Patterns of Junior Partner Influence on the Foreign Policy of Coalition Governments

The main contribution of this article is that it:

• Introduces a distinction between different pathways for junior partner influence on the foreign policy of coalition governments;
• Provides nuanced insights into the effects of coalition government on foreign policy as well as on the causal mechanisms behind these effects;
• Contributes to the ‘unpacking’ of coalitions and the analysis of coalition governance more generally;
• Features a comparative analysis of the current coalition governments in the United Kingdom and Germany.

This article contributes to research on the foreign policy influence of junior partners in coalition governments. In particular, it takes up the call to pay greater attention to different patterns and pathways of such influence. To this purpose, this article distinguishes two types of coalition set-ups for foreign policy making. In the first type, junior partners hold one or more departments in the foreign policy executive, and their foreign policy influence rests on the powers that controlling ministries in the field brings. In the second type, junior partners do not hold any department in foreign affairs, and their influence comes from their ability to constrain the discretion of the senior partner in foreign policy. The article exemplifies its theoretical contentions in comparative case studies on the current coalition governments in Germany and the UK, which represent the first and second type respectively.