DS-TB in Ethiopia. Differentiated care for these sub-groups may reduce risk of non-adherence to TB treatment.

The First Year of the Conflict in Ukraine: Political and Military Consequences for Central and Eastern Europe

The outcome of the conflict in Ukraine will bring fundamental political, military, economic and social consequences, and define global and regional balance of power and fate of number of international organizations, including European Union and NATO. The aim of this paper is to analyze political and military consequences of the first year of the conflict in Ukraine for countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States and further development of trans-Atlantic link for European security, including development of NATO Alliance until 2030. Fundamentally different threat perception in Russian Federation and in NATO, EU countries, and Ukraine led to the beginning of military action of Russian Federation against Ukraine in February 24, 2022. Since then, military conflict in Ukraine has evolved into full-scale war on terrain of Ukraine, and increasingly negative escalation of political, military and economic relationships between Russian Federation and NATO, EU and other actors, bringing parties to nuclear standoff. War in Ukraine has brought substantial political and military endurance test for NATO and European Union. The immediate political consequences of the first year of war in Ukraine have been outlined in NATO Summit in Madrid in summer of 2022 and in NATO Agenda 2030. Continuation of NATO Open Door Policy has led to invitation of Finland and Sweden to join the Alliance thus fundamentally changing security environment in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea Region. The Summit also declared to strengthen military posture on the Eastern flank of the Alliance thus countering hypothetical military threat of Russian Federation to the Baltic States and Central and Eastern European states. From the pure military perspective- NATO has substantially increased military support of Ukraine via creation of decision-making platform of Ramstein format as well as increasing understanding of NATO members for need to spend more resources allocated to defense. On the other hand, European Union has granted status of candidate for Ukraine, as well as provided continuous economic and financial support for Ukraine. Moreover, European Union has staged continuous and increasing policy of economic sanctions towards Russian Federation. However, despite substantial increase of political and military coherence and coordination of efforts of NATO and EU countries after the first year of the war in Ukraine, there are mounting challenges and risks. Firstly, increasing economic challenges in EU and NATO member- states which, subsequently, can lead to fundamental political consequences thus leading to diminished political and military support to Ukraine. Secondly, potential challenges for further military support of Ukraine and NATO Open Door Policy. NATO members- Turkey and Hungary-have different point of view on the enlargement of the Alliance and support of Ukraine. Thirdly, global and regional attitudes towards war in Ukraine and, predominantly, Western coalition of support for Ukraine. People’s Republic of China, India, Africa, Central and Latin America, other global and regional actors are mostly neutral towards war in Ukraine thus avoiding political and economic confrontation with Russian Federation. Yet another fundamental challenge: NATO countries are continuing to provide Ukraine with increasingly effective and sophisticated weapon systems which can lead to direct military confrontation between Russian Federation and NATO/The United States in 2023. Taking into account previously mentioned risks and challenges, it is obvious that there are several scenarios of development of war in Ukraine ranging from complete military victory for Ukraine and, subsequently, for the West to complete military victory of Russian Federation in Ukraine via long-term warfare of attrition.

Electoral rule and public sector efficiency: Some evidence from Italian municipalities

AbstractWe study the effect of Law 81/1993, which introduced a different rule for the election of mayors, on the technical efficiency of Italian cities over the period 1998–2006. Since 1993, municipalities below 15,000 inhabitants vote with a single‐ballot system, whereas cities above 15,000 inhabitants are subject to a double ballot. We first estimate the output‐oriented technical efficiency of municipalities through data envelopment analysis, and then we perform a regression discontinuity design analysis by exploiting the exogenous change in the electoral scheme at the 15,000 inhabitants cut‐off. We find evidence that municipalities voting under a double‐ballot rule show lower levels of efficiency—in terms of provision of public goods—compared with cities voting under a single‐ballot scheme, by about 6.5%. This effect is driven by inefficiencies registered in specific sectors, that is, police, education, and maintenance of roads. Furthermore, the overall lower efficiency of municipalities voting under runoff is related to the different level of educational attainment of elected mayors, whereas it is not driven by the features of Law 81/1993 relating to the number of lists forming a coalition in support of mayoral candidates and to disjoint votes.

Food recovery and produce distribution as a system strategy for increasing access to healthy food among populations experiencing food insecurity: lessons for post-pandemic planning.

Using data from an intercept survey of 428 adults who received free surplus produce at five distribution sites and qualitative data from 15 interviews with site personnel, we examined facilitators (e.g. community partnerships, coalition support) and challenges (e.g. limited refrigerated storage, lack of transportation infrastructure) to operating a food recovery and distribution program in Los Angeles County. Overall, this food system intervention appeared to fill an unmet need for recipients, nearly 80% of whom were food insecure and 60% visited a site several months/year or monthly. For many living in this county's underserved communities, this effort was instrumental in increasing access to healthy food before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To sustain/expand this program's reach, local governments and food assistance programs should provide greater coordination and oversight, and invest more resources into this food recovery and distribution infrastructure.

