Looking at the European polity and European policy developments, one is struck by the contrast between obstacle-ridden decision-making processes, often ending in deadlock, on the one hand, and institutional change and rapid policy movement, on the other. Thus, since the mid-1980s, we have witnessed significant changes, notably in ‘constitution-building, politicisation, mobilisation and enlargement’ (Laffan 1997: 6), and a steady expansion of the European policy agenda (Peters 1996), alongside stalled negotiation processes and incremental policy changes. How can one explain this apparently paradoxical co-existence of stalling and swift development? In this book I contend that gridlock and growth are intimately linked, and that this linkage is derived from two central properties of the European polity – its diversity and its consensual decision-making practices.

In European policy-making, the diversity of actors' interests, the consensus-forcing nature of European institutions and the redistributive elements present in most Community policies would inevitably lead to a stalemate or ‘joint decision trap’ (Scharpf 1991), were it not for the widespread and ubiquitous use of informal strategies and process patterns that circumvent political impasses, referred to collectively as subterfuge or escape routes. Subterfuge then consists of policy strategies and patterns that ‘make Europe work’ against the odds of the given institutional conditions and the enormous diversity of interests.

Policies designed to provide a collective good, such as the maintenance of the natural environment, impose sanctions on those negative external effects linked with individual productive and consumer-related activities which endanger it. While all stand to win from a cleaner environment, the distribution of costs and benefits linked with the provision of the necessary measures is uneven. And it is these interventions, with their distributive effects, which give rise to specific conflicts.

Cleavages and the accommodation of diversity

The interest constellation which evolves from the anticipated costs and benefits of environmental policy is often redistributive and therefore conflictual. Thus, combating industrial pollution implies widely distributed – but relatively small – incremental benefits for the public, and concentrated – but relatively high – ‘lumpy’ costs for industry (Wilson 1980). That is, the beneficiaries of regulatory policy constitute an inclusive group, not easily organised unless a public entrepreneur takes up their cause, whilst the opponents of such measures – the polluters – are, by contrast, an exclusive group, powerful in terms of resources and small in number, and hence better suited to political organisation (Olson 1980).

When it comes to the European regulation of environmental problems we are primarily dealing with those problems of global and border-crossing pollution that cannot be resolved adequately by individual member states. On the one hand, states have a common interest in providing a collective good and in protecting the environment.

The simultaneity of deadlock and development

It has been claimed that the parallel presence of gridlock and growth evolves from two central properties of the European polity – its diversity and its consensual decision-making practices. The variance in the goals pursued by actors has generated an institutionally fragmented polity which demands consensual and interlocking decision-making practices developed to conciliate conflicting goals rather than to provide strong executive leadership. Yet, paradoxically, the very fragmentation and complexity of the decisional structure created to accommodate diversity, and which, in the straightforward decision-making process in the central arena (Council), tends to lead to a stalemate or ‘joint decision trap’ (Scharpf 1988), simultaneously offers ample room for escape routes to overcome potential deadlocks and to speed up policy developments. The very complexity and opaqueness of the institutional structure offer multiple opportunities for creative actors, not only in the Commission and the European Parliament, but also in the member states, to take policy initiatives and to see them through by side-stepping existing obstacles in the decisional process. This leads not only to a strong element of policy entrepreneurship, and the chance for first-movers to wield influence in the process of policy definition, but also to a good deal of policy improvisation and policy unpredictability (Mazey and Richardson 1992).

INTRODUCTION

Party politics can be spectacular popular entertainment. Regardless of whether they ultimately act out a tragedy or a comedy, party politicians occasionally grip the public's attention in powerful ways. Even the most prosaic of bills can at times set the stage for a parliamentary drama. Such was the case when the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, debated the government's farm bill in the hectic days of June 1987. I shall refer to these events as the Presthus debacle, in reference to Conservative leader Rolf Presthus, the man whose life was most severely affected by this dramatic fiasco of interparty bargaining.

This chapter analyzes the strange events that led to the Presthus debacle. These events are interesting for a number of reasons. First, the strategic moves that were made led to an outcome that none of the principal players preferred and few anticipated. Four parties explicitly committed to a change of government and collectively a legislative majority twice failed to oust a minority Labor government. The Presthus debacle shows that parties differ in the objectives they bring to coalition bargaining. In explaining such differences, we have to consider the constraints of within-party politics, and especially the consequences of different intraparty delegation regimes.

PRESTHUS AND THE EVENTS OF JUNE 1987

On Monday, June 8, 1987, Rolf Presthus was widely expected to become prime minister of Norway within a few short days.

