Reconsidering Grand Coalitions from Fuzzy Set Notion: A Comparative Study of German and Austrian Subnational Governments

This paper attempts to provide a new typological perspective of grand coalitions. This type is described as ‘important parties share executive power in a broad coalition (Lijphart 2012)’. Researchers are divided on the value into two sides. On the one side, grand coalitions burdened with excessive political opinions are understood as a crisis of democracy. The argument is associated with vanishing accountability and promoting instability. On the other hand, it is emphasized the consensual governments including minority groups are stable and correct inequalities. In comparison with majoritarian stiles, it is also suggested consensual governments give a chance to carry out political reforms. The two-sided arguments are inevitably complicated by raising new parties in Europe. For example, 73% seats were shared 2005 by a grand coalition in Germany, whereas Austrian grand coalition was launched with 59% seats in 2008. Whether those cases can be classified to consensual forms, we need to redefine the category beyond a dichotomous perspective.

From fuzzy set notion, this paper attempts to reconstruct it by following steps. Firstly, I delineate meanings within the concept and a relationship between relevant concepts. Second, I give a fuzzy set logic to the conceptual structure for constructing empirical categories whose conditions correspond to conceptual attributes. Finally, via a combinatorics namely Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), I identify patterns of antecedent conditions for categorical perceptions of consensus in German and Austrian subnational governments. The not-dichotomized understanding will be conductive to whether grand coalitions can be seen as a way of resilience.