Article Review: Effect of Coalition Cabinets on Foreign Policy

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal seems all set to sail through. The politics surrounding this deal has been full of tectonic shifts and twists, and more is to come. The Nuclear Deal politics provides a good opportunity to study how coalition governments deal with foreign policy issues. This question has been dealt with in a recent paper published in Foreign Policy Analysis 2008 (4). Titled-Taking it to the Extreme: The Effect of Coalition Cabinets on Foreign Policy; written by Juliet Kaarbo, University of Kansas and Ryan K. Beasley, Baker University. Using the dataset generated by World Event/Interaction Survey (WEIS), the writers seek to analyse the effect of coalition cabinets on foreign policy making. The data used is from 1966 to 1991 and covers 21 countries like Australia, Greece, India, Israel, West Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Canada and Sweden. It is to be noted that the countries covered are parliamentary democracies, to meet the requirement of the subject of the study-coalition cabinets. They have covered 26,000 cases of foreign policy behaviour in this study.

The writers first undertake a comprehensive survey of the existing literature on the subject-the effect of coalition politics on foreign policy. There seems to be no agreement among the scholars about the role of the coalition cabinets on foreign policy. The chief disagreement is about the degree and nature of institutional constraints in coalitions. This in turn decides whether the coalition will indulge in aggressive behaviour or peaceful behaviour. One group which sees coalition as highly constrained argues that they generate peaceful behaviour, while others who view coalitions as unconstrained expect more aggressive behaviour.
The expectation that coalitions will engage in peaceful foreign policy primarily rests on the notion that coalitions are highly constrained. Due to the involvement of numerous parties in the coalition, the stability of the government is affected and the government cannot take major policy decisions without long drawn consultations with the coalition partners. Apart from the constraints due the number of parties involved; the constraint is imposed by the ‘coalition agreement’ (or as we know it as the ‘common minimum programme’). The constraints in which coalitions operate presumably dampen aggression. This argument is consistent with the democratic peace theory—the more built-in constraints in democracies (via checks-and-balances, multiple viewpoints, and accountability), the more peace-loving political actors and publics can constrain war-prone leaders. This theory further states that democracies are least likely to go to war with each other. And coalition democracies are more peace-oriented than the other democracies.
There is another group of scholars who disagree, arguing that the institutional and political dynamics of coalitions provide conditions that promote more aggressive foreign policies. This idea challenges the notion that coalitions are highly constrained. Rather they are seen as “constraint free”; this view stems from the diffusion of authority and accountability in coalition governments. To quote Prins and Sprecher, “With coalition governments, the voting public may be less able to attach responsibility to any one party for policy failures. Presumably then, coalition leaders would have greater flexibility in their handling of foreign affairs.”
The other argument of this group is that coalition governments may engage in aggressive behaviour due to their inherent institutional weaknesses. This view states that unstable coalitions may take major foreign policy decision to demonstrate their ability to tackle policy crisis and gain legitimacy at home. The other factor here is that a junior partner in the coalition (but with crucial strength needed for government’s majority) will push the government to aggressive behaviour, while the larger partner (which is a ‘catch-all’ party) will seek to adopt a middle or conciliatory path. But in all this the government will remain susceptible to ‘blackmail’ by its junior partners.

Kaarbo and Beasley argue that the above mentioned propositions are a bit narrow and too general. In their paper, they argue that rather than focusing just on institutional factors, it is important to look at the specific action or behaviour. The other drawback of the existing work on this subject is that it has focussed only on issues of conflict and peace; but foreign policy goes much beyond it. Moreover conflict-based approach always generates extreme behaviour, thus affecting the nature of dataset.
Here I will quote a long paragraph from their paper which conveys the essence of their findings; “coalitions tend to be more extreme in their conflict–cooperation behavior than single-party governments. With event data, however, it is difficult to investigate the possible mechanisms behind this finding. There are several possibilities in the extant literature. First, as senior parties usually have to rely on more extreme, ideological junior parties with whom they are vulnerable to blackmail attempts, coalitions may be “hijacked” by these junior parties, in both extreme directions. Junior parties that are able to influence foreign policy may pull the cabinet toward highly cooperative policies or highly aggressive policies. Second, if coalitions are inherently weak domestically, then they may need to engage in ‘‘high profile’’ foreign policies to gain legitimacy and ⁄ or divert attention from their domestic problems. This argument is usually used to predict more conflictual policies, but one could argue that highly cooperative foreign policies would serve the same purposes. Finally, if coalitions are less constrained than single parties in that the multiple actors make it more difficult for others to assign responsibility to any single party, coalitions may feel more comfortable engaging in extreme endeavours. Again, this argument is usually made to justify the expectation that coalitions are more conflictual, but if both highly conflictual and highly cooperative behavior and high commitment behaviour entail risks, then the diffusion of authority that comes with multiparty coalitions may be behind these risky choices.”
Further Kaarbo and Beasley point out that the results are still mixed, with coalitions triggering extremes in both types of behaviour- conflictual and cooperative. The future research on this question will have to move beyond the institutional dimension and look at behaviour, policy positions and approach of specific partners of the coalition. This paper tackles a crucial question of the role of coalition cabinets in foreign policy, and this question assumes more significance with most of the important players in the world being ruled by coalition governments, like India, Japan, Israel and Turkey. Interestingly the timeline covered in the paper stops in 1991, the year which has marked the full-fledged beginning of coalition governments in India; something that will continue for a long time to come. It would be pertinent to revisit this question again taking into account the post-1991 data.

Some thoughts about the Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Much to the contrary as made out by some leaders and certain sections of the media, the Indo-US Nuclear Deal is not only about India and USA. It is deal between India and the emerging new nuclear order. The new nuclear order is slowly moving away from the parameters of NPT; and Indo-US nuclear deal is one aspect of the future order. Even when we look only at India-US relations, this deal goes much beyond civilian nuclear cooperation. It will mark the beginning of a new chapter of relationship between the two nations which will involve strategic, commercial and military interaction. So as Manmohan Singh Government pats itself for this achievement, it should always be cautious of any possible attempts of arm-twisting by the Americans, and this caution applies to all the future governments also. No clause or terms of the deal will make India a stooge to the Americans or compromise our independence in foreign policy making. The only factor that will maintain India’s independence in foreign policy making is the political will of its leadership and the ability to stand up to Washington.