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Constitutional Stretching: The Elasticity of the Westminster Model in an Era of Coalition Government Matthew Flinders Department of Politics, University of Sheffield United Kingdom and Felicity Matthews Department of Politics University of York United Kingdom For presentation at 'Does minority government make a difference in Westminster systems?' Workshop‐Conference, organised by the Centre de recherches sur les politiques et le développement social Université de Montréal November 2010 WORK IN PROGRESS PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION KEYWORDS Coalitions; majoritarianism; Westminster Model; United Kingdom; Democratic Drift; bureaucratic control; tools of governance; 1 England does not love coalitions. Benjamin Disraeli, House of Commons, 16 December 1852. The spectre that haunts the Westminster Model is an inconclusive election in which no one party wins an overall majority' Institute for Government May 2010 I think many people felt that a coalition government by definition would be some sort of insipid mush. Actually, what we are finding out after after 100 days we are being accused of doing exactly the reverse, which is doing things too quickly, too fast, too radical, too reforming. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, August 2010. This paper, and indeed this conference, focuses on mapping the topography of coalition or minority government and developing our knowledge of how relationships are affected along a number of dimensions. Those identified by the conference organisers include: (1) amongst and within political parties (i.e. inter and intra‐party dynamics); (2) within and between the machinery of government and governance (i.e. inter and intra‐state dynamics); and (3) between the state and civil society (i.e. mega‐constitutional and meta‐governance relationships). Although these dimensions may, at first glance, appear reasonably straightforward, our grasp of how and why minority and coalition governments make a difference in Westminster systems remains under‐developed. Indeed Müller, Bergman and Strøm's 2008 conclusion that 'what happens between coalition formation and termination is still poorly understood…the territory remains uncharted' remains true today (Müller et al, 2008, p. 35). As such, this paper represents a first step along the path of charting this territory and teasing apart the nature of coalition and minority government dynamics; the changing nature of resource‐dependencies; the manner in which the roles and working assumptions of politicians; bureaucrats and citizens evolve and the degree to which minority government does actually make a difference. In this context the United Kingdom (UK) provides a particularly valuable case study for at least five reasons: 1. The UK has a history of power‐hoarding single‐party government majoritarian politics; 2. Since 1998 devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has resulted in minority or coalition governments becoming the norm at the sub‐national level; 2 3. The state of the UK's public finances make far‐reaching reform of the state inevitable in the short and medium term; 4. Achieving 'more for less' and the search for a 'smarter state' is complicated by the existence of a labyrinthine bureaucratic state system consisting of huge numbers of appointed and quasi‐autonomous public bodies; 5. The 2010 General Election heralded a new phase of British constitutional history with a Conservative‐Liberal coalition government. These five issues combine to ensure that the UK provides a critical case in methodological terms. If minority of coalition government is going to 'make a difference' then the level of variance and divergence is likely to be fairly obvious in the UK due to the power‐hoarding logic and assumptions of majoritarianism (an aggressive, tribal almost muscular approach to governing that traditionally defines a willingness to negotiate or compromise as a sign of weakness). British political culture will arguably offer little in terms of the skills and understandings that are likely to be necessary to make governing as a coalition or minority government 'work' in terms of achieving stable governance and the implementation of public policies. The coalition agreement between the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats was agreed in the middle of May 2010, and although the legislative programme was set out in the Queen's Speech, within a fortnight the House of Commons immediately moved into the summer recess. Most new ministers and departmental teams have only really begun working together since mid‐October, and even then the main focus of their work has been negotiating their budget with the Treasury as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review process. It has only been in recent weeks, therefore, that the realities of coalition government have begun to come to the fore as ministers start to focus on reforming their respective bureaucratic networks. As such it is simply too early to assess what difference coalition politics has had on the culture and practices of Whitehall and Westminster with any precision or certainty. And yet the nature of executive politics has clearly changed and many long‐standing myths about the nature of coalition politics have been pierced. In term of highlighting some 'differences' that will be examined in this paper, five deserve brief comment: 1. Speed – the coalition agreement was agreed within five days and did not therefore concur with dominant understandings concerning weeks of uncertainty and confusion; 2. Endurance – The coalition government has already out‐lasted many predictions; 3 3. Cohesion – Not only are politicians from the two parties managing to co‐operate and abide by the convention of collective responsibility they actually seem to be enjoying the challenge; 4. Support – the civil service have been forced to clarify certain roles and relationships and generally adapt rapidly to a change in political circumstances; 5. Transformation – the coalition government is embarking upon major reform programmes in all policy sectors in order to achieve 'more bang for each buck' and reduce public spending. Whether the nature of coalition politics will continue in the current high‐trust low‐blame vein, or veer back towards a more majoritarian low‐trust high‐blame model of political behaviour under the pressure of the coalition government's attempt to eliminate the massive budget deficit within the course of the current parliament (i.e. 2015), remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that the (in)famous malleability and elasticity of Britain's constitution has allowed it to cope with what many commentators feared would be a constitutional crisis; and a massive amount of strategic game‐playing is certainly unfolding as both coalition parties seek to convince their supporters that the benefits of remaining in government outweigh the very obvious costs. In this context this paper is probably best viewed as both a scoping exercise, and also an attempt to conceptualise recent developments in the UK by placing them in their historical and socio‐political context. It may be too early to pinpoint exactly how the existence of a coalition government and cross‐party 'teams' of ministers in every department will affect the capacity of the executive to manage and 'steer' the state but it is possible to begin: (1) understanding how recent events dovetail with related changes in the nature and structure of British governance; and (2) assess the theories, methods and tools that the analysis of other jurisdictions may offer students of politics in order to understand change. In order to engage with these issues this paper adopts a multi‐levelled perspective and is divided into four main sections (see Table 1). 4 Table 1: A multi‐levelled analysis Perspective Content and rationale Section Mega‐ Mega‐constitutional politics focuses on the history, identity and 1 Constitutional fundamental principles of a body politic. This section reviews British Politics constitutional history and exposes a drift away from 'pure' majoritarianism. Therefore the context and nature of British politics may therefore have become slightly more amenable to coalition government in recent years. Micro‐ Micro‐constitutional politics in this interpretation focuses on recent 2 Constitutional developments at the sub‐national level in the UK. The institutional Politics architecture designed to deliver devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was explicitly intended not to replicate the adversarialism and tribalism of national politics. As a result minority and coalition politics is very much the rule, rather than the exception, at the sub‐national level. Meso‐ Meso‐constitutional politics focuses on the changing political opportunity 3 Constitutional structure at the national level and the very specific combination of factors Politics that led to a coalition government in the UK after the May 2010 general election. So What? Why does the research outlined in this paper matter? 4 How valid is the UK as a 'critical case'? How relevant are the insights from the UK for scholars of comparative political science? What tools of political analysis can scholars of comparative political science offer students of contemporary British politics? What would 'frontier research' look like vis‐à‐vis coalitions and minority government? This is clearly a wide‐ranging paper and, like painting on a large canvas, this has required the use of a fairly broad brush, in analytical and empirical terms. The nature of contemporary British politics is incredibly fluid and volatile at the moment and shedding light on the inner workings of government and governance is even more difficult than usual. However, it is hoped that by exploring recent developments within the UK, and focusing tightly on the manner in which coalition government challenges constitutional theory and alters the nature of executive government, that this paper will stimulate more scholarly interest in this topic, thereby filling‐in the detail and achieving a more fine‐grained understanding. With this in mind the next section explores the history and changing nature of British governance – the mega‐constitutional politics – in order to reveal how the emergence of coalition government actually complements the democratic drift of British politics. 