The Formation and Non-Formation of Coalitions between the CDU and the Greens on the Local Level, 1993-2011: Evidence from German Cities
Martin Gross Professur Politische Wissenschaft III Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften Universität Mannheim
Paper to be presented at the conference on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) – Applications and Methodological Challenges, 22-23 November 2013, Frankfurt, Germany Panel: “QCA in the Making”
First draft – Please do not circulate
Revised version
Abstract
This paper is part of an ongoing PhD project that deals with the formation and non-formation of coalitions between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Greens on the German local level. The main research question is as follows: why are both parties forming so-called ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions in one city but not in another city where they also have the arithmetical possibility to do that? I argue that this ‘problem’ is empirically, theoretically, and methodologically well suited to be analysed with crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA). Various conditions that are expected to have an impact on local coalition formation are generated by both drawing on the literature on national, regional, and local government formation, and by analysing local coalition formation in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia by applying conditional logit models. I propose six hypotheses concerning necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the formation of ‘black- green’ minimal winning coalitions in large German cities. Since the PhD project is still in the phase of data gathering, I just present a preliminary data matrix and discuss some potential drawbacks of my analyses so far.
Key words: csQCA; coalition formation; German local political system; Christian Democrats; Greens
1 1 Introduction
The outcome of the German federal election in 2013 resulted in puzzled reactions of the political actors. On the one hand, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) almost gained an absolute majority of seats in the German Bundestag together with her Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). However, the former coalition partner, the Liberals (FDP), failed to entry the parliament. On the other hand, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) clearly missed an absolute majority.1 Therefore, the ‘usual’ coalition patterns in Germany – CDU/CSU and FDP, and SPD and Greens – were not feasible. This resulted in so-called ‘Sondierungsgesprächen’ (exploratory talks) both between CDU/CSU and the Greens and between the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats. The former did not lead to coalition negotiations due to (perceived) policy differences. More interestingly, the Prime Minister of Thuringia, Christine Lieberknecht (CDU), called the attention to the fact that neither the CDU/CSU nor the Greens had set up such a ‘liaison’ between both parties over the past years (Briseño 2013). This is certainly true with regard to the national and the state level. The only so-called ‘black-green’ coalition between the CDU and the Greens in a German state (Hamburg) failed after two and a half years in 2010. Nevertheless, a closer look to larger cities in Germany reveals that there have been (and still are) some coalitions between the CDU and the Greens in local councils. The purpose of the PhD project is the identification of factors (or ‘conditions’) that determine why Christian Democrats and the Greens coalesce in some situations but not in others where they also have an absolute majority of seats. I am applying crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) for, empirical, theoretical, and methodological reasons. Empirically, the number of cases with a ‘positive’ outcome, i.e. the number of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions, is very small, compared to the number of situations where CDU and Greens have gained an absolute majority of seats in local councils but did not form a coalition. Overall, with regard to ‘co- operations’ between CDU and Greens on the local level in Germany we are dealing with a small number of cases. First, not every ‘co-operation’ on the local level qualifies as an equivalent to a ‘coalition’ on the state or national level. Second, especially in smaller municipalities there is often no formally agreed ‘co-operation’ (or coalition). Local political actors rather deal with daily problems in an ad hoc manner. Therefore, I define a coalition on the local level as every co-operation between (at least) two parties (or independent local lists)
1 Only by including the Left Party (Die Linke) could the Social Democrats and the Greens form a government coalition. However, this option has been excluded during the election campaigns. 2 that is based on a written agreement (coalition agreement). Furthermore, I only study coalitions in cities with at least 100.000 inhabitants. Many studies on local politics in Germany show that particularly the local councils in large cities can be seen as equivalents to national and regional parliaments (see, e.g., Egner et al. 2013; Gabriel 1984) with the antagonism between majority and minority factions (see, e.g., Gunlicks 1986). In addition, the impact of national and regional parties on local politics increases with the number of inhabitants (see Brearey 1989; Ellwein and Zoll 1982; Fried 1976; Wehling 1986, 1991, 1995). Third, the literature on (government) coalition formation clearly shows that most of the theories cannot deal with minority governments, or, to put it in other words, minority governments require other explanations (see Strøm 1990). Likewise, surplus majority coalitions cannot be explained with pure office-seeking theories (see, e.g., Jungar 2000). Therefore, I am focussing on minimal winning coalitions because the minimal winning criterion is one of the most powerful explanations in coalition research (Laver and Schofield 1990: 92). This leaves us with 10 minimal winning coalitions between CDU and Greens in large German cities (see Table 1). Note that ‘black-green’ coalitions only have been formed in four of the 13 non-city states.2
***Table 1 about here***
Even more important, there is a theoretical argument why a set-theoretic approach like QCA is appropriate for the study of minimal winning coalitions between CDU and Greens in large German cities. Existing studies on (government) coalitions (see, e.g., Döring and Hellström 2013; Martin and Stevenson 2001, 2010) are solely focusing on the explanation of different factors that increase the probability that an observed government coalition is formed out of the great variety of all possible coalition alternatives. This means, on the one hand, that there exists a lack of studies focusing on the explanation of a particular party combination forming coalitions. On the other hand, the most influential factors for coalition formation are assumed to work as linear additive effects. To put it in other words, it is assumed that significant independent variables influence the probability of a coalition alternative independently from each other. This is quite a strong assumption in social science research since many social phenomena are complex by nature (Ragin 1987). Furthermore, by focusing on a particular party combination as possible outcome of coalition bargaining processes that has not been
2 The ‘black-green’ coalition that formed in Essen 2004 is excluded from the analysis because CDU and Greens gained exactly half of the seats in the local council. Thus, the coalition is somewhere in between a winning coalition and a minority coalition. 3 formed regularly (like ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions in Germany on the national or on the state level), a review of the most prominent approaches in coalition theory reveals that there is quite a number of factors (or ‘conditions’) that could explain coalitions between the CDU and the Greens. This corroborates the assumption that one has to consider ‘causal complexity’ or ‘multiple conjunctural causation’ (Ragin 1987: 25f.). Associated with this is the notion that some factors (or ‘conditions’) can be necessary and/or sufficient for the explanation of an event (or ‘outcome’). Some scholars unintentionally use terms like ‘necessity’ and ‘sufficiency’ when explaining their empirical results regarding coalition formation. Bräuninger and Debus (2008: 330), for instance, state with regard to coalition formation in the German states that the variables ‘minimal winning coalition’ and the ‘inclusion of the strongest party’ ‘can almost be characterized as necessary conditions; but they are by no means sufficient with their explanatory power with regard to the large number of such [government] coalitions’ (own translation; emphasis added). In other words, the conditions ‘minimal winning coalition’ and ‘inclusion of the strongest party’ are necessary conditions because when the outcome (the actual formed coalition) occurs they are (almost always) present. Nevertheless, both conditions are clearly not sufficient conditions because there are potential coalitions where the conditions are present but the outcome does not occur (because the coalitions did not get realized; see the empirical application of a conditional logit model on local coalition formation in Germany in section 3). This example illustrates that a set-theoretic approach like csQCA can be applied to the explanation of the formation and non- formation of coalitions. Methodologically, unlike conventional statistical techniques, csQCA allows for the analysis of the formation and the non-formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions. To the best of my knowledge, the non-formation of a particular coalition has never been addressed before. Amenta and Poulsen (1994) describe five ways of selecting conditions in a csQCA analysis, promoting an approach, ‘in which the selection of indicators is dictated by explanations that are combinatorial in nature’ (Amenta and Poulsen 1994: 25). Unfortunately, there exists no ‘conjunctural theory’ in coalition research, only a mixed bag of different approaches trying to explain coalition formation. As a consequence, I am using a combination of the ‘significance’ and the ‘second-look’ approach that both can lead to interpretable empirical results (see Amenta and Poulsen 1994). The ‘significance approach’ singles out significant variables in statistical techniques, whereas the ‘second-look approach’ adds to this by adding statistically insignificant variables that, however, are expected to work in complex
4 combinations with other variables (Amenta and Poulsen 1994: 25-28). This is done by the aforementioned literature review in section two of this paper and by the application of a condition logit model to local coalition formation in Germany in section three. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the next section, the literature review on the explanation of government formations on national, regional and local levels shows why coalitions between the CDU and the Greens can be in part seen as deviant cases. However, most of these empirical results in coalition research are based on national and regional government formations. There exists only a small number of studies on local coalition formation in some West European democracies and the empirical results should not be transferred to the German local level without caution. Therefore, the third section deals with an application of coalition theories to the German local level. This is done by applying a conditional logit model to coalition formation processes in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1994 to 2012 in order to rely on valid data for the German local level. These empirical results are crucial for the selection of my QCA conditions. Since these results have not been published yet, I show them in great detail. In the fourth section, I present the theoretical arguments on the determinants of local coalition (non-)formation between the CDU and the Greens. Subsequently, the method, crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA), and the calibration of set membership scores are presented and a preliminary data matrix is shown. The final section gives an outlook on next research steps and discusses potential drawbacks of my analyses so far.
