Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T19:06:43.182Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When does politics stop at the water’s edge? A QCA of parliamentary consensus on military deployment decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2020

Tim Haesebrouck Open the ORCID record for Tim Haesebrouck [Opens in a new window]  and
Anouschka van Immerseel
Tim Haesebrouck*
Affiliation:
Ghent Institute for International Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Anouschka van Immerseel
Affiliation:
Ghent Institute for International Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do some military deployment decisions lead to high levels of political contestation, whereas others do not? Or, put differently, when does parliamentary consensus on the use of force abroad exist? In this article, we aim to answer this question by focusing on the varying levels of consensus in national parliaments when taking military deployment decisions. We do so by examining conditions that were derived from research on the domestic-level determinants of the use of force, parliamentary voting, and opposition behaviour. These conditions were included in an integrated theoretical framework, which we tested with fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The results of our analysis show that the international legal status and the objectives of the military operation are of crucial importance for explaining the pattern of political contestation. However, domestic variables need to be taken into account as well to fully explain the level of political contestation of military deployment decisions.

Keywords

QCAforeign policy analysismilitary interventionparty politicspolitical contestation
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 371 - 390
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Auerswald, D.P. and Saideman, S.M. (2014), NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 268pp.Google Scholar
Baum, M.A. and Groeling, T. (2010), ‘Reality asserts itself: public opinion on Iraq and the elasticity of reality’, International Organization 64(3): 443–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, M. (2015), ‘Parsimony and causality’, Quality & Quantity 49(2): 839–856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beasley, R.K. and Kaarbo, J.. (2014), ‘Explaining extremity in the foreign policies of parliamentary democracies’, International Studies Quarterly 58(4): 729–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, A., Lepgold, J. and Unger, D. (1994), ‘Burden-sharing in the Persian Gulf war’, International Organization 48(1): 39–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biehl, H., Giegerich, B. and Jonas, A. (eds) (2013), Strategic Cultures in Europe Security and Defence Policies Across the Continent, Potsdam: Springer, 401pp.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, A. (2012), ‘Time to move on: reconceptualizing the strategic culture debate’, Contemporary Security Policy 33(3): 437–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böller, F. and Müller, M. (2018), ‘Unleashing the watchdogs: explaining congressional assertiveness in the politics of US military interventions’, European Political Science Review 10(4): 637–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brummer, K. (2012), ‘Germany’s participation in the Kosovo war: bringing agency back in’, Acta Politica 47(3): 272–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coticchia, F. and Davidson, J.W. (2016), ‘The limits of radical parties in coalition foreign policy: Italy, hijacking, and the extremity hypothesis’, Foreign Policy Analysis 14(2): 149–168.Google Scholar
Coticchia, F. and Vignoli, V. (2018), ‘Italian political parties and military operations: an empirical analysis on voting patterns’, Government and Opposition: 1–18. doi: 10.1017/gov.2018.35.Google Scholar
Dieterich, S., Hummel, H. and Marschall, S. (2015), ‘Bringing democracy back in: the democratic peace, parliamentary war powers and European participation in the 2003 Iraq War’, Cooperation and Conflict 50(1): 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, H. and Manow, P. (2019), ‘Parliaments and governments database (ParlGov): Information on parties, elections and cabinets in modern democracies. Development version’ ed. University of Bremen – Centre for Social Policy Research. Bremen.Google Scholar
Duşa, A. (2018), QCA with R: A Comprehensive Resource, Cham: Springer.Google Scholar
Eichenberg, R.C. (2005), ‘Victory has many friends: US public opinion and the use of military force, 1981–2005’, International Security 30(1): 140–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everts, P. and Isernia, P. (2015), Public Opinion, Transatlantic Relations and the Use of Force, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fawn, R. (2001), ‘Perceptions in Central and South-Eastern Europe’, in Buckley, M. and Cummings, S. (eds.), Kosovo: Perceptions of War and Its Aftermath, London: A&C Black.Google Scholar
Fonck, D., Haesebrouck, T. and Reykers, Yf. (2019), ‘Parliamentary involvement, party ideology and majority-opposition bargaining: Belgian participation in multinational military operations’, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1): 85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haesebrouck, T. (2015), ‘Democratic contributions to UN peacekeeping operations. A two-step fuzzy set QCA of unifil II’, Romanian Journal of Political Science 15(1): 4–51.Google Scholar
Haesebrouck, T. (2017), ‘NATO burden sharing in Libya: a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 61(10): 2235–2261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haesebrouck, T. (2018), ‘Democratic participation in the air strikes against Islamic State: a qualitative comparative analysis’, Foreign Policy Analysis 14(2): 254–275.Google Scholar
Haesebrouck, T. (2019), ‘Who follows whom? A coincidence analysis of military action, public opinion and threats’, Journal of Peace Research 56(6): 753–766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hix, Simon, Noury, A. and Roland, G. (2005), ‘Power to the parties: cohesion and competition in the European Parliament, 1979–2001’, British Journal of Political Science 35(2): 209–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houben, M. (2004), International Crisis Management: The Approach of European States, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ignazi, P., Giacomello, G. and Coticchia, F. (2012), Italian Military Operations Abroad: Just Don’t Call It War, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Jentleson, B.W. (1992), ‘The pretty prudent public: post post-Vietnam American opinion on the use of military force’, International Studies Quarterly 36(1): 49–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jentleson, B.W. and Britton, R.L. (1998), ‘Still pretty prudent: post-Cold War American public opinion on the use of military force’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 