INTRODUCTION

On August 11, 1976, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) decided to abstain in the vote of confidence for the third Andreotti cabinet – a monocolore (single-party cabinet) of the Christian Democracy (DC) – thereby making possible the formation of the first government with Communist support since May 1947. This event took place a few weeks after the parliamentary elections (June 20), in which the party had gained a very significant electoral success (Table 6.1). In July 1977, after weeks of negotiations, the PCI signed an agreement for a “common policy program” with the DC, the Socialist Party (PSI), the Social Democratic Party (PSDI), the Republican Party (PRI), and the Liberal Party (PLI). In March 1978, the fourth Andreotti cabinet marked the official participation of the PCI in the parliamentary majority supporting the cabinet – again, a DC monocolore – along with DC, PSI, PSDI, and PRI. In January 1979 the PCI withdrew its support from Andreotti, forcing the cabinet to resign. A tripartite cabinet (DC-PRI-PSDI) – Andreotti's fifth – was formed with the PCI in opposition. The PCI has never again been in office.

This is, in brief, the history of the so-called governments of national solidarity. What makes this an interesting case of trade-offs between party goals is that the PCI until 1976 had constantly reaped the electoral benefits of being in opposition; yet, as it shifted from opposition to office, it immediately lost votes and continued to lose them until 1994 (Figure 6.1).

INTRODUCTION

This chapter attempts to explain the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party's (PSOE) rapid shift from a policy-seeking party (as late as 1978) to an office-seeking party (by 1982). The PSOE emerged from the transition to democracy as a classic policy-seeking party: Its radical agenda was aimed more at party activists than at the electorate. After a loss in the 1979 general elections, the party moderated its image to enhance its electability, thus becoming more of a vote-seeking party. This strategy paid off in the 1982 elections, but the party entered government with some vestiges of a policy-seeking party. The Socialist leadership quickly eliminated these traits after the 1982 elections, and the PSOE subsequently became a largely office-seeking party. A new emphasis on economic modernization, efficient administration, and the desire to create “Things Well Done” (the PSOE campaign theme for the June 1987 elections) replaced the old concern for equality and participatory democracy (autogestión). The PSOE adopted a new image, based on its technocratic-administrative capability and the charisma of its leader, Felipe González, and it rapidly shed its social democratic skin.

INTRODUCTION

Politics is about choice. It is therefore hardly surprising that political parties, still the central actor in most parliamentary democracies, frequently incur situations in which they need to make hard choices – choices between office, votes, and policies (Strøm 1990). Under specific conditions, however, parties may find themselves able to reach all three goals to a satisfactory degree, even if at the outset the strategy that allows them to do so may look risky. This chapter is concerned with such a case. The analysis of the developments that led to the breakup of the Social–Liberal coalition on 17 September 1982 shows that the FDP, conceptualized as a unitary actor, was confronted with a strategic choice in which most of the benefits in the end clearly lay with only one of the feasible courses of action, namely, the decision to leave the Social–Liberal coalition under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and form a new government with the Christian Democratic parties. The subsequent account shows that the Free Democrats (FDP) was in a uniquely favourable position that ultimately allowed it to maximize office, votes, and, within limits, policy influence at the same time. Yet, this was a risky strategy ex ante, and the short-term costs could have been substantial, particularly if the party had been forced to face the electorate shortly after its defection.

There was a price, however, which demonstrates the importance of accounting for intraorganizational constraints: Party unity was severely disrupted, particularly among leadership circles. The party leaders responsible for this decision survived, but they were certainly bloodied.

For more than two decades, all Danish governments were minority governments. Seven out of thirteen minority cabinets in the period from October 1971 to January 1993 – the period under scrutinity here – consisted of one party only, while six were minority coalition governments.

If we count the months these governments were in office, we get an almost identical picture: 47 per cent of the months saw a single-party minority government and 53 per cent a minority coalition government. During these many years, Denmark could be seen as a polity where both kinds of minority governments did occur to almost the same degree, the single-party variant being dominant during the 1970s and minority coalitions during the 1980s. The four-party majority coalition installed in January 1993 commanded only 50.3 per cent of the seats in parliament, and this only was a temporary deviation from the dominant pattern.

