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 [email protected] 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