Survivor engagement: Experience with an advocacy-based model in Washington, D.C.

As an IRCT member organization supporting survivors of torture, the Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition (TASSC) International places survivor engagement at the core of their work, aiming to provide safe and inclusive spaces for survivors to speak out and take meaningful action to prevent torture. This article describes TASSC's model for engaging survivors in advocacy and presents evidence on the personal impacts such engagement can have. Each year from 2016-2019, TASSC administered a simple survey with questions for survivors to complete after their annual "Advocacy Day" in Washington D.C. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected to inform internal service provision and the design of future events. Across the four years a total of 140 survivors and compatriot human rights advocates participated in the annual Advocacy Day, and a majority completed the surveys. In their survey responses, survivors agreed they had many positive thoughts and feelings after advocacy. Their reported positive experiences included a sense of being listened to and heard by an understanding and responsive audience, the power of feeling part of a group that was speaking out on behalf of themselves and others, and a sense of motivation and hopefulness for the future. Although undertaken primarily to inform internal processes, TASSC's surveys with survivors who engaged in advocacy shed light on the potential value of well-designed advocacy experiences. Consistent with past research, survivors reported strong motivations around and compelling benefits from participating, despite the challenges that the deeply personal nature of their engagement could present. This feedback suggests TASSC has a strong model that could be replicated elsewhere, but it would be beneficial to further investigate the experiences of survivors engaging in advocacy in other country settings.

Policy entrepreneurs and problem definition: the case of European student mobility

AbstractIn the literature on the role of agency in the policy process, relatively little attention has been devoted to how agents define policy problems. This article helps to address this gap by asking when and how policy entrepreneurs are successful in defining problems. The article rests on a framework that shows how policy entrepreneurs holding specific ideas and given a propitious socioeconomic context are able to define problems, translate those problems into new frames, and draw on those frames, while using their personal skills and political and institutional resources, to help build supportive coalitions in favor of policy change. Illustrated by a puzzling case in the field of European mobility policy, the article offers a new perspective on the role of ideas at the problem definition stage of the policy process, while providing a richer understanding of the policy entrepreneur as a driver of policy change.

The Economic Coercion Trilemma

States often use market access as a bargaining chip in international politics. A state that requires simultaneous compliance in multiple issue areas before granting market access maximizes incentives to comply but also makes them brittle – any targeted states that cannot comply in one issue area have no incentive to comply in any. More generally, programs of economic coercion can achieve at most two of the following three objectives: 1) secure a broad coalition of domestic political support, 2) the association of meaningful trade value with each policy issue, and 3) assurance that enforcing one political issue will not reduce the target’s incentives to comply with conditionality on others. Characteristics of the program’s domestic constituency, of the issues themselves, and of the international economy are key determinants of how the state prioritizes the three objectives. The trilemma explains the number and types of issues that can be linked to economic value.

Pakistan-Iran and the Trump Administration from 2016 to 2020

Donald Trump and his phenomenon of populism in the Western world are explained in this study. His blistering attack on Pakistan in a speech for receiving a massive amount in coalition support program but not doing enough against the Taliban, particularly against the Haqqani network is discussed.Ultimately the US did cut off and stopped the support fund but Pakistan didn't go against the Taliban for its own reasons. With the advent of Imran Khan's Populist government, the relations between US and Pakistan turned sour US didn't completely disengage itself from Pakistan, however, Pakistan's economic woes increased. Trump also unilaterally withdrew from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal to the utter dismay of its European allies. Pakistan's President Imran Khan tried to have better relations between Iran and Pakistan but the Saudi factor has impinged upon the relations between the two countries. The role of leadership has also delved into which steers the relations in a certain direction and impacts the policies of a country.

“I am (oppressed), therefore I see”: Multiple stigmatized identities predict belief in generalized prejudice and intraminority coalition

ABSTRACT Integrating lay theory of generalized prejudice (LTGP) and intersectionality frameworks, the present research demonstrated that, across four samples (N = 7,121), people with a greater number of stigmatized identities (based on race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation) endorsed LTGP more strongly, perceived greater similarities across marginalized groups, and ultimately indicated stronger support for intraminority coalitions (Studies 1–3) and specifically stronger policy support for low-SES people (Study 3). Notably, multiply stigmatized people (especially those with three stigmatized identities) endorsed LTGP and intraminority coalitions more strongly than did singly stigmatized and non-stigmatized people, who did not significantly differ from each other on these outcomes. Together, these findings highlight the importance of intersectionality in understanding intraminority relations and contribute to coalition-building efforts across oppressed groups.