2 Coalitions between the CDU and the Greens: Deviant cases in coalition research?
Coalitions between the CDU and the Greens have not been observed on the national level in Germany. There exists only one empirical example on the state level, the aforementioned ‘black-green’ coalition in Hamburg (2008-2010). In order to answer the question if such coalitions would be deviant cases in coalition research, one has to review the extensive literature on government formation (for recent overviews of the main approaches see, e.g., W. C. Müller 2009; Nyblade 2013; Strøm and Nyblade 2007) and one has to assess each coalition theory carefully and independent from each other. Pure office-seeking theories assume that a coalition is more likely to form if it is (1) a minimal winning coalition (Von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944), i.e. the coalition does not include any party that is not necessary to gain the absolute majority of seats, or (2) a minimum winning coalition (Riker 1962), i.e. the minimal winning coalition with the smallest
5 number of seats above the absolute majority, or (3) a coalition that does comprise the smallest number of parties (Leiserson 1966, 1968). By just regarding office-seeking theories, ‘black- green’ coalitions certainly are not deviant cases. If both parties together have a majority of seats in a parliament, the coalition will be one with the smallest number of parties as well as a minimal winning one.3 One further possible explanation for the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions could be found in formal models of non-cooperative bargaining approaches, suggesting that the largest party in parliament has a significant higher chance to be member of the next coalition (Austen-Smith and Banks 1988; Baron and Diermeier 2001; Baron and Ferejohn 1989). This could be an explanatory factor for coalitions of Christian Democrats and Greens if one of the two parties has gained the biggest number of parliamentary seats. However, this picture changes by looking at other approaches of explaining and predicting coalitions. Policy-seeking theories of coalition formation assume that a coalition is more likely if the ideological distance within the coalition is small (Axelrod 1970; De Swaan 1973). In the majority of cases, CDU and Greens are not ‘ideologically adjacent’, neither on a single left-right dimension on the national level (see the data of the Comparative Manifesto Project (Budge et al. 2001; Klingemann et al. 2006) and the results of an expert survey in Benoit and Laver 2006) nor with regard to the economic and societal dimension in the German states (see Bräuninger and Debus 2012). Even local councillors of the Christian Democrats and the Greens place themselves significantly apart from each other on the left-right dimension (Egner et al. 2013; Völkl 2004). Therefore, ‘black-green’ coalitions could be considered as deviant cases. However, by taking into account the (perhaps different) views of party leaders and party members, Luebbert (1986) argues that party leaders are above all interested in staying party leaders and thus have more in common with other party leaders than with their own rank-and-file. To stay party leader, party leaders need electoral successes. Therefore, Luebbert (1986) assumes that coalitions comprising parties that are not ideologically adjacent should form in order to broaden their policy perspectives by complementing each other and, thus, by addressing different electoral segments. For the German context and the discussion on ‘black-green’ coalitions, this point of view is implemented in key words like ‘Komplementärkoalition’ or ‘Ergänzungskoalition’ [complementary coalition] (Maier 2008). Regarding ‘black-green’ coalitions from an institutional point of view, one has to state that they cannot rely on being the ‘reversion point’ (Strøm et al. 1994: 311) of the coalition bargaining process. Many scholars show that the incumbent government coalition has a
3 Note that one has to know the exact distribution of parliamentary seats in order to find out if a ‘black-green’ coalition is also the minimal winning coalition with the smallest number of seats above the absolute majority of seats. 6 greater chance of becoming the next government coalition than any other coalition alternative (see, for example, Bäck and Dumont 2007: 476f.; Isaksson 2005: 341). However, coalitions between the CDU and the Greens cannot benefit from being the incumbent coalition and there also exists no ‘familiarity’ (Franklin and Mackie 1983) between the two parties because they never formed a coalition before (with the exception of Hamburg). Additionally, taking into account the views of voters and party members, several studies show that voters as well as members of both the CDU and the Greens do not favour a coalition with each other (Debus and Müller 2012; Völkl 2004: 193f.). To sum up, the answer to the question if ‘black-green’ coalitions could be deviant cases in coalition research depends on one’s theoretical point of view. By just regarding pure office- seeking approaches and the assumption that the strongest party has a higher chance of being member of a coalition, coalitions between the CDU and the Greens could well be explained. Yet, if one looks at policy-seeking and multidimensional approaches, ‘black-green’ coalitions could be indeed deviant cases in coalition research. Just taking into account ‘classical’ and recent approaches in research on coalition formation does not really shed light on potential explanatory factors for the formation and non-formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions. There are two possible explanations for this: (1) there exists an ‘incestuous’ relationship (Laver 1989: 16) between formulation and evaluation of coalition theories because of the limited number of coalitions in West (and East) European democracies; (2) the formation and non-formation of coalitions could also be understood in terms of ‘causal complexity’ (Ragin 1987), i.e. one (or several) combination(s) of specific conditions are necessary and/or sufficient in order to adequately explain specific coalition constellations. Most of the empirical results of government formation in West and East European countries (see, e.g., Döring and Hellström 2013; Martin and Stevenson 2001, 2010) rely on national data. Noticing this, scholars started to test coalition theories on the state level (e.g., Bäck et al. 2013; Bräuninger and Debus 2012; Stefuriuc 2009) and on the local level (see section 3). Especially the results of studies on local coalition formation are relevant as a starting point for the empirical analyses of the PhD project. Overall, a comparison of these studies clearly shows that the empirical results for explaining coalition formation on the local level are even more ‘country-sensitive’ (Skjæveland et al. 2007) than the results for national (Laver 1986: 33) or state government formations. This is mainly due to two facts. First, the local institutional setting greatly varies between different countries. Second, data availability and the calculation of local actor’s policy positions vary to a decisive degree. Therefore, one
7 has to be cautious to transfer the empirical results on local coalition formation in other countries to the German context. Consequently, I first test the most prominent coalition theories for local coalition formation in one German state, i.e. the state of North Rhine- Westphalia. The advantages of this approach and the empirical results are discussed in the following section.
3 An application of coalition theories to local coalition formation in Germany
Compared with the number of studies on national and regional government formation, the number of studies dealing with coalition formation on the local level is still very small and the empirical results of these studies differ quite markedly from each other (see Bäck 2003; Camões and Mendes 2009; Denters 1985; Gravdahl 1998; Laver et al. 1987, 1999; Martinussen 2002; Serritzlew et al. 2008, 2010; Skjæveland et al. 2007; Steunenberg 1992). Therefore, one has to be cautious in transferring these results to the German local level. A better way would be to test various coalition theories with regard to their explanatory power for local coalition formation in Germany. By ‘scaling down’ to the local level in Germany, more precisely to the local government system of North Rhine-Westphalia, one can hold constant the institutional setting on the one hand, and one can increase the number of observations and, thus, avoid various problems related to small-N research designs, on the other hand (see, e.g., Snyder 2001). However, there exists both a huge number of municipalities and the problem of data availability. There is no institution gathering data for each and every local election result in general and for local coalitions in particular. Thus, the best way is to focus on local coalition formation in one single state in Germany.
