Institutions and coalitions in policy processes: a cross-sectoral comparison

Actors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions, i.e. the degree of federalism of a project, its degree of Europeanisation and the openness of the pre-parliamentary phase of the decision-making process. The cross-sectoral comparison includes the 11 most important decision-making processes in Switzerland between 2001 and 2006 with a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results suggest that Europeanisation or an open pre-parliamentary phase lead to a dominant coalition, whereas only a specific combination of all three conditions is able to explain a structure with competing coalitions.

Ueber die Grundsteuer-Frage im Preussischen Staate, in ihrer gesetzlichen Begründung gegenüber der entgegenkämpfenden Opposition : ein motivirtes Gutachten

Boberach: Für die Besteuerung des Grundbesitzes, die ausschließlich am Ertrag orientiert sein soll, müssen neue Voraussetzungen durch Vermessung, Wertfeststellung und Beseitigung von Privilegien geschaffen werden

Brief eines Mitgliedes der Opposition an seine Herren Collegen

Boberach: Nach dem Vorbild der verbotenen Rheinischen Zeitung in Köln soll sich die aus der Opposition im Vereinigten Landtag hervorgegangene Verfassungspartei eine Zeitung in der Hauptstadt mit einem hauptberuflichen Chefredakteur schaffen

Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation

What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument: (i) in periods of fiscal consolidation, welfare state retrenchment tends to be more pronounced under left-wing governments; (ii) since welfare state retrenchment is electorally and politically risky, it also tends to be more pronounced when pursued by a broad pro-reform coalition government. Therefore, the article shows that during budget consolidations implemented by left-wing broad coalition governments, welfare state retrenchment is greatest. Using long-run multipliers from autoregressive distributed lag models on 17 OECD countries during the 1982–2009 period, substantial support is found for these expectations.

Opposition

Siegmund Kaznelson