Coalitions in the Council: On Stability and Determinants

Abstract

There are phenomena that cannot be measured directly. For instance, the temperature of stars can only be determined by the strength of different absorption lines in the stars’ spectrum. This relationship between temperature and spectral characteristics is known as Wien’s law. Another example is coalition behaviour of governments in the Council of the European Union. The secretive nature of deliberations complicates measurement to an extent that scholars have concluded that the ‘role of coalition building in EU decision-making is obscure and the evidence of coalition patterns mostly anecdotal’ (Elgström et al. 2001, p. 112). To illuminate this opaque process, proxies such as the proximity of actor positions, communication networks and voting patterns, have been proposed in previous research.