Institutional setting, party competition and political decision-making on the local level in Germany
The application of coalition theories to coalition bargaining processes on the local level in Germany requires the identification of a coalitional arena, the explanation of the ‘nature’ of local coalitions, and the recognition of office and policy payoffs for local political actors. The German local government system has recently been called a ‘quasi-presidential’ (Stoiber and Egner 2008) or ‘semi-presidential’ (Bäck 2005) one due to the implementation of directly elected mayors. Especially with regard to the local government system in North Rhine- Westphalia, there exists a dual executive with the mayor (and the local administration) on the one hand and the local council on the other hand. The differences to parliamentary and
8 presidential systems are obvious. In contrast to a parliamentary system, the local council and the mayor are elected separately (most of the time on different election days) and have their independent legitimation in the semi-presidential local government system in Germany. Therefore, the mayor does not rely on a local council’s majority, and the local council cannot remove the mayor. As distinct from pure presidential systems, the directly elected mayor (as functional equivalent to the president) has no possibility to choose his ‘ministers’. The deputy mayors and the heads of department are elected by the local council and do not get appointed by the mayor (see Egner et al. 2013: 86). Consequently, these offices can be seen as functional equivalents to ministerial posts, and the local council is the main sphere of activity for local parties and local lists. Therefore, turning to the process of local coalition formation, the coalitional arena in German local politics is the local council (see also Hogwood 1999).4 Nevertheless, local government coalitions are quite distinct from national and regional government coalitions in general (see Laver 1989: 23f.), and this is particularly true for the German case. To clarify this point, consider the following example: the break-up of a national coalition cabinet in Germany entails an immediately following formation process of a new coalition government. On the local level, however, the end of a coalition can result in a new coalition formation, but there is no requirement to build a new one immediately. Instead, the local parties also can build ad hoc coalitions for each policy issue. This marks the sharpest distinction between the various coalitions in the German multi-level setting. On the national and regional level, we are dealing with executive coalitions that are (most of the times) supported by a parliament’s majority, i.e. legislative coalitions (Laver 1989: 22). On the local level, however, there is no ‘executive’ that has to rely on a council’s majority. Thus, local coalitions in Germany are more or less legislative coalitions. This raises the questions why local political actors do form coalitions in the first place, and why they are not exclusively dealing with ad hoc coalitions. Transferring the arguments of Lupia and Strøm (2010: 61f.) to the local level, I argue, first, that local political actors are forming coalitions and are, for most of the time, simultaneously signing coalition agreements (which are implying the prospect of a permanent cooperation) in order to reduce their bargaining transaction costs. Second, the signing of a coalition agreement sends a signal to local voters in a way that there will not be abrupt changes in the policy-making process. This, thirdly, comes along with higher credibility and accountability. To sum up, local coalitions with signed coalition agreements are not an equivalent to national or regional executive
4 This equals the finding for the local government formation in the UK, where ‘[t]he arena of local coalition government, therefore, is the council chamber’ (Laver 1989: 23). 9 coalitions, but at the same time they have a more formal character than pure legislative ad hoc coalitions. Despite of different local institutional settings in the German Länder, ranging from rather consociational types of local democracy to more competitive ones (Holtkamp 2008; Freitag and Vatter 2010), all local constitutions create incentives for political actors to compete over local policy issues and local offices. German municipalities still have considerable rights to self-government and, thus, can shape the local policy output. Especially during the economic and financial crisis, local political actors have to decide between budget consolidation and the preservation of public social spending. In addition, recent research shows that the ideological positions of parties are a key predictor on policy outcomes that deal with highly politicised issues such as the degree of registration fees for same-sex unions (e.g., Debus et al. 2012, 2013a), fees for leaving the Church (Debus et al. 2013b) or fees for Kindergarten places (see Goerres and Tepe 2013). Concerning local office payoffs, the German local political system does indeed hold some positions that can be seen as ‘functional equivalents’ to ministerial offices on the state and the national level, for example, heads of departments (Dezernenten), ‘special’ councillors (hauptamtliche Beigeordnete) and deputy mayors (stellvertretende Bürgermeister), which are elected by the local council (Bogumil and Holtkamp 2013: 40; Egner et al. 2013: 86; Mellors and Brearey 1986: 288). In most of the municipalities, the composition of local committees depends on the allocation of seats in the local council. Hence, the strongest party frequently can install one of its actors as committee leader. Since in most cases no single party is able to win a majority of seats in the local council, there is an incentive for parties to form coalitions on the local sphere in a way that they maximise their office benefits, so that they have higher chances to implement their policy positions in the political process on the local level (Strøm and Müller 1999; W. C. Müller 2009).
Case selection
The case selection of North Rhine-Westphalia for an application of coalition theories to local coalition formation in Germany has four advantages. First, compared to an analysis of more than one German local government system, I am able to hold the institutional setting constant in the sense that I am not coping with different types of local constitutions (see also Camões and Mendes 2009: 72; Laver et al. 1987: 503). Second, I am going to identify an additional institutional constraint on local coalition formation – the directly elected mayor – as an important factor in local coalition bargaining (see below). Unlike the situation in Baden- Wuerttemberg or Bavaria, where mayors always have been elected directly, the local
10 government reform in North Rhine-Westphalia, and especially the implementation of direct elections of mayors with the local elections in 1999, is relatively new. There should be a lesser extent of long-standing path dependence regarding the relationship between local council majorities and directly elected mayors. Third, local coalition formation does not take place in all German municipalities. With respect to larger cities, there is broad agreement about three features of local politics. Not only can local councils be seen as parliaments. Moreover, it makes a difference which political party or ideological camp controls a local council’s majority (Gunlicks 1986; Holtmann 2002, 2004). In addition, recent research shows that political parties are decisive also on the local level when it comes to the outcomes of the political process (Bogumil 2010; Debus et al. 2012, 2013a, 2013b). The latter is in particular the case in larger cities: ‘Clearly, the pre-requisites for coalitional activity are more than satisfied at city level by the identification of a coalitional arena, the availability of office payoffs distributed according to a formalised procedure and by increasing scope for policy payoffs’ (Brearey 1989: 285). In fact, both the notion of local councils as equivalents to state or national parliaments and the ‘party politicisation’ of the German local level are linked to the size of municipalities (see, for example, Brearey 1989; Fried 1976). The larger the size of a municipality, the more local parties are influencing the public dialogue, and the less are decisions made unanimously. Consequently, local politics in German municipalities is more and more politicised as the number of inhabitants is increasing, and, therefore, the incentives to form coalitions are increasing as well. North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous German state with almost 18 million of inhabitants, and the clear majority of cities with more than 100.000 inhabitants, 29 out of 77, are located there.5 Forth, the local government system of North Rhine-Westphalia can be seen as a ‘prototype’ of a competitive political system (Holtkamp 2008). It is characterised by a high politicisation of local politics by local parties and, to a lesser extent, by independent local lists. This results in conflicts between majority and opposition groups in the local council and, as a consequence, leads to a coherent voting behaviour of parliamentary party groups. Concerning these points, the local government system of North Rhine-Westphalia bears resemblance to state and national government systems.