Thus, Denmark is obviously a case in point when Kaare Strøm challenges the conventional political science view of minority government and the formation of such governments. One of Strøm's conclusions in his book on minority government and majority rule reads:

If political science is both the study of public decisions and a dismal science (along with economics), it is because public decisions are often inherently difficult and unpleasant. Public life often presents decision makers with unwelcome trade-offs, with choices they would rather not have to make. This volume has examined the decisions of Western European party leaders in a variety of situations of goal conflict. Clearly, these choices induced a great deal of agony, they were often controversial, and they may have caused a fair amount of regret. In many cases, they may have puzzled the immediate observer and called for an explanation.

This book has examined a number of such hard and critical choices. In each of these cases, as outside observers, and sometimes with the considerable benefit of hindsight, we can identify the objective dilemmas faced by parties considering, for example, government participation, coalition termination, or constitutional reform. Such analytical efforts are helpful, but they still leave us at some distance from the world of party leaders themselves. And such descriptions are themselves of limited value if they do not help us understand the situation in anything like the framework adopted by the relevant actors in the parties themselves.

Political parties are by no means all alike, nor are the choices their leaders make. Hence, generalization about their behavior is an endeavor fraught with difficulties. While the behavior of political parties has always been of central importance to political scientists, the progression of our understanding of these matters has sometimes been slow.

In May 1988, Francois Mitterrand was reelected as president of France, and he immediately exercised his right to dissolve the National Assembly and call for a new legislative election. As Table 11.1 shows, after the election, Mitterrand's Socialist Party held 275 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly. Two conservative parties, the Gaullists (RPR, 130 seats) and the Union pour la Démocratic Franchise (UDF) (90 seats), together held 220 seats. The Communists held twenty-five seats, and for the first time since the 1973 election, forty-one deputies formed a Center group (the Union du Centre, UDC) independent of the UDF. Since the election failed to return a majority for either the Socialist Party or the coalition on the right, the Socialists formed the first minority government in the history of the Fifth Republic, with Michel Rocard as prime minister.

The formation of the Rocard minority government raised speculation about the role that the French National Assembly might begin to play in French legislative politics. Until 1988, the French government had been able to use the numerous constitutional procedures to limit sharply the legislative role of parliament (see, e.g., Andrews 1982, Frears 1981, and Keeler 1993; in French see Masclet 1982 and Parodi 1972). However, given its minority status, it was not clear whether the Rocard government could use the wide range of institutional procedures at its disposal to limit the opposition's role in policymaking, or if the government would find it necessary to make policy concessions to the opposition in order to pass legislation.

Not all political parties in the Netherlands have had to make the same hard choices that are analyzed in this book, at least not to the same degree. For example, the Catholic Party and its successor, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), participated in every government coalition between 1917 and 1994. Its Protestant colleagues, who joined in forming the CDA in 1979, were also hardly ever absent. For these parties office was simply taken for granted, not as something about which decisions had to be made. They could rely upon a solid base of support that hardly wavered, whatever policies were agreed upon with their coalition partners. Even after electoral support began to decline in the 1960s, the Christian Democrats controlled enough seats in Parliament so that, given the structure of the party space, no government could be formed without them until the 1990s. It is one of the few parties that for a substantial period really had it all – votes, office, and policy.

Because of the domination of the Christian Democratic parties, most of the other parties were also not faced with difficult choices. Since the introduction of universal suffrage, support for the Liberal Party (or sometimes parties) fell at times to less than 10 per cent of the vote, and the party became content with obtaining office whenever invited by the Christian Democrats to join a coalition. The choices were seldom hard. The numerous smaller parties in the Netherlands have seldom had the opportunity to make decisions concerning office.

Political leaders routinely make momentous decisions, but they cannot always get what they want. Very often their important choices feel both difficult and painful. This is sometimes because these leaders have to act on the basis of incomplete information or because they realize that their options are risky. But it could also be because they have to abandon one goal to attain another. Politicians feel the tug between conflicting options as much as anyone else. Even when making decisions does not mean choosing the lesser of two evils, there may well be severe and uncomfortable trade-offs between different goals they have set themselves. Leadership frequently means making hard choices.

In modern democracies, the leaders who make these choices are highly likely to be party politicians or indeed party leaders. Political parties are the most important organizations in modern politics. In the contemporary world, only a few states do without them. The reason that political parties are well-nigh ubiquitous is that they perform functions that are valuable to many political actors. Political parties play a major role in the recruitment of top politicians, on whom the momentous and painful political decisions often fall. With very few exceptions, political chief executives are elected on the slate of some established political party, and very often the head of government continues to serve as the head of the political party that propelled him or her into office. Democracy may be conceived as a process by which voters delegate policy-making authority to a set of representatives, and political parties are the main organizational vehicle by which such delegation takes place.