Christian Lindner, the 38 year old leader of
the German party FDP, has been loathed massively since he announced his party´s
exit from coalition talks with the CDU, CSU and the Green Party (the ´Jamaica´
coalition for the party colours black, green and yellow). The FDP says that
weeks of talks had failed to produce a shared vision of government and that it
would have had to abandon cornerstones central to its election platform, namely
a lower tax burden, the gradual shut-down of coal-fired plants and a managed
immigration policy. The document to be agreed on contained many
square brackets at the end, indicating deep disagreements at the coalition
talks.
The FDP had claimed a
rapid phase-out of the so-called solidarity tax that is still raised to fund
the economic development in eastern Germany - almost three decades after
reunification. Partly the result of Merkel´s Energiewende, German industry still relies too heavily on coal and embarrassingly
did not sign the Powering Past Coal Alliance at
COP23. The freeze on family reunifications of refugees runs out next year,
raising the prospect of a spike in new arrivals. These were substantial reasons
for the FDP discontent with the coalition talks, although this motive is being
widely denied by the smart alecks. Obviously though, the FDP felt that they did
not have enough voice vis-à-vis the other parties so they preferred to exit the
talks.
In his seminal Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to
Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Albert O. Hirschman (1970)
suggested that individuals dissatisfied with the performance of an organization
they belong to or do business with may try to improve their lot either by
‘exiting’ from the organization and thus forgoing the goods or services it
provides, or by remaining with the organization but attempting to improve its
performance by ‘voicing’ their discontent. Political scientist Scott Gehlbach
has provided a fertile game-theoretic model that treats the choice between exit
and voice as a decision between costly policy options[1].
The model may shed some light on the static and dynamic effects of Lindner´s
exit from the coalition talks.
The coalition
talks can be represented as a bargain between four parties over policy outcome x for the new government. The
bargaining game is not zero-sum, which means that all four parties have a
common interest in avoiding exit. One peaceful outcome would be the Nash bargaining solution – gains from
talks are split 25:25:25:25 between the four parties. x stands for ministerial portfolios and fringe benefits, for power
to implement policies for the respective voter groups, etc. In this setting,
Lindner´s FDP does not exit the talks.
In reality,
there is a conflict of interest and programs between the potential coalition partners.
To formalize Lindner´s exit decision, it is easier to use a reduced-form way of
the bargaining model. In fact, ex post it could be argued that Lindner´s FDP
has viewed the other parties as a (sort of social democratic) bloc. Assume that policy can take any value x between 0 and 1, where the FDP
receives x and the three other
parties (1-x) as long as there is no
exit. In the event that the parties exit the coalition talks, the FDP receives
payoff f and the other parties r.
In the Hirschman-Gehlbach model there are gains
from trade: 1 - (f+r), with (f+r) < 1. Under the
Nash bargaining solution (in the reduced form), the surplus from the coalition
bargain is divided along (1 + f – r)/2. The surplus received by the FDP
((1 + f – r)/2 – f) equals that
received by the other parties ((1 + f
– r)/2 – r). As emphasized by Hirschman, ‘the effectiveness of the voice
mechanism is strengthened by the possibility of exit’. The possibility of exit (the
payoff f from exit) increases the
power of the FDP at the bargaining table, since the others must leave them with
more to keep them from exiting. Hence, voice and exit are complements.
The payoff f
for the Lindner´s FDP can be thought of as representation (of FDP ideas) and
thus reputation (of keeping to the party line). This is an important payoff for
a young, ambitious political leader. After all Macron exited the socialist
Hollande government only to become President of France later. At the age of 38,
Lindner is unlikely to limit his sight on the ongoing coalition talks.
Exit from coalition talks has always been a
declared option for the FDP, which felt pushed into coalition talks as a result
of the immediate (and perfectly understandable) SPD denial to even participate
in coalition talks with Merkel´s CDU (the “vacuum cleaner of social democratic
ideas”, according to Martin Schulz). Those who feel free to exit can use the
threat of exit to magnify their political influence, or ‘voice’. Unless they would
have felt ´loyal´ to the failed Jamaica coalition, that is. Loyalty (or
´responsibility´) is now a demand targeted at the FDP, a demand which is highly
popular with the public media and those who never thought of voting for the FDP
in the first place.
The Hirschman-Gehlbach model shows clearly that
´loyalty´ does not improve welfare unless it is heavily subsidized. An increase in loyalty leaves bargainers
unambiguously worse off when defined as an exit tax, while they may benefit
from greater loyalty if it instead takes the form of a voice subsidy. An
increase in loyalty – a decrease in f
– would have allowed the other parties to take advantage of FDP reticence to
exit by offering a less favorable treatment and less representation in a
´Jamaica´ government coalition. This may have been possible in the past under
former FDP leadership; not for Christian Lindner. His exit payoff was just too
big.
[1] Scott
Gehlbach (2006), A Formal Model of Exit and Voice, Rationality and Society, Vol. 18(4): 395–418.
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