Hypotheses regarding local coalition formation in Germany
Like in other European countries (see, e.g., Bäck 2003; Skjæveland et al. 2007), parties are playing an important role in coalition formation on the local level in Germany. From a general
5 Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg are left aside here, due to their status as city-states. 11 perspective, political parties as the most important actors in modern democracies are – on all levels of the political system – assumed to pursue three major goals: maximising the number of votes in an election, maximising their share of offices in a (coalition) government, and maximising the number of enforced policy proposals (Strøm and Müller 1999). Local politicians are office-, policy-, and vote-seeking actors as well (Skjæveland et al. 2007, 726). This perspective has quite straightforward implications for local coalition formation: parties should prefer coalitions that (1) have the support of a majority in parliament, (2) include a preferably small number of partisan actors and (3) are ideologically cohesive. Therefore, coalitions on the local level should be more likely if they reflect the characteristics of key coalition theories that help to explain the coalition game outcome on other levels of the political system. The main approaches have already been discussed in the second section of this paper. Therefore, I just briefly summarize the hypotheses for the application of local coalition formation in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1994 to 2012. Coalitions should be more likely to form if they are minimal or minimum winning coalitions (von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944; Riker 1962), i.e. coalitions are not expected to be oversized because otherwise the coalition parties’ share of cabinet offices decreases. Furthermore, parties should not only prefer coalitions with small majorities, but also coalitions with the smallest number of parties (Leiserson 1966, 1968). In addition, non- cooperative game theorists like Austen-Smith and Banks (1988) stress the importance of the strongest parliamentary party in the coalition game, which has the best chance to become a member of the government (see also Baron and Diermeier 2001; Baron and Ferejohn 1989). Policy-seeking theories, by contrast, focus on the policy preferences of political parties (as unitary actors) and predict coalitions that not only fulfil the criteria of office-seeking theories but also have the smallest programmatic distance on the relevant policy dimensions (e.g., Axelrod 1970; De Swaan 1973; for further models that combine office- and policy-seeking theories see Laver and Shepsle 1996; Schofield 1995; Sened 1995, 1996).6 Moreover, some scholars assume that the party with the median legislator on a policy dimension cannot be excluded from a coalition due to its central position (see, e.g. Laver and Schofield 1990; van Roozendaal 1993). Taking also into account that the status quo matters for the coalition formation game (see, e.g., Franklin and Mackie 1983; Strøm et al. 1994), I expect that
6 Moreover, it is a common pattern in modern democracies to exclude so-called ‘pariah parties’ or ‘anti-system parties’ like parties from the far right or the far left from the coalition process (e.g., Debus 2009; Geys et al. 2006; Martin and Stevenson 2001). Thus, such coalitions are expected to be significantly less likely to form. This should be also the case on the local level in Germany. However, the local political actors in North Rhine-Westphalia never have formed a coalition that included a ‘pariah party’. Therefore, this variable does not exhibit any variation and is not included into the empirical models (see, e.g., Bräuninger and Debus 2012: 184, FN 36). 12 potential coalitions should be more likely to form if the respective combination of parties consists of the ones that form the current coalition in the local council. The mayor, however, is still another political actor that can shape the local policy agenda, in particular in its function as the head of the local administration. The relationship between the mayor and the local council is therefore crucial for the understanding of the process of political decision-making, in particular since the mayors in North Rhine-Westphalia get directly elected in a separate election since 1999. Thus, one can identify a specific institutional constraint for local coalition formation in Germany in general and in North Rhine-Westphalia in particular, which results from the ‘quasi-presidential’ (or ‘semi- presidential’) nature of the local political system (Bäck 2005; Stoiber and Egner 2008). The role of the directly elected mayor can be understood as being something in between a formateur and a veto player. The mayor does not have the right to appoint a local politician to form a coalition like in Belgium or in the Netherlands (see, e.g., Keman 2008), but local political actors have to take into account the party affiliation of the mayor. We know not only from the theoretical models on coalition formation (e.g., Austen-Smith and Banks 1988) but also from comparative empirical studies of government formation that the party of the ‘formateur’ has significantly higher chances to become a member of the next government and, furthermore, has a strong bargaining position in the coalition negotiations (see Bäck and Dumont 2008; Baron and Diermeier 2001; Baron and Ferejohn 1989). Viewed from the perspective of local political parties, majority groups in the local council cannot be sure that they are going to bargain with one of their own party members. Instead, they have to face the possibility that the mayor has a different party membership. Note that local council majority groups often cut back responsibilities of directly elected mayors, whereas mayors in turn delay or even do not implement some council decisions (Bogumil and Holtkamp 2013: 189). Therefore, opposing party memberships of local coalition members and of the directly elected mayor (situations of ‘cohabitation’) could potentially increase bargaining and transaction costs, which will result in gridlock situations or at least in a slower process of political decision-making. Hence, I assume that local political actors have to take into account the mayor’s party affiliation and that they have an incentive to form coalitions including the mayor’s party in order to avoid a situation with opposite party orientations (cohabitation) as well as to reduce transaction costs. Consequently, the mayor can be seen as an institutional constraint (see Strøm et al. 1994) in local coalition bargaining processes. I thus hypothesise
13 that a party combination is less likely to become a formal coalition in the local council if it does not include the party of the mayor.7
Data and methods
I am using a newly created dataset that comprises information on local election results, on the allocation of seats in the local council, on local parties’ and independent local lists’ policy positions, as well as information on the outcome of the coalition formation process in the local councils in the 29 North Rhine-Westphalian cities mentioned before.8 Furthermore, information on the party affiliation of the directly elected mayors is included. The analyses are restricted for cases where parties in the council signed a coalition agreement and, thus, publically announced their coalition. Therefore, I am not dealing with ad hoc coalitions. The time period covered ranges from 1994 to 2012. For the application of office-seeking theories, I am using data on the distribution of seats in the local councils. On that basis, one can both determine how many local coalitions have been formed and which potential local coalitions are minimal or minimum winning coalitions, and how many parties are parts of a potential coalition. Furthermore, I am creating dummy variables indicating if potential coalitions are also the incumbent coalitions, if they include the strongest party, and if they include the mayor’s party. In order to analyse the policy range within potential local coalitions (i.e. the veto player distance, see Tsebelis 1995, 2002), one needs to gain information on local parties’ policy positions. The identification of local parties’ policy positions is not an easy task. By regarding both an economic and a decentralization policy dimension, Laver et al. (1998) are using expert judgements on national party positions (Laver and Hunt 1990) and take these as estimations for local party positions. Research on party positions on the German state level, however, shows that there are decisive differences between the policy positions of the national parties compared to the ones of their regional branches (Bräuninger and Debus 2012; J. Müller 2009, 2013). I am thus expecting that this also is the case for the relation between
7 See also Kang (2009) who shows for presidential and semi-presidential systems that the president’s party has a significant higher chance than other parties to be a member of the government coalition (which is elected by the parliament). 8 I would like to thank Christian Rademacher from the Martin-Luther-University of Halle for a data set with local election results, gathered in the course of the research project ‘Gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen nach dem Systemumbruch. Diskontinuität, Tradition, Strukturbildung’, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This data set was the starting point for my research, and it was extended with additional data. There exists no national or regional institution that provides data of local coalition formations. I thus contacted the local administrations of the 29 North Rhine-Westphalian cities under investigation as well as the local party branches of the national parties that are currently in the German national parliament (CDU, FDP, Greens, SPD, and The Left) in order to get information about the formation of coalitions. Furthermore, I collected local election manifestos of local parties and independent local lists for the local elections in 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2009 to estimate their policy positions. The data set comprises 196 manifestos. 14 parties from the regional and the local level. Unfortunately, there is no information on the positions of local parties’ policy positions on key policy dimensions that cover the time period from 1994 to 2012.9 In order to determine policy positions of local parties, I examine manifestos of parties from the local level by using quantitative content analysis. On that basis, I derive the local parties’ policy positions on an economic and a societal policy dimension – i.e. the two dimensions that structure party competition in Germany (e.g., Pappi 2009) – by applying the Wordscores approach (for a detailed description see Laver et al. 2003 and Lowe 2008). Wordscores requires the identification of ‘reference texts’ and ‘reference scores’. I use as ‘reference texts’ the election manifestos of CDU, FDP, Greens, and the SPD for the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, as well as the election manifesto of The Left for the election in 2010. The respective reference scores for the ‘reference texts’ were assigned by using information on the policy positions of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parties with respect to the economic and the societal dimension.10 The policy positions of German state parties are provided by a study on party competition in the German states (Bräuninger and Debus 2012). I test the policy-seeking aspect of our control variables by including the policy-area specific veto player distance within each potential coalition. To test my expectations, I apply a conditional logit model (Bäck 2003; Martin and Stevenson 2001, 2010; McFadden 1973).11 Each local coalition formation process is represented by a ‘choice set’ that comprises not only the actual formed coalition (which receives a value of one in the dependent variable) but also all other logically possible combinations of parties and independent local lists having gained seats in the local council (which are coded zero in the dependent variable). Therefore, the actual number of parties (and independent local lists) that are elected to local councils determines the size of the choice set. In the analysis of the coalition formation process in 29 large cities in North Rhine-Westphalia
9 Egner et al. (2013) provide a self-assessment of local council members in German municipalities and cities on a left-right dimension, based on a survey that was conducted between October 2007 and June 2008. This is, however, only a snapshot for the time 2007/2008, and it also remains an open question if the self- assessment of local council members reflects local parties’ policy positions accurately. 10 For local parties and independent local lists with missing local election manifestos, I used the policy positions of their local basic programmes as a proxy. In cases where the collection of local election manifestos does not cover the whole time period under consideration, or in cases where I was not able to collect any manifesto, I either imputed the policy positions of the previous or following manifesto, or I imputed the average of all scored policy positions in the ‘virgin texts’ of the respective party or list. For the ‘Pirate Party Germany’ (PIRATEN), the ‘German Centre Party’ (ZENTRUM), and ‘The Grays’ (GRAUE), I used the 2002 national election manifesto (GRAUE), the 2012 North Rhine-Westphalian state election manifesto (PIRATEN), and the national basic programme (ZENTRUM), respectively, as proxies. 11 See Glasgow et al. (2012) for the application of a mixed logit model in an empirical study on national government formations in West European democracies. 15 between 1994 and 2012, I am dealing with local councils that comprise a range from 3 up to 10 parties. Thus, the size of the choice set varies across the cases.