5 I . MEGA‐CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS Almost half a century ago the Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori (1970) distinguished between conceptual stretching (the distortion that occurs when a concept does not fit the new cases) and conceptual travelling (the application of concepts to new cases). The distinction between stretching and travelling has subsequently been applied to develop the analytical traction and leverage of many concepts and approaches within and beyond political science (see Goertz 2006; Collier and Mahon, 1993). This paper seeks to borrow and develop the language, discourse and logic of Sartori's distinction in order to tease apart the implications of minority and coalition governments in Westminster systems. At the heart of Sartori's work lays a simple plea for conceptual precision and clarity. His solution to the dangers of the 'ladder of abstraction' (i.e. 'we say less and less about more and more') was to develop a system of 'taxonomical infolding' through which the boundaries and variants of certain concepts could be clarified and set out. This would not solve the problem that concepts tended to be 'essentially contested', as Gallie (1956) famously noted, but it would at least provide a way of framing debates and tracing the evolution of concepts over time and their application to new cases, terrains and disciplines. It is neither possible or necessary to explore the subsequent impact of Sartori's work on political science in any detail, apart from saying that it proved incredibly influential in sharpening the approaches and frameworks that scholars deployed in order to assess comparative democratic systems (see Collier and Levitsky, 1997). It is also difficult to avoid using the work of Arend Lijphart (1984, 1999, 2007) within the field of comparative studies, simply because he has become associated, almost synonymous, with 'state of the art' comparative political analysis. Mainwairing (2001, p. 171) suggests that Lijphart's scholarship constitutes 'the single most influential typology of modern democracies'; while Bulsara and Kissane (2009, p. 172) suggest that 'it is difficult to discuss contemporary European democracies without reference to Lijphart'. Lijphart's main argument is that democratic systems can be placed on an axis which has majoritarianism at one extreme and consensualism at the other. In the majoritarian model or Westminster model (Lijphart uses the terms interchangeably) political power is concentrated. It is a power‐hoarding model. This form of democracy is, at its foundation, therefore highly elitist, based to some extent on mass‐exclusion, 6 and has little emphasis on public participation (the dominant institutional characteristics are set out in Table 2). The consensus model of democracy, by contrast, is based upon a rather different value‐slope that emphasises inclusion, participation, multi‐party systems, proportional electoral systems, decentralized government, power sharing in coalition cabinets, and a broadly balanced relationship between the executive and legislature. 7 Table 2: Lijphart's framework for assessing democratic forms Variable Majoritarian Consensus Dimension V1. Party system Two party system. Multi‐party system. V2. Cabinets Single party majority Power‐sharing multi‐party cabinets. coalitions. V3. Executive‐ Dominant executive. Executive‐legislature balance Legislative of power. Executive‐Parties relationship V4.Electoral system Disproportional first‐past‐the Proportional representation. post system. V5. Interest groups Informal pluralist interest Co‐ordinated and group interaction. 'corporatist' interest group interaction. V6. Federal‐unitary Unitary and centralized Federal and decentralised dimension government. government. V7. Unicameralism – Concentration of power in a Division of power between bicameralism unicameral legislature. two equally strong but dimension differently constituted houses. V8. Constitutional Flexible constitution that can Rigid constitutions that can amendment be amended by simple be changed only by majorities. extraordinary majorities. Federal‐Unitary V9. Legislative Legislature has the final word Legislation subject to a supremacy on the constitutionality of judicial review of their legislation. constitutionality by a supreme or constitutional court. V10. Central bank Dependent on the executive. Independent central bank. The Westminster Model is therefore designed to deliver centralised power, a strong executive and clarity in relation to the direction of public policy and the responsibility of specific politicians. It was exactly this centralised power, governing capacity and clarity of who is to blame that was championed in Bagehot's The English Constitution (1867); and at the beginning of the twenty‐first century Webb (2000, p. 261) still felt confident enough to write that 'there is little difficulty in concluding that public policy can still generally be clearly identified as the policy of a given party in Britain'. The resilience of the model was reinforced by the stability of the two‐party system of single‐ party government throughout the post‐war period, wherein power oscillated between the Conservative and Labour parties, who commanded an average of 91 percent of the popular vote 8 between 1945‐1970. Whilst the two‐party system has been perceived as in decline since 1970 (see Norris, 1995, 2001; Curtice, 2010), as the two main parties' share of the popular vote has diminished substantially, forms of government such as minority and coalition have remained deviant from the established governing norms of an adversarial, power‐hoarding polity based upon single party majority government. Hung parliaments were rare and, prior to 2010, the last general election to produce a hung parliament was in February 1974, which was the first result without a clear‐cut winner since 1929. The last formal coalition was the wartime National Government, led by Churchill between 1940‐5; and the last minority administrations were the short‐lived Wilson Government of February‐October 1974; and the Labour‐Liberal Pact of 1977‐ 8. As this brief overview indicates, notwithstanding the exceptional National Government, non‐ majority government in the UK has tended to be short‐lived and fractious. And yet the constitutional reforms that were implemented by 'New' Labour between 1997‐2010 have re‐drawn the architecture of the British constitution. There has not been a revolution; and irrespective of Bogdanor's (2009) arguments, there is no 'new' constitution but there is one that is far less majoritarian in a number of ways and therefore possibly more amenable to minority or coalition politics than might have been thought. The introduction of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, reforms to the House of Lords, incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the creation of a Supreme Court and reforms to the Bank of England all pushed the UK away from majoritarianism (in relation to V6, V7, V9 and V10 – Table 2 above, respectively). In the absence of any clear constitutional statement the UK has undergone a process of democratic drift in the last decade that has led to the emergence of a system of modified majoritarianism (for a detailed review of this process see Flinders, 2009). What is particularly noteworthy about New Labour's approach to statecraft, however, is that it adopted a bi‐constitutional strategy whereby reforms were enacted in relation to peripheral elements of the constitution but not to the core of the constitution (i.e. along the executive‐ parties dimension). What is particularly important for the focus of this paper is that devolution ushered in a tier of governance that was forged upon minority or coalition government (i.e. V2. Cabinets, Table 2) within a Westminster model which, in turn, means that the emergence of a coalition government at the national level in 2010 was not quite as novel for the established political parties as some people may have thought. The existence of minority and coalition governments at the sub‐national level also provides a useful counter‐point in terms of assessing 9 whether (and how) minority government does actually make a difference – a point that leads us to examine micro‐level politics within the UK. II. MICRO‐LEVEL POLITICS The previous section argued that a process of democratic drift has occurred in the UK since the late 1990s, through which the traditional 'pure' majoritarianism revealed by Lijphart has, to some extent, been diluted and moderated by the adoption of a number of constitutional reforms that were intended to establish new checks and balances and constrain the power of the executive. One element of this process was the introduction of an asymmetrical system of devolution that was explicitly designed and intended to deliver a 'new politics'; new in the sense that it would not replicate the power‐hoarding and aggressive nature of the Westminster Model. The introduction of mixed electoral systems, specifically a hybrid system of simple majority constituency seats, 'topped‐up' by a smaller number of proportionally‐allocated seats, was intended to prevent any single party gaining majority control of the assemblies. It was therefore intended that the devolved assemblies would have the potential to develop their 'own policy style based on the type of consensus politics associated with proportional systems' (Cairney, 2008, p. 352). Scotland As Table 3 (below) illustrates, the first two elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003 resulted in a formal coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, which was relatively stable and lasted until the 2007 election, when the Scottish National Party (SNP) were returned with the largest number of seats (but without a majority). Table 3: Distribution of seats in the Scottish Parliament 1999 2003 2007 Labour 56 50 46 SNP 35 27 47 10 Con 18 18 17 Lib. Dem. 17 17 16 Green Party 1 7 2 Socialist Party 1 6 0 Independent MPs 1 3 1 Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party 0 1 0 TOTAL LEGISLATIVE SEATS 129 129 129 Total Executive Seats 11 11 11 Subsequent Executive Formation Minimal‐ winning. Minimal‐ winning. Single‐Minority (Lab.9/LD2) (Lab.8/LD3) SNP Wales The 1999 election to National Assembly for Wales (NAW) initially witnessed a short‐lived attempt by the Labour party to govern as a minority, but this eventually gave way a formal coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in October 2000, which lasted until 2003 when Labour were returned with a exactly half of the seats in the NAW. Following the 2007 election to the NAW, Labour were four seats short of an effective governing majority, and after one month of minority government, the leaders of Labour and Plaid Cymru agreed to a formal coalition, known as 'One Wales' (see Table 4). Table 4: Distribution of seats in the National Assembly for Wales 1999 2003 2007 Labour 28 30 26 PC 17 12 15 Con. 9 11 12 Lib Dem. 6 6 6 Other ‐ 1 1 TOTAL LEGISLATIVE SEATS 60 60 60 Total Executive Seats 9 9 9 Subsequent Executive Formation 1999‐2000 minority 2003‐2005 Labour 2007‐ Lab/PC Labour executive executive. coalition (Lab. 6/PC 2000‐3 Lab./LD 2005‐2007 Labour 3). coalition (Labour minority executive 7/LD 2). 11 What is critical about the experience of coalition and minority governments at the devolved level in the UK is the manner in which the cultures, assumptions and values of majoritarianism appear to have been maintained by key actors. The only experience of relatively stable minority rule at the sub‐national level has been the Scottish National Party's (SNP) period in office since 2007, wherein inter‐party divisions mean that a 'reluctant' SNP was 'effectively obliged to go it alone', an option that 'was only spoken loudly after the options for coalition had been exhausted and rejected' (Cairney, 2010, p. 3, emphasis in original). However, whilst formal coalition appears to have been accepted as the preferred governing outcome, there is little evidence to suggest that this heralds the dawn of a more consensual governing culture. For example, Arter suggested that the Labour‐Liberal Coalition in the Scottish Parliament was at best 'superficial evidence of "new politics"', which has undermined the more meaningful political style envisaged by devolution's architects (Arter, 2004, p. 83); and Mitchell has highlighted the way in which the Scottish Parliament has been dominated by party interests rather than 'independent‐minded' Members of the Scottish Parliament (Mitchell, 2008, p. 77). Together, such evidence has been seen to suggest that 'no profound cultural change took place'; and instead a 'curious mix of "consensus democracy" institutions operated by politicians in the Westminster tradition' emerged, wherein the parties of the Scottish Parliament 'reproduced a form of government‐versus‐opposition politics that Westminster parties would be proud of' (Cairney, 2010, p. 5). Furthermore, there is also evidence that the preference for coalition has been driven by the desire to avoid the pitfalls associated with minority rule and to reinforce the capacity to of the executive to govern vis‐à‐vis the legislature. In relation to Wales, for example, Mitchell has suggested that the mistrust of minority rule is 'historically bounded' by the traumatic experience of Labour's 1977‐8 pact (Mitchell, 2008, p. 74); and Cairney has highlighted the 'inevitable partisanship' which was reflected in the 'willingness of opposition parties' to sabotage Labour's tenure as a minority executive in the NAW in 2007 (Cairney, 2009a). Indeed, Cairney has suggested that this 'picture of instability' prompted Labour to rescind single party minority and instead choose to form a historic coalition majority with Plaid Cymru (Cairney, 2010, p. 4). Taken together, therefore, the 'common factor' that underpins the preference for coalition in Scotland and Wales is the way in which 'the main parties associate 12 minority government with turmoil and have striven to avoid the possibility ever since' (Cairney, 2010, p. 4). The experience of devolution therefore reveals a certain path dependency whereby parties and individuals have tended to approach the new constitutional structures with the instincts and views that were honed within national (or local) majoritarian politics. And yet those very same actors have been forced to adapt and change. A potential tension was therefore clear between the values and processes which politicians and officials were being required to develop and value at the sub‐national level compared to those at the national level. It was in this context that Judge (2006, p. 391) suggested that an unintended consequence of devolution might be the development of 'normative subsystems' and 'deviant cultures' that would increasingly challenge the maintenance of such extreme majoritarianism at the national level. How, exactly, a coalition government emerged at the national level; why the Conservatives appeared reluctant to form a minority government; and, how the nature of executive and administrative politics is changing forms the focus of the next section. III. MESO‐CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS Lijphart's (1999, p. 10) argument that the Cabinet is the 'most powerful organ of British government' may well remain correct but the emergence of an unexpected coalition government after the 2010 general election has undoubtedly changed the composition and procedures of Cabinet government. British politics, as the first section discussed, was already changing towards a form of modified majoritarianism. One aspect of this pattern of change was, as the previous section outlined, the shift towards minority or coalition governments at the sub‐ national level. In order to examine what difference coalition government has meant for British politics this section sketches out the contours of recent developments by returning to the five inter‐related themes that were sketched out in the introductory section (i.e. Speed, Endurance, Cohesion, Support, Transformation) 13 1. Speed The post‐2010 general election arithmetic could not be more finely balanced as the Conservative Party secured 307 seats, Labour 258 and the Liberal Democrats just 57. The last general election to have produced a hung parliament was the surprise result of February 1974 and the UK now provides an exceptional case: the UK is the only parliamentary democracy in North America, Europe and Australasia to have produced a coalition at its most recent election despite having a simply majority electoral system (see Table 6). What was particularly marked about the post‐election coalition negotiations was the speed at which an agreement was brokered. The research of De Winter and Dumont (2008, p. 130) identifies an average negotiation period of twenty‐three days in Western Europe but after the UK general election a broad agreement was reached within five days, and a Programme for Government as published within fourteen days of the general election, which set out nearly 400 coalition policy commitments to be achieved over the five year Parliament. (Indeed, one of the first actions of the coalition was to publicly fix the date of the next general election for 7 May 2015, and to introduce the Fixed Terms Parliament Bill 2010, which would remove the constitutional right of the Prime Minister to request a dissolution of Parliament.) Published at the same time as the Programme of Government was the Constitutional Agreement for Stability and Reform (Cabinet Office, 2010a), which set out the institutional rules and practices that would underpin the operation of the coalition across a range of key areas including: the composition of government; the operation of collective responsibility; the functioning of government; and support for the government in Parliament. Table 5: Summary of coalition governments in parliamentary democracies Country Coalition Formation Electoral System Albania Pre‐election Proportional Andorra Pre‐election Proportional Austria Post‐election Proportional Belgium Post‐election Proportional Croatia Post‐election Proportional Czech Republic Post‐election Proportional Denmark Post‐election Proportional Finland Post‐election Proportional Estonia Post‐election Proportional Germany Post‐election Proportional Iceland Post‐election Proportional 14 Ireland Post‐election Proportional Italy Pre‐election Proportional Netherlands Post‐election Proportional Norway Pre‐election Proportional Poland Post‐election Proportional Romania Post‐election Proportional Slovakia Post‐election Proportional Slovenia Post‐election Proportional Sweden Pre‐election Proportional Switzerland Post‐election Proportional Ukraine Post‐election Proportional United Kingdom Post‐election FPTP Australia Post‐election Proportional New Zealand Post‐election Proportional The apparent rapidity of coalition negotiations was, however, undoubtedly aided by two critical factors: (1) the apparent disinterest of the Labour Party in even discussing coalition opportunities with the Liberal Democrats; and (2) the Conservative Party's desire not to form a minority government. As opinion polls in the run up to the election suggested the vote would be close the topic of coalition formation focused exclusively on the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. The relative success of Lib‐Lab coalitions at the devolved level and the obvious policy synergies meant that it came as some surprise when the Labour Party simply failed to aggressively market themselves to the Liberal Democrats as a potential coalition partner. And yet many Labour politicians would privately admit that 2010 was an election that any sensible political party would prefer to lose than to win. The situation in relation to public sector financed in the UK is dire. National debt currently stands at over £600 billion (excluding the nationalised financial sector institutions) and by 2013‐2014 government spending on just welfare payments and servicing the national debt is likely to be in excess of £250 billion. The Treasury's own figures forecast national debt reaching 77.7% of GDP in 2014‐15, or 79.0% including the expected losses from the financial sector interventions, therefore leaving discretionary funding for public services dwindling. Placing these statistics within International Monetary Fund forecasts for the world's twenty‐one leading industrial nations, only Iceland and Ireland are likely to encounter a bigger increase in national debt as a proportion of GDP. In this economic context losing arguably became an oddly attractive option for a party that had been in office for thirteen years. 