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IAF Seminar on "Coalition Building and Strategic Partnership"

Should liberals stick to principles and preserve their identity even when this means waiving a chance to exert power, for instance in a government position?


Dr Stefan Melnik This was one of the key questions discussed by a group of 22 participants from political parties and the civil society sector throughout the world. The two-week seminar „Coalition Building and Strategic Partnership“ was held from 10 to 22 April at the invitation of the FNF’s International Academy of Leadership (IAF) in Gummersbach. Given that liberal political parties and NGOs are often in a minority position and thus have a specific interest in exerting  influence through coalitions, the IAF asked Dr Stefan Melnik to design this seminar and moderate it together with his colleague Wulf Pabst. The seminar and its underlying concept were tested for the first time this year.

The idea was not just to impart useful and practical ideas and skills related to successful coalition-building, but also to exchange experiences – both positive and negative – and to engage in dialogue on the subject. In the first days of the course a specific focus was laid on experiences with coalitions in the different countries and contexts. It turned out, that there are huge varieties of different forms of cooperation present: from lose forms of issue based collaboration to very close liaisons and virtual mergers. As a later insight participants stressed the different nature of pre- and post-election coalitions in the political field.

A number of participants were identified as resource persons and experts and invited to talk about groundbreaking coalition experiences. Ahmad Badawy Mansour, a political activist, spoke about the Egyptian revolution and how the ultimate success of the “people’s coalition”, peacefully organized and orchestrated, was made possible through judicious use of the so-called social media. Kyrylo Zakharov, a youth leader from Ukraine, talked about the “Orange Revolution” and the lessons  learned for coalition building. It is not enough to have NGOs on board. It is parties that have to deliver and it is the parties that failed to live up to the experiences of those who took to the streets.

An excellent example of coalition-building by a liberal think tank is provided by the Centre for Civil Society in India and its campaign for school choice. Manoj Mathew described the meticulous work involved in building and sustaining partnerships with key politicians and parts of civil society in persuading them to support and sponsor the experimental use of vouchers in the field of education, the ultimate object being to find and test ways of improving the quality of education for poorer sections of society.

Kofi Bentsi Bentil, a well-known consultant from Ghana, looked at power sharing arrangements in Africa – in Zimbabwe, in Kenya and, for a time, suggested as a way out of civil war in the case of the Ivory Coast. Bentil thought it wrong to consider power-sharing arrangements between opposing parties as examples of coalition, criticizing them instead. They do represent “an easy way out” and have not solved a single major problem in the said countries. Indeed, having an effective opposition is more important for institution building than power sharing, as the Ghanaian example shows. Oppositions are as crucial as governments are for democracy because they hold governments to account, force the creation of institutions, prove a clear alternative at elections and educate the electorate who learn that there are choices and learn about underlying issues accordingly.

Luis Edgardo Albarran, adviser to the Coalición Civica/Unión porTodos, discussed the problems of loose pre-electoral coalitions in Argentina. Small parties have to resort to forming such coalitions in order to have any chance of winning seats in federal elections. In part this is due to the general inability to form large nationwide parties to counter Peronism– a result of clashing personalities and political infighting – and because of the requirement that parties have to have a nationwide following in order to qualify for candidacy. The problem arising from this situation is the heterogenous nature of such alliances and a lack of focus on policy issues, a serious problem given the long-standing economic crisis besetting Argentina.

Zubair Ahmed Malik, businessman and Director of the Pakistan Economic Freedom Network, talked about strategic partnerships and alliances in business and contrasted them with political coalitions: in his view the former tend to focus on a single objective and are most strictly organised with a clear division of labour. They tend to be long-term and the relationship is of a contractual nature. The discussion throughout the seminar, however, showed that coalitions could also focus on one issue on the one hand – often typical for NGO coalitions – but could also be long-term and bound by formal agreement on the other. Indeed, the division between coalitions and strategic partnerships and alliances are often not clear-cut, given the large variety of examples represented at the seminar.