Empirical results for local coalition formation in large North Rhine-Westphalian cities
In this section, I evaluate the hypotheses on local coalition formation in North Rhine- Westphalian cities. I first provide information on local parties’ policy positions on two policy dimensions (Figure 1). Then I present descriptive statistics on local coalition patterns (Table 2) and discuss the results of four regression models (Table 3). The analysis of local parties’ policy positions shows that there is a great diversity both between and within the various positions of the local parties in large North Rhine- Westphalian cities (see Figure 1). Note that the policy position patterns on both the economic and the societal dimension show a high resemblance to the positioning of German regional and national parties (see, e.g., Bräuninger and Debus 2012; J. Müller 2009, 2013; Pappi 2009). This result gives support to the assumption that the use of national parties’ policy positions (see, e.g., Denters 1985; Steunenberg 1992) is not appropriate for the study of local coalition formations. Instead one should use policy positions of local parties and independent local lists (see also Bäck 2003; Skjæveland et al. 2007).
***Figure 1 about here***
Coalition patterns on the local level in North Rhine-Westphalia are very much like the ones on the national and regional level (see Table 2). Three out of four local coalitions are minimal winning coalitions. Hence, local political actors ‘copy’ the most common coalition pattern on national and regional levels. Furthermore, more than 75 per cent of all coalitions display the ‘usual’ party combinations known from superior political levels: SPD and Greens, CDU and FDP, and CDU and SPD. Note that local coalitions are only formed in 57 per cent of all cases following an election. This is in contrast to national and regional government formation.
***Table 2 about here***
The empirical results of the multivariate analyses (reported in Table 3) show the most important effects on local coalition formation in North Rhine-Westphalia. All four models clearly show that both office- and policy-seeking indicators matter for the explanation of local coalition formation. Local coalitions have a significant higher chance to be formed if they are
16 minimal (or even minimum) winning coalitions, if they comprise the smallest number of parties, and if the ideological heterogeneity between coalition parties is small with regard to societal policies (see Model 1 and Model 2). Note, however, that the inclusion of the strongest party does not increase the formation chances for potential coalitions. This contrasts strongly with both empirical findings on local coalition formation in other West European countries (see Bäck 2003; Geys et al. 2006) and the empirical results in studies on national (see, e.g., Martin and Stevenson 2001, 2010) and regional government formation in general (see, e.g., Bäck et al. 2013; Debus et al. 2011) and in Germany in particular (see, e.g., Bräuninger and Debus 2008, 2012). One possible explanation for this could be the peculiar role of the Social Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia. For decades, the SPD has been winning an absolute majority of seats in local councils. Electoral losses of the Social Democrats, especially in the local elections in the 1990s, resulted in situations like the one in Mülheim an der Ruhr: the SPD was still the largest party, but the loss of the absolute majority of seats in the local council gave the Christian Democrats and the Greens for the first time the chance to become member of coalition that does not include the Social Democrats. And so it happened.
***Table 3 about here***
This explanation should also be true for the fact that the inclusion of the median party on the societal dimension significantly decreases the likelihood of a potential coalition to be formed. A look at the frequency distribution of the median party on the societal dimension clearly shows that this is due to the fact that the SPD is the median party in almost half of the cases. As it is shown in other studies of local coalition formation (see Bäck 2003; Skjæveland et al. 2007), potential coalitions are more likely if the parties already worked together in a formal coalition during the previous legislative period (see Model 3).12 Model 4 is restricted to the time period 1999-2012 due to the fact that not until 1999 the direct election of mayors has been possible. The ‘cohabitation’ effect is statistically significant and has the expected direction. Local coalitions are less likely to form when a coalition does not include the mayor’s party and, thus, are opposed to the mayor. Hence, studies on local coalition formation in Germany have to consider the role of the mayor as a decisive actor. These empirical results on local coalition formation in large North Rhine-Westphalian cities are the starting point for addressing additional theoretical arguments on the
12 The number of observations slightly drops by including the incumbency variable. This is due to the fact that I have no data on coalition formation before the local elections in 1994 for the cases ‘Remscheid 1994’ and ‘Siegen 1994’. 17 determinants of local coalition (non-)formation between the CDU and the Greens. These arguments are presented in the next section and rephrased in hypotheses on necessary and sufficient conditions.
4 Theoretical arguments on the determinants of local coalition (non-)formation between the CDU and the Greens
The empirical results on local coalition formation in large cities in North Rhine-Westphalia are the starting point for the identification of potentially necessary and sufficient conditions for the explanation of the formation and non-formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions. Nevertheless, they have to be combined with the results of the literature review on (government) coalition research in section 2. As suggested by Emmenegger et al. (2013), the theoretical arguments are stated as hypotheses regarding necessary and/or sufficient conditions. First of all, a comparison between the literature review on possible explanatory factors for coalitions between the CDU and the Greens in general (see section 2) and the empirical results on local coalition formation in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in particular (see section 3) shows that there is a variety of conditions that could explain the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions. Local coalitions are more likely to be formed if they are minimal (or even minimum) winning coalitions and if they comprise the smallest number of parties. This is definitely true for the 10 ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions under study. However, coalitions between the CDU and the Greens are minimal winning and comprise the smallest number of parties by definition. Therefore, these two factors have to be considered as ‘scope conditions’ or ‘background conditions’ (De Meur et al. 2009) because they do not vary across cases with a positive and a negative outcome. Furthermore, local coalitions are more likely to be formed if they are the incumbent coalition. This factor cannot be addressed regarding coalitions between the CDU and the Greens on the local level because there is only one case (Frankfurt am Main 2011) where a ‘black-green’ coalition has been renewed. Second, due to the aforementioned particularity of the local party system in North Rhine- Westphalia, the inclusion of the strongest party did not significantly increase the possibility of potential local coalitions to be formed; nevertheless, many other studies on national, regional and local government formation show that this factor should be considered as a (potentially) necessary or sufficient condition (see section 3). Consequently, I hypothesize that the
18 inclusion of the strongest party is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions (H1).13 Third, the empirical results on local coalition formation have shown that the policy distance between coalition partners on a societal dimension has a significant effect on the outcome of local coalition bargaining processes. Thus, this could be one condition explaining the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions. Therefore, I hypothesize that a small policy distance on the societal dimension between the CDU and the Greens is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions (H2). Fourth, I have shown that local political actors try to avoid situations of ‘cohabitation’, i.e. they try to include the mayor’s party in a coalition. This could also be applied to the formation of coalitions between the CDU and the Greens. Hence, I hypothesize that the inclusion of the mayor’s party (i.e. the mayor is from the CDU or the Greens) is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions (H3). With regard to (possible) conditions of the formation and non-formation of local coalitions between the CDU and the Greens, not only the empirical results in the preceding section have to be considered, also additional contextual factors like institutional, electoral, and partisan constraints have to be taken into account. A constraint is hereby defined as ‘any restriction on the set of feasible cabinet coalitions that is beyond the short-term control of the players. Constraints need not to be etched in stone for all time, but can nonetheless be taken as given for the particular bargaining situation to which they are attributed’ (Strøm et al. 1994: 308; emphasis in original). In addition to the role of the directly elected mayor, local constitutions and local electoral systems can also be seen as possible institutional constraints both for local coalition formation in Germany in general and for the formation (and non-formation) of ‘black-green’ coalitions in particular. Electoral thresholds prevent the entry of some parties and independent local lists in local councils and, thus, diminish the variety of arithmetically possible coalition outcomes. Therefore, the variety of local institutional settings in Germany is used as a ‘scope condition’ or ‘background condition’ (De Meur et al. 2009), i.e. I am only investigating the formation and non-formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions on the local level in German states where at least one local coalition between the CDU and the Greens has actually been formed. With this approach, I am holding constant the local institutional setting.