15 The economic situation also helps explain the Conservative Party's apparent change of heart regarding the costs and benefits of coalition government. During the election campaign the Conservatives has sought to attack the prospect of a Lib‐Lab coalition by focusing their official party political broadcasts on an imaginary 'Hung Parliament Party' that would deliver 'paralysis, indecision and weak government'. The party had established no formal coalition negotiation team prior to election day, and it was widely believed that it would prefer to form a minority government rather than a coalition (see Institute for Government, 2010b). David Cameron's decision to almost immediately dismiss the option of a minority government and offer the Liberal Democrats a role in government in order to try and ensure a strong and stable government that was supported by 59% share of the popular vote was startling. And yet coalition politics offered the David Cameron a number of advantages: (1) it provided an attempt to distinguish his leadership of the Conservative Party in a distinct manner that chimed with a pre‐election focus on 'kinder conservatism'; (2) strategically a centre‐based party like the Liberal Democrats was likely to absorb a great deal of the public anger at the extent and pace of public service cutbacks; (3) a coalition injected a degree of opacity at the centre of government about who was accountable for unpopular decisions and facilitated 'blame games'; (4) and, from an intra‐party perspective having a centre‐left coalition party provided Cameron with a valuable counter‐weight to the more radical demands of the right‐wing of his party. The core question was really could a coalition government endure the travails of governing? 2. Endurance and (3) Cohesion As many politicians will attest, winning office is generally far easier than governing in office. The British public were certainly sceptical. In a poll taken days after the coalition was announced almost a third of those surveyed thought it would not last twelve months and eighty per cent believed it would not last the full term. And yet those sceptics who at first looked for cracks and fissures in the coalition have been forced to adopt a more measured tone as the Cameron‐Clegg affairs appears to bloom and flourish (see Hasan 2010). At the base of this relationship lies a coalition agreement in which the Conservative Party is clearly the dominant party. Research suggests that only 19.7% of the policy statements in the Programme appeared in both parties' 16 manifestos; whereas 22.7% of the pledges appeared solely in the Liberal Democrat manifesto and 43.3% in the Conservative manifesto (see Table 7, below). The fact that the majority of policy statements – a total of 63.0% ‐ can be directly attributed to the Conservative's manifesto suggests that the Conservative Party is perceived as the dominant party within the coalition architecture; and reflects Cameron's assertion that 'it is reasonable to expect that the bulk of the policies in our manifesto should be implemented.'1 Table 6: Origin of Programme for Government policy commitments: Area of policy Solely Solely Liberal Both Uncertain (in Conservative Democrat neither manifesto) Banking 4 3 3 1 Business 6 9 1 4 Civil Liberties 1 8 5 ‐ Communities and Local 14 6 6 2 Government Consumer Protection 2 4 2 ‐ Crime and Policing 10 5 4 ‐ Culture, Media and Sport 4 5 3 ‐ Deficit Reduction 2 1 5 1 Energy and Climate Change 11 5 7 1 Environment, Food and Rural 8 2 6 2 Affairs Equalities ‐ 1 2 4 Europe 5 1 ‐ 3 Families and Children 6 3 4 ‐ Foreign Affairs 7 ‐ 3 ‐ Government Transparency 8 1 3 1 Immigration 3 3 1 ‐ International Development 9 3 3 3 Jobs and Welfare 7 ‐ 1 3 Justice 3 1 3 2 National Security 1 1 1 2 NHS 13 7 1 9 Pensions and Older People 1 3 2 1 Political Reform 15 3 3 6 Public Health 3 ‐ ‐ 1 Schools 7 4 4 1 Social Action 5 ‐ ‐ 1 Social Care and Disability 3 1 ‐ 1 Taxation 2 6 ‐ 1 Transport 6 1 2 2 Universities and Further Education 1 1 1 4 1 www.guardian.co.uk/global/2010/may/09/general‐election‐2010‐hung‐parliament, last accessed on 3 November 2010. 17 Total 168 88 76 56 Derivation (%) 43.3% 22.7% 19.7% 14.3% Whilst the potential for policy splits has been overtly acknowledged, there are several mechanisms at the disposal of coalition actors to reinforce cohesiveness, which may in turn promote the coalition's governing effectiveness. The distribution of ministerial positions and seats in the Cabinet is a key aspect of both coalition formation and governance. A raft of scholarship has been devoted to understanding the way in which 'the pie is shared', with much of the literature being dominated by an empirically‐derived assumption of proportional regularity (e.g. Gamson, 1971; Browne and Franklin, 1973; Budge and Keman, 1990). The British example deviates slightly from this assumption, and, as Table 8 demonstrates, the Liberal Democrats have been over‐represented within government, being awarded a total of twenty‐ four ministerial positions and five seats in Cabinet. However, an alternative perspective suggests that there is a slight bias in favour of smaller parties, with the Prime Minister's party being under‐compensated (e.g. Bueno de Mesquita, 1979; Warwick and Druckman, 2005); and as discussed below, it may be that different positions attract varying degrees of salience. In terms of coalition governance, a range of scholars have argued that, issues of proportionality notwithstanding, a broad distribution of portfolios and positions across coalition partners is key to ensuring internal cohesion and stability. In accordance with the concept of veto‐players, as developed by Tsebelis (1995, 2002), each coalition party can be seen as a veto player that can maintain the status quo against the demands of coalition partners; and that the power of veto players is exercised through both coalition agreements and the structures of the cabinet. It has been suggested, for example, that coalition may result in more stability in terms of internal governance arrangements, as the introduction of an extra veto‐player will reduce the frequency with which Prime Ministers have previously 'reconfigure[d] the departmental structure of Whitehall and reshuffle his or her pack of ministers almost at will' (Institute for Government, 2010b, p. 21). Indeed, the veto capacity of the Liberal Democrats in terms of portfolio allocation has been made explicit in the coalition's Agreement for Stability and Reform, which states that 'changes to the allocation of portfolios between the Parliamentary Parties… will be agreed between the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister'. 18 Flowing out of this, it has been suggested that the dispersal across parties of positions within individual departments may bestow 'watchdog' powers upon junior ministers, with the capacity to keep their coalition partners in check. The existence of this type of junior minister has been found to be more likely 'when the coalition parties do not trust each other very much', although there are a range of alternative explanations such as 'potential threats of electoral volatility and a credible opposition' (Verzichelli, 2008, p. 261). As Table 8 shows, there are only five spending departments within Whitehall without 'watchdog' ministers; and it will be interesting to determine whether, over time, these ministers exercise their veto capacity over their superiors. Table 8: The distribution of ministerial positions across the coalition, as of October 2010 Department Conservative Ministers Liberal Democrat Ministers David Cameron* Attorney General's Office Dominic Grieve Edward Garnier Cabinet Office Francis Maude Nick Clegg* Oliver Letwin Nick Hurd Mark Harper Baroness Warsi* Department for Business, Innovation and Skills David Willetts Vince Cable* John Hayes Edward Davey Mark Prisk Baroness Wilcox Ed Vaizey Department for Communities and Local Eric Pickles* Andrew Stunell Government Greg Clarke Grant Schappes Bob Neill Baroness Hanham Department for Culture, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt* John Penrose Hugh Robertson Ed Vaizey Department for Education Michael Gove* Sarah Teather Nick Gibb Tim Laughton Lord Hill of Oareford John Hayes Department of Energy and Climate Change Charles Hendry Chris Huhne* Gregory Baker Lord Marland Department for Environment, Food and Rural Caroline Spelman* 19 Affairs Jim Paice Richard Benyon Lord Henley Department of Health Andrew Lansley* Paul Burstow Simon Burns Anne Milton Lord Howe Department for International Development Andrew Mitchell* Alan Duncan Stephen O'Brien Department for Transport Phillip Hammond* Norman Baker Theresa Villiers Mike Penning Department for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith* Steve Webb Chris Grayling Maria Miller Lord Freud Foreign and Commonwealth