42(4): 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaarbo, J. and Cantir, C. (2013), ‘Role conflict in recent wars: Danish and Dutch debates over Iraq and Afghanistan’, Cooperation and Conflict 48(4): 465–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, M. and Taagepera, R. (1979), ‘“Effective” number of parties: a measure with application to West Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 12(1): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagassé, P. and Patrick, A.M. (2018), ‘The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1): 135–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijphart, A. (2012), Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Longhurst, K. (2004), Germany and the Use of Force: The Evolution of German Security Policy 1990-2003, Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Louwerse, T., Otjes, S., Willumsen, D.M. and Öhberg, P. (2017), ‘Reaching across the aisle: explaining government–opposition voting in parliament’, Party Politics 23(6): 746–759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mello, P.A. (2014), Democratic Participation in Armed Conflict Military Involvement in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 259pp.Google Scholar
Mello, P.A. (2017), ‘Curbing the royal prerogative to use military force: the British House of Commons and the conflicts in Libya and Syria’, West European Politics 40(1): 80–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mújica, A. and Sánchez-Cuenca, I. (2006), ‘Consensus and parliamentary opposition: the case of Spain’, Government and Opposition 41(1): 86–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oktay, S. and Beasley, R. (2017), ‘Quantitative approaches in coalition foreign policy: scope, content, process”, European Political Science 16: 475–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oktay, S. (2018), ‘Chamber of opportunities: legislative politics and coalition security policy’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1): 104–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostermann, F. (2017), ‘France’s reluctant parliamentarisation of military deployments: the 2008 constitutional reform in practice’, West European Politics 40(1): 101–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, G., London, T. and Regan, P. (2004), ‘What’s stopping you? The sources of political constraints on international conflict behavior in parliamentary democracies’, International Interactions 30(1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prins, B.C. and Sprecher, C. (1999), ‘Institutional constraints, political opposition, and interstate dispute escalation: evidence from parliamentary systems, 1946-89’, Journal of Peace Research 36(3): 271–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rathbun, B.C. (2004), Partisan Interventions: European Party Politics and Peace Enforcement in the Balkans, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Reiter, D. and Erik, R.T. (2002), ‘Public, legislative, and executive constraints on the democratic initiation of conflict’, The Journal of Politics 64(3): 810–826.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reykers, Yf. and Fonck, D. (2018), ‘Parliamentarisation as a two-way process: explaining prior parliamentary consultation for military interventions’, Parliamentary Affairs 71(3): 674–696.Google Scholar
Ruys, T., Ferro, L. and Haesebrouck, T. (2019), ‘Parliamentary war powers and the role of international law in foreign troop deployment decisions: the US-led coalition against “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria’, International Journal of Constitutional Law 17(1): 118–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schade, D. (2018), ‘Limiting or liberating? The influence of parliaments on military deployments in multinational settings’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1): 84–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, O. (2012), ‘Strategic users of culture: German decisions for military action’, Contemporary Security Policy 33(1): 59–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, C.Q. and Wagemann, C. (2012), Set-Theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences: A Guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 370pp.Google Scholar
Strong, J. (2015), ‘Interpreting the Syria vote: parliament and British foreign policy’, International Affairs 91(5): 1123–1139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strong, J. (2018), ‘The war powers of the British parliament: what has been established and what remains unclear?’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1): 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuttnauer, Or. (2018), ‘If you can beat them, confront them: party-level analysis of opposition behavior in European national parliaments’, European Union Politics 19(2): 278–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verbeek, B. and Zaslove, A. (2015), ‘The impact of populist radical right parties on foreign policy: the Northern League as a junior coalition partner in the Berlusconi Governments’, European Political Science Review 7(4): 525–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkens, A., Krause, W., Lehmann, P., Matthieß, T., Merz, N., Regel, S. and Weßels, B. (2018), ‘The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR). Version 2018b’, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).Google Scholar
Wagner, W.M., Ostermann, F., Onderco, M., Böller, F., Christiansen, F., Coticchia, F., Fonck, D., Herranz-Surralles, A., Kaarbo, J. and Kučmáš, K. (2019), ‘Voting on the use of armed force: challenges of data indexing, classification, and the value of a comparative agenda’, in Deschaux-Dutard, D. (ed.), Research Methods in Defence Studies: A Pluridisciplinary Overview, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wagner, W. (2018), ‘Is there a parliamentary peace? Parliamentary veto power and military interventions from Kosovo to Daesh’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. doi: 10.1177/1369148117745859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, W., Peters, D. and Glahn, C. (2010), ‘Parliamentary War Powers Around the World, 1989-2004. A New Dataset’, DFAC Occasional Papers(22).Google Scholar
Wagner, W., Herranz-Surrallés, A., Kaarbo, J. and Ostermann, F. (2017), ‘The party politics of legislative-executive relations in security and defence policy’, West European Politics 40(1): 20–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, W., Herranz-Surrallés, A., Kaarbo, J. and Ostermann, F. (2018), ‘Party politics at the water’s edge: contestation of military operations in Europe’, European Political Science Review 10(4): 537–563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Haesebrouck and van Immerseel supplementary material

Haesebrouck and van Immerseel supplementary material

Download Haesebrouck and van Immerseel supplementary material(File)
File 60.1 KB