13 Furthermore, this condition could work in a combinatorial manner with the condition that the ‘usual’ patterns of minimal winning coalitions are impossible for the CDU and the Greens (see below). For instance, if the CDU is the strongest party in a local council, this should increase the possibility of a coalition with the FDP. However, this depends on the election result of the Liberals. QCA is a methodological tool to assess the combinatorial relationship between two conditions. 19 Several features of party systems can have an impact on (government) coalition formation (Indridason 2011: 695) and therefore work as electoral constraints. Denters (1985) and Downs (1998) assess especially the relationship between the degree of ‘nationalization’ and the electoral volatility of a (regional or local) party system. They assume that a high degree of electoral volatility is an indicator for local political actors that their own behaviour affects the electoral outcome. By contrast, low electoral volatility is an indicator that the electoral outcome is less dependent on the local political actors’ behaviour. Therefore, local political actors are less restricted in the search of coalition partners in situations of low electoral volatility (Denters 1985: 296; Downs 1998: 47-48). This means that an ‘unusual’ coalition, like a ‘black-green’ coalition, does not have to be highly justified to the local electorate in local party systems with low electoral volatility. Furthermore, Denters (1985) and Downs (1998) show that coalition options are less restricted in ‘nationalized’ party systems14 because the changes of vote and seat shares rather depend on the behaviour of national political actors and less on the behaviour of local political actors. Contrary to that, election results in ‘localized’ party systems are mostly dependent on the behaviour of local political actors. Therefore, they are much more restricted with respect to searching for coalition partners due to the fact that ‘[i]n such situations politicians and party groups have incentives to appear ‘consistent and reliable’ to the local electorate and are more inclined to pursue a restricted set of coalition possibilities’ (Downs 1998: 48). Regarding the ‘unusual’ coalition combination between the CDU and the Greens this means that ‘black-green’ coalitions should be more likely in ‘nationalized’ local party systems. Denters (1985) and Downs (1998) assume that both factors – ‘electoral volatility’ and ‘nationalization/localization’ – independently from each other and combined have an impact on the outcome of coalition formations. According to Downs (1998: 173), there are no electoral constraints for local political actors in ‘nationalized’ local party systems with low electoral volatility. Hence, local political actors have three options with respect to the formation of coalitions without getting punished by the voters: (1) ‘copying’ the pattern(s) of the national or regional government(s), (2) forming an ideologically heterogeneous coalition, or (3) forming a coalition that has never (or rarely) been formed before. Regarding ‘black- green’ coalitions in Germany, only the second and third option seem plausible. However, Denters (1985: 298) and Downs (1998: 48-50) also state that minimal winning coalitions (like ‘black-green’ coalitions) should be more likely in highly volatile, ‘nationalized’ party systems because local political actors want to maximise their seat share.
14 In ‘nationalized’ party systems, the changes of vote shares between two elections on the local level are similar to the changes of vote shares between two elections on the national level (Downs 1998: 48). 20 Furthermore, Downs (1998: 173) assumes that local political actors have an incentive to form local coalitions that deviate from the national coalition patterns in highly volatile, ‘localized’ party systems. With regard to coalitions between the CDU and the Greens, this contains obvious contradictions. Consequently, at the current stage of the PhD project, I include both factors as separate conditions in my analysis. Thus, I hypothesize that a high degree of ‘nationalization’ of a local party system is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions (H4), and that a high electoral volatility of a local party system is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions (H5). ‘Coalition signals’ and the publicly announced exclusion of other parties as coalition partners before the election as well as intra-party matters regarding possible coalition partners can be seen as partisan constraints for local coalition formation. However, information on these factors are very difficult (if at all) to collect, and therefore put aside at the current stage of the PhD project (see also Glasgow et al. 2012: 250 with respect to the impossibility of measuring personal conflicts in coalition research). Nevertheless, the results reported in Table 2 suggest that local parties try to form coalitions with ‘familiar’ parties. Thus, if either the Christian Democrats or the Greens have the arithmetical possibility to form a coalition with the FDP (in case of the CDU) or the SPD (in case of the Greens), ‘black-green’ coalitions should be less likely to form (see also Blumberg 2011; Neu 2004). In other words, I hypothesize that the arithmetical impossibility of ‘usual’ minimal winning coalitions for the CDU and the Greens is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for the formation of ‘black- green’ coalitions (H6). To sum up, especially the theoretical arguments by Denters (1985) and Downs (1998) regarding electoral constraints on regional and local coalition formation can be applied to the study of the formation and non-formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions. The aforementioned ‘contradictions’ with respect to the impact of ‘electoral volatility’ and ‘nationalization/localization’ of local party systems on the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions should not lead to the exclusion of these factors. On the contrary, the theoretical arguments by Denters (1985) and Downs (1998) rather suggest that there could be different paths leading to the formation of coalitions between the Christian Democrats and the Greens. Therefore, the analysis has to allow for equifinality – and this is a key strength of QCA (see, e.g., Schneider and Wagemann 2012). All studies on government coalitions focus on explaining the formation of these coalitions. The explanation of the non-formation of other potential coalitions has never been directly
21 addressed. This may be due to the fact that the statistical techniques used by scholars in coalition research rely on the assumption of symmetric causes. If a small policy distance within a potential coalition increases the probability of this coalition to be formed than, conversely, a large policy distance within another potential coalition should decrease the probability of this coalition to be formed. Frankly, this may or may not be true. But with regard to the formation and non-formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions, and by keeping in mind the aforementioned statement of Maier (2008) that such coalitions could be ‘complementary coalitions’, first of all it needs to be tested if this assumption of symmetrical causes is true or not. By now, I am assuming that the negation of the aforementioned conditions is necessary and/or sufficient for the non-formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions. In sum, we need a method that allows for the test of both the ‘positive’ and the ‘negative’ outcome of local coalition formations between the Christian Democrats and the Greens. Furthermore, the theoretical arguments established in this section show that one has to apply a method that can deal with causal complexity and with a small number of cases. This method – Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in general and its crisp-set version in particular – is discussed in the next section.
5 Crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) and the calibration of set membership
In The Comparative Method, Charles C. Ragin (1987) developed Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as a new methodological approach, combining aspects of quantitative and qualitative social research, and using Boolean algebra in order to find specific combinations of conditions that can explain the investigated cases. This approach then has been further developed over the past years (see Ragin 2000, 2008). In essence, like case-oriented methods, QCA treats every case as a whole entity and does not divide cases into a bunch of variables (Ragin 1987: 52; Rihoux 2006: 682). QCA acknowledges that social phenomena can be equifinal, i.e. ‘there are several combinations of conditions that may produce the same emergent phenomenon or the same change’ (Ragin 1987: 25). Therefore, scholars are using ‘causal recipes’ (Ragin 2008: 109; emphasis in original) in order to find (combinations of) conditions that produce an outcome. QCA does not assume ‘uniformity of causal effects’ (Berg-Schlosser et al. 2009: 9) which means that a condition A can lead to the outcome when combined with condition B, but may not lead to the outcome when combined with condition C. Unlike variable-based methods, QCA is able to identify ‘explanations that account for
22 every instance of a certain phenomenon’ (Ragin 1987: 16).15 Therefore, QCA is better suited for dealing with so-called ‘deviant cases’ than variable-based methods like regression techniques (Ragin 1987). Additionally, as all set-theoretic approaches, QCA assumes that concepts and relations between causal factors are asymmetric. This means that the conditions explaining the occurrence of the outcome have not to be identical to the conditions explaining the non-occurrence of the outcome as it is implicitly assumed in most quantitative statistical techniques (Schneider and Wagemann 2012: 6). Nowadays, QCA is regarded both as an approach and as a technique (for recent overviews see Marx et al. 2013; Rihoux 2013; Rihoux and Marx 2013; Rihoux et al. 2013; Schneider and Wagemann 2012). There exist several techniques like crisp-set QCA (csQCA), multi- value QCA (mvQCA) and fuzzy-set QCA (fsQCA). In csQCA, every condition as well as the outcome has to be dichotomized, whereas mvQCA (see Cronqvist and Berg-Schlosser 2009) allows for multi-value conditions and fsQCA (see, e.g., Ragin 2000, 2008) even allows for fine-grained measurements both for conditions as well as the outcome. Still, almost three out of four QCA studies use csQCA as technique and the majority of studies uses four to six conditions (Rihoux et al. 2013: 177-180). QCA is an appropriate methodological tool for research questions where the researcher has strong expectations about the existence of necessary and/or sufficient conditions, where the number of cases is small, or where the researcher wants to rely on case-based knowledge (Schneider 2006: 273). Moreover, all techniques of QCA can be used for at least five purposes (Berg-Schlosser et al. 2009: 15f.): (1) summary of data; (2) check of coherence of data; (3) test of hypotheses or theories; (4) data exploration, e.g., testing for assumptions formulated by the researcher; and (5) development of new theoretical arguments. Drawing on this, QCA as an approach as well as a technique is suited for the analysis of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions. As shown in section 2, there are theoretical arguments suggesting that there may exist necessary and/or sufficient conditions. Additionally, the number of cases is very small and, thus, I want to bring in thick descriptions of case-based knowledge. Last but not least, a preliminary summary of the data (not shown) already revealed that two conditions concerning sets of ‘usual’ coalition partners for the CDU and the Greens could be combined to one set (see also footnote 16). Table 4 displays a preliminary data matrix with the outcome ‘formation of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalition, based on a written agreement’ and six conditions. SP represents
15 Note that this is only true if there are no contradictory truth table rows. ‘A contradictory configuration is one whose outcome is in some cases equal to 1 (present) and in some cases equal to 0 (absent) while displaying the same values on the conditions’ (Rihoux 2003: 354). 23 ‘strongest party CDU or Greens’; MA ‘mayor’s party CDU or Greens’; AI ‘arithmetical impossibility of ‘usual’ (CDU-FDP; SPD-Greens) minimal winning coalitions’16; SD ‘small policy distance on societal dimension between CDU and Greens; NA ‘highly ‘nationalized’ local party system’; and EV ‘highly electoral volatile local party system’. Both the outcome and the conditions are dichotomous. Consequently, I use the crisp-set version of QCA. In csQCA, a value of ‘1’ indicates the presence of a condition, while a value of ‘0’ indicates the absence of a condition – that is, the CDU has been the strongest party in Frankfurt am Main 1993 (see Table 4, row 2), but neither the CDU nor the Greens have been the strongest party in Darmstadt 1993 (see Table 4, row 1).