Office William Hague* Jeremy Browne David Lidington Alistair Burt Henry Bellingham Lord Howell of Guilford HM Treasury George Osborne* Danny Alexander* Mark Hoban David Gauke Justine Greening Lord Sassoon Home Office Theresa May* Lynne Fetherstone Nick Herbert Pauline Neville‐Jones James Brokenshire Damian Green Ministry of Defence Liam Fox* Nick Harvey Gerald Howarth Andrew Robathan Peter Luff Lord Astor of Hever Ministry of Justice Ken Clarke* Lord McNally Crispin Blunt Jonathan Djanogly Nick Herbert Northern Ireland Office Owen Paterson* Hugo Swire Office of the Advocate General for Scotland Lord Wallace of Tankerness Office of the Leader of the House of Commons George Young David Heath Office of the Leader of the House of Lords Lord Strathclyde* Scotland Office David Mundell Michael Moore* Lord Wallace of Tankerness Wales Office Cheryl Gillan* 20 David Jones Whips – House of Commons Patrick McLoughlin John Randall Alistair Carmichael Mark Francois Junior Lords to the Treasury Michael Fabricant Angela Watkinson Jeremy Wright Brooks Newmark James Duddridge Assistant Whips Philip Dunne Norman Lamb Stephen Crabb Mark Hunter Robert Goodwill Shailesh Vara Bill Wiggin Chloe Smith Whips – House of Lords Baroness Anelay of St Lord Shutt of Greetland Johns Baronesses and Lords in Waiting Baroness Rawlings Baroness Northover Baroness Verma Lord Wallace of Saltaire Earl Attlee Lord Astor of Hever Lord De Mauley Lord Taylor of Holbeach Total number of ministers 99 24 Percentage share of ministerial positions 80.5% 19.5% Total number of Cabinet Ministers 18 5 Total number of Cabinet Ministers as 78.3% 21.7% percentage of all ministers Distribution of MPs within the coalition 84.3% 15.7% *Cabinet Minister The creation of new veto points and players stands in direct contrast to the Westminster system of government, which is predicated upon the assumption of effective single party rule that is encumbered by few veto points; and serves to break the innate linkage between stability and strength that is at the heart of the system. Yet, there is an alternative reading that suggests the distribution of portfolios actually preserves, rather than diminished, government capacity; and, as one MP bluntly suggested, that 'they've made sure that a significant number of Lib Dems are in government, and that is to prevent a rebellion' (Interview, October, 2010). Indeed, when considered in conjunction with the emergence of the policy tensions identified above, and the 21 unusual arrangements to allow Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain or vote against contentious issues, such over‐representation does appear to be an entirely rational response by Conservative politicians, in terms of reinforcing collective responsibility and, in turn, the coalition's legislative capacity. At the same time, however, the inclusion of so many Liberal Democrats has clear implications for the David Cameron's capacity to control his parliamentary party. As one MP made clear, ...there is seething resentment on the Tory benches over that. I know a few people who would have been given portfolios and, to be honest, worked quite hard for them and didn't get them…because of the Lib Dems. It's only because they need to keep the Lib Dems on board…' (interview, October 2010). Without further research, such assertions are at best speculative, and it will be important to gauge the opinions of both ministers and backbenchers in order to assess the relevance, as a 'deviance from full proportionality can mean very different things' (Verzichelli, 2008, p. 242). Warwick and Druckman's comparative analysis of portfolio salience, for example, suggests that different values, are attached to different portfolios and positions by political actors; and that a 'top' portfolio is on average almost 2.5 times the weight of a 'bottom' one (2001, p. 644). Nonetheless, the apparent discontent within Westminster does highlight a further potential pressure point that may undermine the coalition's effectiveness, particularly when considered in conjunction with emergent policy tensions. In order to fully evaluate the extent to which the coalition government's agreement and programme represents a workable (and, perhaps, proportionate) compromise, further research is required, as a simple reading of the programme reveals or the deployment of patronage tells us little about the trade‐offs that were made and the degree of importance attached to certain policies by key actors. Nonetheless, as Müller and Strøm (2008, p. 159) remind us, 'coalition agreements are the script, not the play…if our interest is in actual coalition governance, then we cannot read the script as the performance'. And yet it is exactly this willingness of the coalition partners to stick to the script, to settle their differences in private, and present a unified public face that has surprised those who thought that British politicians lacked the guile and maturity 22 to adapt to coalition politics. The need for guile and maturity has not just been required of politicians but also of their officials – this is the topic of the next sub‐section. 4. Support The British constitution, as the work of Peter Hennessy has shown, takes great pride in its capacity for 'muddling through' (Hennessy, 1997). The formation of a coalition government, however, has placed great strain on certain constitutional actors and guardians and nowhere has this been more obvious than in relation to the civil service. It was with something of a traditional bureaucratic air that the official guidance material stated that there was 'no constitutional difference between a Coalition Government and a single party Government….[although] it 'working practices need to adapt to reflect the fact that the UK has not had a Coalition in modern times' (Cabinet Office, 2010a, p. 2). Continuity and change were therefore the order of the day. And yet it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that despite opinion poll evidence that consistently suggested the results of the 2010 election may result in a hung parliament the civil service were not well‐prepared. During the election campaign it became apparent that the constitutional conventions in the event of a hung parliament were unclear and in February 2010 the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, responded to public pressure for clarity by publishing the chapter of the official Cabinet Office Manual on elections and government formation (see Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, 2010). A number of preparatory seminars were held in by Cabinet Office to which a number of constitutional scholars were invited, but it was apparent to most observers that a vacuum had opened up at the centre of the constitution and some quite basic considerations had not been thought through. What is particularly noteworthy about the institutional architecture supporting the coalition in the UK is its almost complete lack of conflict resolution mechanisms. The main formal arena for resolving tensions is the Coalition Committee (a formal Committee of the Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister) but this remains a rather crude and clumsy mechanism that has not (as yet) been tested. This lack of conflict helps explain the seemingly limited focus upon formalised conflict resolution mechanisms or any apparent understanding that to establish mechanisms of this 23 nature is an act of mature governance rather than weakness and failure. Members of the coalition remain almost blasé about the challenges that lie ahead and dismissive of questions that suggest inter‐party relations may become less smooth in the future. And yet in recent weeks the first signs of tensions between the civil service and minsters have emerged. Initially key civil service have appeared to relish the intellectual and practical challenges of coalition government and in a more practical way felt that their role and influence might be strengthened by the existence of cross‐party Cabinet committees. Sir Gus O'Donnell likes to highlight that his office is exactly 50 paces from both the Prime Minister's and Deputy Prime Minister's offices, describing himself as an 'equidistant Cabinet Secretary'. Every policy, has says, has to be 'coalitionised' by the civil service. And yet Sylvester (2010) suggests that a sense of mutual distrust may be emerging between officials and their ministers: officials dislike the manner political appointees have been brought in to specific civil service positions on temporary contracts; ministers are increasingly irritated by what they feel is 'foot dragging' and 'institutional opposition' to reform in Whitehall. The current financial climate, and the insecurities this has produced for all public servants, may help explain the existence of tensions. Senior civil service salaries have been frozen for three years and officials are required to contribute more to their pensions. There is also a pervasive mood of uncertainty because between a quarter and fifth of all civil servants will lose their jobs. The sense of insecurity is made worse by an unusual amount of turnover at the very top of the senior civil service and ministers have made no secret of their intention to recruit from the outside. Sylvester concludes that 'ministers are understandably impatient to reach their destination and are starting to seize the steering wheel from officials. But they must be careful not to crash the car on the way'. Overall, the civil service is being forced to adapt and respond as the challenges of coalition government demands and most admit that they are 'learning on their feet'. This may be uncomfortable for civil servants for whom serving the government of the day has for them meant dealing with the politicians of only one party. Ministers, too, will need to accept that 'their' officials will be in regular contact with coalition partners. For those imbued with the principles and practices of more consensual democracies such cross‐party co‐operation might be standard, but in the British context such practices have long been associated with being disloyal and will therefore take some time to come naturally. And yet to shift the spotlight to the 24 politico‐bureaucratic interface does highlight the key area where tensions are likely to occur and where the research emerging out of this paper will focus – the transformation of the state. 