The pros and cons of forming coalitions were hotly debated. Some participants expressed highly critical views of coalitions in the political arena and recommended that liberals abstain from power and opt for consolidation and gaining more strength whenever the advantages of going into coalition are not clear-cut. Coalition governments often give rise to a blurring of policies and responsibilities and often dealings lack sufficient transparency. Citizens are disappointed and often turn their backs on the parties they support. Others emphasized the expectationsof the voter – politicians are expected to form stable governments and accept the popular vote – and the need to compromise also for the sake of democracy.

A consensus was reached, however, that a liberal party must not allow itself to compromise on core values and principles. But where do we draw the line between compromise and sticking to principles? As the first of a number of external speakers, Dr Karl-Heinz Hense, former head of the foundation’s department for political education and scholarship program, discussed this question, looking first at the ideas of Max Weber: politics as the art of the possible, navigating between principles (the “ethics of conviction”) and compromise (the “ethics of responsibility”). He then continued and stated precisely where liberals could not compromise, citing the ideas of Karl Popper and Ralf Dahrendorf: liberals must take a hard stand on matters of individual liberty. Freedom cannot be compromised. ["Liberal objectives and political compromises"; by Dr Karl-Heinz Hense - pdf, 129 KB]


Dr Detmar Doering Dr Detmar Doering, director of the foundation’s Liberal Institute compared coalition governments and their different traditions in the United Kingdom and in Germany, pointing out that coalitions are the exception in the case of the former. Although the electoral systems of both countries are very different, both systems and the politicians working within them strive to achieve “strong and stable government.” In the case of Germany the reason is the negative experience of the many unsuccessful coalition governments of the Weimar Republic, a theme that Dr Ines Soldwisch, historian and lecturer from RWTH Aachen University, expanded upon – in preparation for the seminar excursion to Weimar, Buchenwald and Dresden. In the 14 years of the Weimar republic there were 20 changes of cabinet (with 11 minority cabinets). The failure of democratic parties to cooperate was one of the most important factors contributing to the failure of the first German republic in 1933.


Torsten Herbst During anafternoon excursion to Düsseldorf and a three-day excursion to Dresden participants met German politicians and discussed the practicalities of coalition government. The trip to Düsseldorf took the group to state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s biggest state. Angela Freimuth, the parliament’s vice president, explained how the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) managed to implement its ideas in the coalition government with the Christian Democrats between 2005 and 2010. A major factor in ensuring successful coalition work is a common goal communicatedto the citizens and electorate of the state. Another major factor is “precise agreements on content and procedures” between the partners. Torsten Herbst, member of the Saxon state parliament and secretary general of the FDP in Saxony, took a similar line when outlining the factorsexplaining the success of the current coalition in East Germany’s most dynamic state.

Coalitions in politics were not the only topic of the excursion: In a talk with Thomas Felsner, executive manager of the FDP parliamentary group and Elke Zimmermann, city councilor of the Green Party, the issue of cooperation and coalitions in civil society were discussed, the example being that of the controversial infrastructure project ‘Waldschlösschenbrücke’, a bridge-building project criticized for its supposed negative impact both on the environment and the historical city centre of Dresden. Here the focus was on coalition-building on both sides and the way in which citizens were mobilized for a referendum on the subject.

Before and after the excursion the focus of discussion in the seminar changed from more fundamental questions to practical matters and, in particular, to skills development related to both the formation and the management of coalitions. The subjects treated were:

• Criteria for deciding whether or not to enter a coalition in  a given situation
• The need for strategy in coalition building and management
• Finding the right coalition partner
• Principles of successful negotiation
• Ensuring the success of a coalition and at the same time making sure that our members and supporters are kept ‘on board’
• Managing coalitions and dealing with disputes within a coalition?
  

The various exercises also included two simulations, one involving the negotiation of a coalition agreement within a given scenario, and one involving a conflict arising from unilateral action by a coalition partner.


The group with Angela Freimuth in Düsseldorf  

A number of major insights gained from the seminar were summarized in the last session and can be found in condensed form under the following link. [Concluding insights"; - pdf, 416 KB]