***Table 4 about here***
By including a large number of cases with a negative outcome, I try to strike a balance between holding constant as many contextual factors (‘scope conditions’) as possible and getting ‘a maximum of heterogeneity over a minimum number of cases’ (Berg-Schlosser and De Meur 2009: 21). This means that out of 111 situations where minimal winning coalitions between the CDU and the Greens were arithmetically possible and did not form, I selected 65 of them. These 65 cases have to be situated in the same states as the cases with a positive outcome in order to keep the institutional setting and the political culture regarding local coalition formation fixed. For instance, local coalition formation is unusual in Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, but rather common in North Rhine-Westphalia (see section 3). Table 4 only displays crisp-set membership scores for the outcome and the first three conditions. At the current stage of the PhD project, some data is still missing. To calibrate the crisp-set membership scores for the condition SD, I am currently collecting local election manifestos of parties for the cases that are situated in Hesse, Saarland, and Schleswig- Holstein. I determinate the local policy positions by applying the Wordscores approach (see section 3). The most challenging task is going to be the definition what the term ‘small policy distance’ means. Currently, I am thinking about investigating the policy distances on the societal dimension of all minimal winning coalitions that have been formed in the German states since 1990 (the time period for the csQCA analysis). Thus, by using this information it
16 A previous version of the data matrix showed that this condition cannot be divided into two conditions regarding the different potential coalition partners of the CDU and the Greens. There exists no case where both a CDU-FDP-minimal winning coalition and a SPD-Greens-minimal winning coalition were arithmetically possible. 24 would be possible to find a threshold above which minimal winning coalitions have never been formed. These raw data already exist (see Bräuninger and Debus 2012). To calibrate the conditions NP and EV, I am using a newly created dataset that comprises all election results in large German cities for national, state, and local elections. By now, the time period covered is from 1990 to 2013. ‘Nationalization’ (or ‘localization’) measures the extent to which changes in party vote shares in the local electoral arena deviate from changes in party vote shares in the national electoral arena. Following Denters (1985), Downs (1998), and Bäck (2003), I am measuring the degree of ‘nationalization’ (or ‘localization’, to give a more intuitive interpretation of the formula) of a party system as follows:
∑|( ) ( )| ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
LPi(t) stands for the vote share of a party at time t, whereas LPi(t-1) stands for the party’s vote share at the previous election at time t-1. The same holds true for NP at the same points in time. To calculate the ‘localization’ or ‘nationalization’ for the local party system in one city, one has to divide the summation with the number of parties. Substantially this means that in a highly ‘nationalized’ local party system, the deviations between the changes in local elections and the changes in national elections are small – that is, ‘changes in local elections mirror those occurring in the national elections’ (Bäck 2003: 455). Electoral volatility measures the changes in parties’ vote shares between two consecutive elections. I am measuring electoral volatility by using the index of Pedersen (1979):
∑ ( ) ( )
Thereby, one calculates the aggregate volatility in a local party system by studying the net changes in vote shares between parties. Pi(t) stands for the vote share of party i at time t, and
Pi(t-1) stands for the vote share of party i at the previous election at t-1. To obtain the aggregate volatility of the local party system, one has to divide the ‘total net change’ (Pedersen 1979) by the number of elections studied (in this case: two elections). A comparison between the calculations of these two formulas with the first cases in Table 4 reveals that data on local and national election results in the late 1980s is needed. For instance, to calculate the ‘nationalization’ and electoral volatility of the local party system in Darmstadt in 1993, one has to know the distribution of vote shares in the local elections in 1989 and in the national elections in 1987. Currently, I am gathering these data.
25
6 An outlook on next research steps
A closer look at Table 4 additionally shows that there still exists a high number of contradictory rows (I am not presenting a preliminary truth table due to the aforementioned missing data). This situation may change by using the other three conditions. Nevertheless, contradictory rows are a serious problem, especially in csQCA. Rihoux (2006: 683) notes that ‘[s]uch contradictions must […] be resolved before moving ahead with the analysis. This involves frequent returns to the cases, to the initial qualitative or quantitative data’. Recently, ‘[w]ith the introduction of consistency, the stringency of resolving all contradictions has made place for a measure which allows for some error […]’ (Marx et al. 2013: 37; emphasis added). Berg-Schlosser and Cronqvist (2011: 157f.) suggest that not more than 25 per cent of the cases in a row should be contradictory to the expected outcome. Marx et al. (2013: 37) note that ‘[t]he key issue is rather that contradictions or low consistency scores are naturally occurring phenomena in QCA when explanatory models are not correctly specified due to the omission of crucial explanatory variables, measurement error, or high heterogeneity of the research population’.17 Note that 75 cases and six conditions should be enough to avoid this potential pitfall of csQCA: generating an explanatory model based on random data (see Marx 2010; Marx and Dusa 2011).18 One possible way to eliminate some of the contradictory rows could be to drop some cases with a negative outcome. While the inclusion of cases is not that problematic, the exclusion of cases has to be ‘conducted transparently’ and ‘supported by theoretical and methodological arguments’ (Marx et al. 2013: 40). However, there seems to be one theoretical argument at hand: the changing political context on superior levels of a multi-level political system. There could be a good reason for the fact that local coalitions between the CDU and the Greens have only gained momentum in the last years. By heavily relying on the literature on the party relationship between the CDU and the Greens (which is part of the PhD project), one could justify that the political context on the national and the state level has changed quite considerably. For most of the political actors in both parties, a ‘black-green’ coalition has been seen as a possibility only since the 2000s. Thus, the research population could be too heterogeneous. Consequently, in order to hold the national and state political context constant,
17 See Ragin (2008) and Schneider and Wagemann (2012) with respect to suggestions for thresholds of consistency and coverage for necessary as well as sufficient conditions. 18 An explanatory model in csQCA should be specified in a way that there is a high chance that this model could not have been generated on random data (see Marx and Dusa 2011; Marx et al. 2013: 38). 26 one could formulate an additional ‘scope condition’ – cases with a negative outcome are only selected when there are cases with a positive outcome at the same election. This point of view is corroborated by the notion that ‘the more homogeneous the cases (in terms of background conditions not included in the model), and the more diverse they are with regard to their combinations of values on the conditions, the less severe this problem [influencing solution paths by the inclusion and exclusion of cases; M.G.] is likely to be’ (De Meur et al. 2009: 157).19 The selection of conditions could be a problem for two reasons. First, Rihoux and De Meur (2009: 45) note that there should be ‘enough variation for each condition’ and they suggest that ‘at least 1/3 of each value’ should be assigned. Regarding the conditions SP, MA, and AI, this is only the case for the condition MA. In 45 out of 75 cases (60 per cent) is the mayor from the CDU or the Greens. On the contrary, in 87 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively, is the strongest party the CDU or the Greens, and are other ‘usual’ minimal winning coalitions arithmetically impossible.20 Second, a large number of contradictory rows could also be a hint that some important conditions are still missing (see Berg-Schlosser and Cronqvist 2011: 156). Ober (2008) und Hoffmann (1997a, b) assume that the breaking of the long standing supremacy of the Social Democrats could be an incentive for local political actors of the CDU and the Greens to form ‘black-green’ coalitions. However, the measurement of such a condition is quite difficult. Which period of time could be considered as a ‘period of supremacy’? Last but not least, I am not only interested in the formation of ‘black-green’ coalitions but also in their non-formation. Due to the limited space in this paper, I did not address this point specifically. With respect to the assumptions of coalition theories, Ober (2008: 25) notes that ‘no […] theory is able to explain why ‘black-green’ coalitions are formed so rarely – with the exception of policy-seeking theories that could explain why they are not formed’ (own translation; emphasis added). Nevertheless, at the current stage of the PhD project, I am assuming that the negations of my conditions could be necessary and/or sufficient conditions for the non-occurrence of minimal winning coalitions between the CDU and the Greens in large German cities as well.
