Ireland 1987

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Ireland 1987

• Coalition of Fine Gael and Labour collapses
  because of disagreement about budget
• Labour doing badly in poll decide to leave.
• New election called
• Fianna Fail no coalition!

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Elections Ireland 1987
Party Seats Fianna Fail 81 Fine
Gael 51 Progressive Democrats 14 Labour
Party 12 Workers Party 4 Democratic
Socialist Party 1 Independent Fianna
Fail 1 Tony Gregory (left-wing) 1 Sean Treacy
(ex-Labour) 1
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Coalition bargaining

• What are the possibilities?
• Fianna Fail insists on its single party
  coalition
• 1982 similar situation makes a deal with
  Workers Party and Tony Gregory
• Now, Haughey No Deal
• Either minority Fianna Fail government or
  another election

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Coalition bargaining

• The Workers Party, Labour and the DSP announce
  that they will vote against a Fianna Fail
  government
• Fine Gael expected to vote against FF
• IFF and Sean Treacy support FF
• 83 out 166 seats.
• Chairman (Speaker) still to be choose

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Coalition bargaining

• The opposition refuses to offer a chairman from
  its ranks
• 82 out of 165 seats. A minority!
• Tony Gregory the only one who has not declared
  his stand looking for a deal
• The investiture vote Gregory and FF are still
  holding out

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Coalition bargaining

• On the vote Gregory decides to abstain and there
  is tie 82-82
• A tie is broken by the chairman
• Fianna Fail takes seat as a minority cabinet

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Lessons

• Government participation and electoral costs
• Bargaining power
• Commitments why did Gregory become so pivotal?
• Refusal of parties to cooperate with Fianna Fail
  intended to put a strain on FF
• The role of rules i) Tie-breaker, ii) when
  election is called, iii) presidents role in
  formation process

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The role of coalition theory

• Cases, such as Ireland, offer some intuition
  about coalition formation
• The role of theory is to generalize such
  intuitions, explain causal mechanism, and predict
  outcomes

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Two Tradition in Coalition Studies

• The European Politics Tradition
• Cross-national studies of coalitions
• Empirical
• Inductive
• Problems Limited data, no testing possible
• The Game-Theoretic Tradition
• Coalition formation as a constant sum game

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Laver Schofields Goal

• Bring the two traditions together
• Does game theory help in explaining coalition
  formation?
• Understanding coalition politics is extremely
  for our understanding of politics in
  parliamentary systems

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Who plays the coalition game?

• Political parties are composed of politicians
• Leaders
• Legislators
• Rank and file members
• In studying coalitions we have to decide whos
  behaviour we want to explain

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Who plays the coalition game?

• Ideally, we would focus on individual
  politicians.
• Empirically, parties form coalitions.
• Focusing on parties therefore simplifies our
  explanations. Do we lose anything?

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Parties as unitary actors

• Parties are not unitary actors
• Do the act as unitary actors?
• Can we think of parties as individuals making
  rational decisions?
• Often they appear not to be talk of party
  factions, threats of splitting parties, etc.

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Parties as unitary actors

• What about legislative behavior?
• European parties act very cohesive
• 80-90 vote together in the most fragmented
  systems
• Votes are end results the process of leading
  to the vote is not necessarily without conflict
• A closer look must be taken

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Coherent vs. Factional Parties

• No party really acts like a unified actor
• Communist parties tend to be more unified
• Rarely considered viable coalition partners
• Some other parties are also fairly unified
• Importance of party structure

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Coherent vs. Factional Parties

• Coalitions of mini-parties
• Christian democratic parties
• Parties of government
• Factions not necessarily similar in terms of
  policy preferences
• Factions attempting to secure their place in
  government

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Party vs. Parliamentary Party

• Parliamentary party important because vote of
  confidence is important
• Voting discipline
• Expulsion
• The rank-and-file
• Can influence party when in opposition
• Loses importance when in government
• Place more important on policy than office

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Party Discipline and Party Splits

• Parties can be disciplined but prone to splits
• Only option for dissent
• Scandinavian party
• Snapshot vs. the long run unity

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Electoral Coalitions and Electoral Systems

• Electoral coalitions, parties, coalition
  governments?
• Democratic Alliance in Portugal
• CDU/CDS in Germany
• Influence of electoral system on
• Electoral coalitions
• Party splitting

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Deviations from the Unitary Actor Assumption

• Four categories of parties
• Coherent parties
• Communist
• Authoritarian organization
• Parties prone to splitting
• Coalition bargaining produces stress
• Unitary at a fixed point in time

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Deviations from the Unitary Actor Assumption

• Non-unitary parties
• E.g. the Italian Christian Democrats
• Collection of faction after different things
• Electoral coalitions
• Parties announcing that they will work together
• Unitary?

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Deviations from the Unitary Actor Assumption

• In the long-run the assumption of an unitary
  actor is problematic
• If we are focused on a fixed point in time the
  assumption appears fairly reasonable with a few
  exceptions

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What if not unitary?

• Constrains party leaders in coalition
  negotiations
• Avoid issues controversial within parties
• Luebbert Coalitions formation is complicated
  because of intra-party bargaining
• Offers an explanation of minority and oversized
  coalitions

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The Party as a Coalition of Politicians

• Idea Forming a coalition is a two-step process
• First politicians form coalitions (parties) and
  then the parties form a coalition government
• First principles
• Problems
• Difficult
• Unrealistic groups/parties are fairly stable
• Number of possible coalitions
• Iceland 1983 How many different ways to form
  that particular party system?

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Iceland 1983

• 9,813,276,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
  
• Small number compared with larger legislatures!!!

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The Party as a Coalition of Factions

• Factions may be important actor
• Difficult to define a faction potential to
  make convenient assumptions
• Splitting potential of parties
• How do we measure?

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Summary

• Unitary Actor Assumption
• Not as serious as it appears
• European parties are disciplined
• May be a serious problem if we are concerned with
  long term development
• At the (game) theoretical level the unitary actor
  assumption is a necessary first step.

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