5. Transformation The Public Accounts Committee's November 2010 report into efficiency savings in central government did not augur well for the coalition government. The previous Labour government, the report highlighted, had failed to deliver the modest three per cent efficiency targets that it had set in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review had not been realised (PAC 2010). In this context the coalition government's plan to eliminate the structural deficit by 2015 through a combination of efficiency savings, benefit cutbacks and increased taxes appears incredibly ambitious and will inevitably involve unpopular policy decisions that will strain the coalition. In many areas taking hard decisions has been avoided through the creation of no less than twenty‐ nine policy reviews and five commissions. Such marginalisation tactics, however, only partially veil the emergence of deep tensions over the nature and extent of how the relationship between individuals and the state should be recalibrated in an era of austerity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review imposed budget reductions of around twenty‐per cent on all departments, apart from the Department for Health and the Department for International Development. How such dramatic real terms financial savings can be delivered without dramatically affecting front line services is therefore the challenge that lies at the centre of the search for a 'smarter state'. As governments around the world have discovered, 'delivering more for less' is far from easy. In the UK the earliest and most wide‐ranging reform initiative has focused on the abolition of quangos. In the run up to the general election a number of reports had been published that were critical of the dense and congested tier of quasi‐autonomous public bodies that existed beyond ministerial departments (Institute for Government, 2010ba). A considered reform programme could, these reports suggested, deliver significant efficiency savings and increase public accountability by simplifying the delivery chains through which public policies were implemented (for a detailed review see Flinders 2008). These reports proved influential and were included within the election manifestos of all three main political parties, and the coalition 25 government's subsequent Programme for Government identified reducing the number of 'quangos' as one of its core objectives. Departments were instructed to complete landscape reviews and come forward with proposals to reduce the number of quangos they sponsored and in October 2010 the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, announced that the government intended to abolish 192 of the 900 public bodies it had reviewed. A further 118 were to be merged, 171 would be reformed in some manner and 40 remain under review. The sensationalist rhetoric that surrounded the 'bonfire of quangos', however, hid the fact that in reality the coalition had overseen a classic case of 'cosmetic pruning' in which the vast majority of those bodies identified for abolition were small advisory bodies that employed no staff and spent no money (and the official statement admitted that these would immediately be 'reconstituted in a different form'). Most of the large high‐spending bodies would remain relatively unscathed and the Minister could not provide any details on the efficiency savings that were likely to be delivered by his reform programme. In terms of reshaping the state, however, what was possibly more concerning about the coalition government's reform agenda was the manner in which it failed to engage with the deeper, more fundamental, concerns regarding the lack of any clear governance framework for the creation or governance of public bodies that had been highlighted in pre‐election reports like the Institute for Government's Read Before Burning. The government could not explain why some bodies had been selected for abolition while other very similar bodies had been left unscathed. It could not explain how its three tests on whether a quango should continue to exist ‐ Is the function technical?; Does it need to be politically impartial? Do facts need to be determined transparently? – had actually been applied by departments, why public bodies had not been invited to contribute to this process, why executive agencies had not been considered in the review, why some bodies with an evidence‐based record of success, like the Youth Justice Board, had been targeted for abolition or how the Human Fertilisation and Embryology had someone been judged to fail the government's tests, or how the 'quango cull' could be reconciled with the coalition government's plans to establish a number of new quangos (Office for Budget Responsibility, Health Planning Board, etc.). 26 The coalition government's first systemic attempt to reform the state has therefore seemed to continue the UK's predilection of ad hoc empiricism and 'muddling through'. The Public Bodies (Reform) Bill 2010 is currently the topic of great criticism in Parliament (see Constitution Committee 2010) and the general approach is likely to make the coalition government's already considerable governance challenges harder in two ways. (1) From a formal institutional perspective, the reform agenda has failed to inject a degree of clarity into the delivery chains or ensure that over‐complicated structures do not re‐grow in the future. (2) From an informal cultural perspective, the reform agenda has not been handled well. Public bodies, many of which employ tens of thousands of people, have found out about their fate not through informed internal communication but through blunt announcements in the media. The Public Chairs Forum, a recently established professional organisation to represent the interests and views of the chief executives and chairman of quangos, has been outspoken in its criticism of the government's approach. The government has, as a result, already been forced to re‐visit and clarify several specific decisions and the situation remains fluid (a euphemism for confused and subject to daily change). The central argument of this paper is that in relation to the UK it is simply too early to assess whether minority or coalition government actually makes a difference in Westminster style democracies. This paper has really provided the prologue and the authors are waiting with interest to see how the main show unfolds as individual departmental teams attempt to reform relationships and institutions within their own specific sector against a backdrop of stringent financial cutbacks. The question this leaves us with, however, is how to identify those 'differences' that have resulted due to the existence of a coalition government as opposed to those that would have occurred anyway as a result of endogenous or exogenous pressures. It is to these wider issues that we now turn. IV. SO WHAT? A form of constitutional stretching has occurred in the UK whereby the longstanding model of centralised majoritarian politics has been modified towards a more consociational form. Placed within this wider context the advent of a coalition government at the national level is possibly 27 not as 'revolutionary' as many overseas observers might have thought. This paper has charted this wider shifts in the nature of British governance, it has focused specifically on the fact that minority or coalition government forms an element of everyday politics at the sub‐national level, and it has sought to tentatively sketch‐out some of the emerging differences that a Lib‐Lab coalition has brought with it. And yet if Müller and Strøm (2008, p. 159) are correct – and they undoubtedly are ‐ that 'coalition agreements are the script, not the play [and]…if our interest is in actual coalition governance, then we cannot read the script as the performance' then it is simply too early in the play for any detailed assessment of what 'difference' the coalition government has made in relation to governance in the UK. At the broadest level the demands of coalition government have meant the restoration of cabinet government and an end to the more informal style of 'government by sofa' that emerged under New Labour between 1997‐ 2010. Below the Cabinet most ministers and officials are still coming to terms with 'coalition‐ ising' their day‐to‐day working procedures but the stringent demands of the government's economic targets will ensure that bureaucratic reform and rationalisation will soon take priority. Contemporary British politics therefore provides a rich case study with the potential to yield rich empirical and theoretical insights into the coalition governance, filling‐in the analytical void highlighted by Müller and Strøm between coalition formation and termination. The aim of this concluding section is to locate the content of this paper, specifically its focus on the UK, within the contours or a range of much wider debates and themes: (1) theory and method; (2) the conceptualisation of political parties; and (3) the need for external assistance. The first issue relates to how scholars can assess the existence of 'difference' in relation to the influence of minority and coalition government. The issue of causation is a basic challenge of any social scientific research and validating a link between the existence of a minority or multi‐ party executive and alterations in the nature of governance may demand new or more sophisticated analytical and methodological tools than currently exist. The coalition government's approach to reforming public bodies provides a case in point. Irrespective of whichever party or parties form the government after the 2010 general election it was clear that significant reform of the tentacles of the state would be necessary. However isolating what elements or facets of the reform agenda can be linked to the existence of a coalition government remains an epistemological dilemma and a methodological challenge. 