19 By introducing this ‘scope condition’, the number of cases would drop from 75 to 51. 20 Note that the highly uneven distribution of the outcome is not a problem with regard to the occurrence of contradictions (see Marx 2010; Marx and Dusa 2011). 27 Table 1: Summary of ‘black-green’ minimal winning coalitions in large German cities
Total population City State Time period2 (31.12.2011)1 Aachen North Rhine-Westphalia 260.454 2009-2013
Bonn North Rhine-Westphalia 327.913 2009-
Darmstadt Hesse 149.052 2011-
Frankfurt am Main Hesse 691.518 2006-2011
Frankfurt am Main Hesse 691.518 2011-
Kassel Hesse 196.526 2003-2005
Kiel Schleswig-Holstein 242.041 2003-2008
Köln North Rhine-Westphalia 1.017.155 2003-2004
Mülheim an der Ruhr North Rhine-Westphalia 167.156 1994-1999
Saarbrücken Saarland 176.135 2001-2003
Source: Author‘s own compilation using data from 1) Statistisches Bundesamt (2012) and 2) Hoffmann (1997a, b), Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (2010) and Ober (2008).
28 Table 2: Background information on coalitions in large North Rhine-Westphalian cities, 1994-2012
Value N
1. Number of political parties and local lists in local councils: 6.6 117 - Average number 3 - Minimum number 10 - Maximum number
2. One-party majorities in local councils 23 117 (19.7 %)
3. Number of parties in the local coalition: - Average number 2.2 67 - Minimum number 2 - Maximum number 4
4. Coalition types in the local councils: - Minority coalitions 10 67 (14.9 %) - Minimal winning coalitions 51 (76.1 %) - Surplus majority coalitions 6 (9.0 %)
5. Party combinations in local coalitions: - SPD-Greens 23 67 (34.3 %) - CDU-FDP 21 (31.3 %) - CDU-SPD 8 (11.9 %) - SPD-Greens-FDP 6 (9.0 %) - CDU-Greens 5 (7.5 %) - Weitere Bündnisse 4 (6.0 %)
Source: Author’s own calculation.
29 Table 3: Determinants of local coalition formation in 29 large North Rhine-Westphalian cities, 1994-2012
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Office-seeking indicators Minimal winning coalition 2.23** 1.67* 1.62* 1.70* (0.78) (0.77) (0.79) (0.84) Minimum winning coalition 0.89* 1.04* 1.03* 1.00* (0.39) (0.40) (0.43) (0.50) Smallest number of parties 3.15*** 2.84*** 2.63*** 2.40*** (0.58) (0.52) (0.52) (0.55) Inclusion of strongest party 0.78 0.80 0.80 1.18 (0.56) (0.65) (0.65) (0.78) Minority coalition -0.83 -1.59+ -1.44 -0.82 (0.80) (0.96) (0.98) (0.98) Policy-seeking indicators Policy distance on economic dimension -0.06 -0.04 -0.03 (0.08) (0.08) (0.09) Inclusion of median party on economic dimension 0.71+ 0.72+ 0.57 (0.41) (0.43) (0.46) Policy distance on societal dimension -0.17** -0.17** -0.22*** (0.05) (0.05) (0.06) Inclusion of median party on societal dimension -1.20** -1.18** -1.61** (0.40) (0.45) (0.58) Contextual factors and institutional constraints Incumbency coalition 1.77*** 1.51** (0.47) (0.53) 'Cohabitation' -1.47* (0.66) Observations 10861 10861 10831 10729 Pseudo R2 0.470 0.503 0.528 0.535 AIC 323.81 312.24 294.75 271.37
Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. + = p < 0.1; * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01; *** = p < 0.001
30 Table 4: Preliminary data matrix with crisp-set membership scores for six conditions and the outcome
Case SP MA AI SD NA EV Outcome Darmstadt (1993) 0 0 0 0 Frankfurt am Main (1993) 1 0 0 0 Kassel (1993) 1 0 1 0 Aachen (1994) 1 0 0 0 Bergisch Gladbach (1994) 1 1 0 0 Bonn (1994) 1 0 0 0 Düsseldorf (1994) 0 0 0 0 Hamm (1994) 1 0 0 0 Köln (1994) 0 0 0 0 Leverkusen (1994) 1 0 0 0 Mönchengladbach (1994) 1 1 0 0 Mülheim an der Ruhr (1994) [1994-1999] 0 1 0 1 Münster (1994) 1 0 0 0 Solingen (1994) 1 0 0 0 Wuppertal (1994) 0 0 0 0 Darmstadt (1997) 0 0 0 0 Frankfurt am Main (1997) 1 1 1 0 Kassel (1997) 0 1 0 0 Wiesbaden (1997) 0 1 0 0 Lübeck (1998) 0 0 0 0 Aachen (1999) 1 0 0 0 Bielefeld (1999) 1 1 1 0 Bochum (1999) 1 0 0 0 Dortmund (1999) 1 0 0 0 Düsseldorf (1999) 1 1 0 0 Essen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Hagen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Hamm (1999) 1 1 0 0 Köln (1999) [2003-2004] 1 1 0 1 Leverkusen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Mönchengladbach (1999) 1 1 0 0 Moers (1999) 1 1 0 0 Recklinghausen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Remscheid (1999) 1 1 0 0 Saarbrücken (1999) [2001-2003] 1 0 0 1
31 Case SP MA AI SD NA EV Outcome Siegen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Solingen (1999) 1 1 0 0 Wuppertal (1999) 1 0 0 0 Darmstadt (2001) 1 0 0 0 Frankfurt am Main (2001) 1 1 1 0 Kassel (2001) [2003-2005] 0 1 0 1 Kiel (2003) [2003-2008] 1 1 0 1 Aachen (2004) 1 0 0 0 Bergisch Gladbach (2004) 1 0 1 0 Bielefeld (2004) 1 1 1 0 Bonn (2004) 1 0 1 0 Düsseldorf (2004) 1 1 0 0 Essen (2004) 1 1 1 0 Hamm (2004) 1 1 0 0 Krefeld (2004) 1 1 0 0 Mönchengladbach (2004) 1 0 0 0 Münster (2004) 1 1 0 0 Recklinghausen (2004) 1 1 1 0 Remscheid (2004) 1 0 0 0 Saarbrücken (2004) 1 1 0 0 Siegen (2004) 1 1 1 0 Solingen (2004) 1 1 0 0 Wuppertal (2004) 1 1 1 0 Frankfurt am Main (2006) [2006-2011] 1 1 1 1 Aachen (2009) [2009-2013] 1 1 1 1 Bergisch Gladbach (2009) 1 1 0 0 Bielefeld (2009) 1 0 1 0 Bonn (2009) [seit 2009] 1 0 1 1 Düsseldorf (2009) 1 1 0 0 Hamm (2009) 1 1 0 0 Köln (2009) 1 0 0 0 Krefeld (2009) 1 1 1 0 Münster (2009) 1 1 1 0 Neuss (2009) 1 1 0 0 Paderborn (2009) 1 1 0 0 Wuppertal (2009) 1 1 1 0 Darmstadt (2011) [seit 2011] 1 1 0 1
32 Case SP MA AI SD NA EV Outcome Frankfurt am Main (2011) [seit 2011] 1 1 1 1 Offenbach am Main (2011) 1 0 1 0 Wiesbaden (2011) 1 1 1 0
Note: ‘SP’ = set of cases where either the CDU or the Greens is the strongest party; ‘MA’ = set of cases where either the CDU or the Greens is the mayor’s party; ‘AI’ = set of cases where ‘usual’ minimal winning coalitions (i.e. SPD-Greens; CDU-FDP) are arithmetically impossible; ‘SD’ = set of cases where the policy distance on the societal dimension between the CDU and the Greens is small; ‘NA’ = set of cases with a highly ‘nationalized’ local party system; ‘EV’ = set of cases with a highly electoral volatile local party system; ‘Outcome’ = set of cases where a minimal winning coalition between the CDU and the Greens has been arithmetically possibly and has actually been formed.
33 Figure 1: Positions of local parties in large North Rhine-Westphalian cities on the economic and societal policy dimension
The Left
Grens
SPD
Others
CDU
FDP
0 5 10 15 20
Economic policy Societal policy
Note: Low scores indicate an economically leftist and societal progressive policy position, while high scores indicate economically liberal and societal conservative policy preferences.
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