28 This flows into a second related issue concerning the conceptualisation of political parties. British political history has created a form of governing myth that political parties are homogenous entities and coalition governments are inherently weak because they are 'dependent upon unreliable or ideologically incompatible bedfellows' (Norton, 1997, p. 85). A more accurate and nuanced approach to political parties would be to view them as flexible umbrella organisations that span a range of factions and groupings in a broadly coherent manner. One of the reasons the coalition government is (so far) proving relatively coherent and stable is that the two parties overlap to some extent in relation to their policy preferences, with 19.7% of Programme commitments being attributable to both parties' manifestos. Areas of policy overlap between political parties have never been emphasised in British politics, as the primary role of opposition parties was to criticise and attack the government rather than highlight common ground. Effective government was a synonym for strong party government and the actors prided themselves on the manner in which 'the Prime Minister's ability to push through his or her policy agenda without resorting to those strange continental habits of negotiating and compromising with other parties' (Institute for Government, 2010b, p. 10). Our final theme is really a plea for help. Despite of recent developments at the sub‐national level, coalition politics remains uncharted terrain for scholars of British politics. It also remains, to some extent, terrain where an unfortunate sense of British supremacy casts a negative normative shadow over debates (see Mitchell, 2008, p. 74). Put slightly differently, at the national level there remains a sense that coalition government is a weak and second‐class form of politics that is to be avoided whenever possible and that the current situation will be a short‐ lived departure from the norm. As a result British scholars lack the tools of political analysis in terms of theories and methods to help develop our understanding of coalition dynamics. This is particularly true in relation to understanding how coalition politics are likely to restrict or facilitate bureaucratic reform or relationships, and (more broadly) the analysis of recent developments in the UK have generally been undertaken with almost no comparative analysis or understanding. We would therefore welcome the views of participants at this conference on the following three questions so that we can under theoretically‐informed, policy‐relevant, research on the experience of coalition government in the UK as it unfolds: 29 (1) What tools of political analysis can scholars of comparative political studies offer students of contemporary British politics? (2) What does research conducted in other countries suggest are the likely outcomes of minority or coalition government when it comes to managing the state? (3) What would 'frontier research' look like vis‐à‐vis coalitions and minority government? 30 Arter, D. (2004) 'The Scottish Committees and the Goal of a "New Politics": A Verdict on the First Four Years of the Devolved Scottish Parliament', Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 12 (1), pp. 71–91. Bagehot, W. (1867) The English Constitution, seventh edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Bogdanor, V. (2009) The New British Constitution. London: Hart. Browne, E.C. and Franklin, M. (1973) 'Aspects of Coalition Payoff in European Parliamentary Democracies', American Political Science Review, 67 (4), pp. 453‐469. Budge, I. and Keman, H. (1990) Parties and Democracy. Coalition Formation and Government Functioning in Twenty States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1979) 'Coalition Payoffs and Electoral Performances in European Democracies', Comparative Political Studies, 12 (1), pp. 61‐81. Bulsara, H and Kissane, B. (2009) 'Arend Lijphart and the Transformation of Irish Democracy', West European Politics, 32:1 (2009), 172‐195. Cabinet Office (2010a) Constitutional Agreement for Stability and Reform. London: Cabinet Office. Cabinet Office (2010b) Programme of Government. London: Cabinet Office. Cairney, P. (2008) 'Has Devolution Changed the 'British Policy Style'?', British Politics, 3 (3), pp. 350‐372. Cairney, P. (2010) 'Coalition and Minority Government in Scotland', Paper presented at the Political Studies Association Conference, Edinburgh, 29 March – 1 April. Collier, D and Levitsky, S. 'Democracy with Adjectives', World Politics, 49, 430‐451. Collier, D. and Mahon, J. (1993) 'Conceptual 'stretching' revisited', American Political Science Review, 87 (4), pp. 845‐855. Constitutional Committee (2010) 'Public Bodies Bill', Sixth Report of the Constitution Committee, HL 51. Curtice, J. (2010) 'So What Went Wrong with the Electoral System? The 2010 Election Result and the Debate', Parliamentary Affairs, 63 (4), pp. 628‐638. De Winter, L. and Dumont, P. (2008) 'Uncertainty and Complexity in Cabinet Formation', in K. Strøm, W.C. Müller and T. Bergman (eds.) Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 123‐158. Flinders, F. (2008) Walking Without Order: Delegated Governance and the British State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Flinders, M. (2009) Democratic Drift: Majoritarian Modification and Democratic Anomie in the United Kingdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gallie, W. (1956) 'Essentially Contested Concepts', Proceedings of the Aristotlelian Society, 56, pp. 167‐ 198. Gamson, W.A. (1961) 'A Theory of Coalition Formation', American Sociological Review, 26 (3), pp. 373‐82. Goertz, G. (2006) Concept Formation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Hasan, M. 'How Long will this coaltion last?', New Statesman, 26 May 2010. Hennessy, P. (1997) Muddling Throug: Power, Politics and the Quality of Government in Post‐War Britain. Phoenix: London. Institute for Government (2010a) Read Before Burning: Arm's Length Government for a New Administration. London: Institute for Government. Institute for Government (2010b) United We Stand? Coalition Government in the UK. London: Institute for Government. Judge, D. (2006). 'This Is What Democracy Looks Like', British Politics 1(3), pp. 23–45. Lijphart, A. (1984) Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty‐One Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of Democracy – Government Forms and Performance in Thirty‐Six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lijphart, A. (2007) Thinking About Democracy – Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and in Practice. London: Routledge. Mainwaring, S. (2001). 'Two Models of Democracy', Journal of Democracy 12:3 Mitchell, J. (2008) 'Minority governments, constitutional change and institutional cultures in Scotland' in 31 A. Brazier and S. Kalitowski (eds.) No Overall Control? The impact of a 'hung parliament' on British politics. London: Hansard Society. Müller, W. and Strøm, K. (2008) 'Coalition Agreements and Cabinet Governance', in K. Strøm, W.C. Müller and T. Bergman (eds.) Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 159‐ 200. Müller, W.C., Bergman, T. and Strøm, K. (2008) 'Coalition Theory and Cabinet Governance: An Introduction', in K. Strøm, W.C. Müller and T. Bergman (eds.) Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1‐50. Norris, P. (1995) 'The Politics of Electoral Reform', International Political Science Review, 16 (1), pp. 65‐78. Norris, P. (2001) 'The Twilight of Westminster? Electoral Reform and its Consequences' Political Studies, 49 (4), pp. 877‐900. Norton, P. (1997) 'The Case for First‐Past‐The‐Post', Representation, 34 (2), pp. 84‐8. Political and Constitutional Reform Committee (2010) 'Lessons from the process of government formation after the 2011 election', HC 528. Public Accounts Committee (2010) 'Progress with Value for Money Savings', Fourth Report of the Public Accounts Committee, HC 440. Sartori, G. (1970) 'Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics', American Political Science Review, 64(4), 1033‐1053. Sylvester, R. 'Whitehall Starts to feel the wind of change', The Times, 9 November 2010. Tsebelis, G. (1995) 'Decision‐Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarianism, Multicameralism, and Multipartyism', British Journal of Political Science, 25 (2), pp. 289‐325. Tsebelis, G. (2002) Veto Players. How Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Verzichelli, L. (2008) 'Portfolio Allocation', in K. Strøm, W.C. Müller and T. Bergman (eds.) Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 237‐268. Warwick, P.V. and Druckman, J.N. (2001) 'Portfolio Salience and the Proportionality of Payoffs in Coalition Governments', British Journal of Political Science, 31 (4), pp. 627‐49 Warwick, P.V. and Druckman, J.N. (2005) 'The missing piece: Measuring portfolio salience in Western European parliamentary democracies', European Journal of Political Research, 44 (1), pp. 17‐42. Webb, P. (2000) The Modern British Party System. London: Sage. Wilford, R and Wilson, R (2005) 'Northern Ireland' in Trench, A. (ed.) The Dynamics of Devolution. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 69. 32
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Ginestra Fiorentina - 26087002
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House rental in Chianti region. Beautiful complex recently restored situated in quiet and panoramic location on the Chianti hills surrounding Florence. The house rental comprises 3 comfortable apartments (one is occupied by the owners), nicely furnished in a Tuscan and Chianti style.
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Boys Basketball: Tigers win battle of HVL Blue's top teams
Ninth-grader Brady Kuchinka had the best game of his young career for Lake City Friday night in Lake City.
Kuchinka scored 18 of his career-high 22 points in the second half and overtime to help the Tigers recover from a 30-13 halftime deficit to defeat Zumbrota-Mazeppa 60-55 in overtime.
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Change comes to Jackson County board
JACKSON -- Jackson County voters elected three new commissioners Tuesday, including a candidate who mounted a successful write-in campaign.
Write-in Rosemary Schultz won the District 3 seat over Victor Pohlman, 540-494, while Bill Tusa unseated incumbent Craig Rubis to win the District 1 seat, 712-333. David Henkels, who ran unopposed, took the District 5 seat with 1,030 votes.
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The 2006 Tablas Creek Vineyard Mourvèdre is Tablas Creek's fourth varietal bottling of Mourvèdre. The wine shows the rich cherry, fig, mocha and spice flavors, medium to full body, and a spicy, appealing finish of saddle leather and loam of the Mourvèdre grape.
We use most of our Mourvèdre in our Esprit de Beaucastel each year. However, we feel that this is a grape, often dismissed as "just a blending varietal", that is capable of making tremendously rich and balanced single-varietal wines as well. When we have particularly intense and characteristing lots of Mourvèdre, we try to reserve a limited quantity for a single-varietal bottling.
Our Mourvèdre grapes were grown on our 120-acre certified organic estate vineyard.
The 2006 vintage was a study of contrasts, with a cold, wet start, a very hot early summer, a cool late summer and a warm, beautiful fall. Ample rainfall in late winter gave the grapevines ample groundwater, and produced relatively generous crop sizes. The relatively cool late-season temperatures resulted in a delayed but unhurried harvest, wines with lower than normal alcohols, strong varietal character, and good acids. The Mourvèdre was harvested throughout late October and completed the vintage on November 9th.
The Mourvèdre grapes were destemmed and then fermented using native yeasts in a balance of small open-top and enclosed stainless steel tanks. After three weeks, they were pressed and moved to 1200-gallon foudres to complete their fermentation. The Mourvèdre lots were blended in June of 2007, when we added 10% Syrah to give a touch of black fruit and mineral to the wine. It was aged for an additional year in a 1200-gallon foudres and bottled in June 2008. The wine underwent only a light filtration before bottling, and should be expected to throw a sediment over time.
The 2006 Mourvèdre displays a classic nose of roasted meats, plums and spice. Juicy and full in the mouth, it features lingering notes of plum, currant, coffee, chocolate and leather, with a long mineral finish. We expect it to drink well for a decade or more.
[...more recent Tablas Creek press]
Not Available for Purchase
Hundreds of you have joined us for one of our annual blending seminars over the years. If you haven't yet, let this be the year. Partner Jason Haas and winemaker Neil Collins will lead a barrel tasting of the individual varietals (both reds and whites), and will discuss how we turn roughly one hundred components into the blends and varieties we make each year. Then, you will be set loose with graduated cylinders to produce your own blends. Details & More Events »
We are thrilled to announce that we've received our shipping permit from the great state of Massachusetts. Residents of the Bay State can now order wine or become VINsider Wine Club members. More shipping news »
In August, Antonio Galloni published the results of his annual visit to Tablas Creek, and we were excited to receive such good reviews from this notoriously tough grader. Notes included the 2012 Esprit de Tablas Blanc (92 points; "impeccably refined"), 2011 Panoplie (94 points; "pure elegance"), 2012 Patelin de Tablas (90 points; "a gorgeous wine and a fabulous value"), and the 2012 Esprit de Tablas (93-95 points; "a fascinating Esprit to follow over the coming years"). Read the complete review » More recent press »
March 27, 2015
It's clear...that Facebook's changes are in full effect. At any given level of engagement (measured by Facebook) the percentage of our page's fans who we reach with a given post is roughly half what it was in 2013...So, if you're running a Facebook page for your company or your organization, what should you do? Read More »


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Original recipe yields 4 servings
Amount per serving ({{servings}} total)
Based on a 2,000 calorie diet
Ready In
Your rating
Very tasty recipe. I substituted black pepper and used salmon instead of talapia but this was easy to prepare and has a great flavor.I also only baked it for 15 minutes at 400 which was more than enough...so be careful with the cooking time.
Wow!! Stupendous! I fixed this tonight in less than an hour with a fresh wild caught Tilapia that I caught and filleted myself. I followed the recipe exactly like it is offered with the one exception of too little spinach ( I had only a 10 oz bag of fresh spinach, but I did have a package of frozen ) I thawed the frozen in the microwave then added it to the baking dish before I placed it in the oven. My wife and I devoured the dish accompanied by tall cool glasses of homemade Sangria. I'm so thankful for this recipe!
I really liked this. The spinach was the highlight of the dish. Excellent. I made as directed. I used reduced fat feta cheese and cut butter back to 1 Tbs. I think next time I will season the tilapia a little more, maybe add some lemon pepper. I served this with basmati rice.


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As visitors devour spoonfuls of sweet, creamy frozen treats at Menchie's, they may notice a string of '90s-era sitcom stars arriving to sample the wares and chat with the man in charge. That's because owner/operator David Lipper first made a name for himself on Full House playing D.J. Tanner's boyfriend Viper. Today, Lipper proudly sits atop a local frozen-yogurt empire, edging out his fellow cast mates' enterprises, including Dave Coulier's network of Swiss banks and John Stamos's '50s-themed doggy daycare. Inside the shop, diners select from a colorful array of flavors, such as low-carb pistachio or fruity watermelon tart, and crown their creation with toppings including sprinkles, mocha, hot fudge, and locally grown fruits.


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