COORDINATION

There are many occasions for informal contact and coordination between experts and administrative personnel. The fact that their numbers are in general small; that all actors are concentrated in the capital; and that within the capital the government district itself is intimate. Furthermore, there is much consultation between the two coalition parties.

If White House coordination of policy is seen as an informal mechanism, then most policy coordination is done informally, with teams of shifting members and ad hoc structures. A good example is the Obama administration’s policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was developed primarily by a White House-centered team of national security officials. However, White House coordination is generally not “informal,” in the ordinary meaning of that word. Although practices vary enormously, from president to president, and issue to issue, it is likely to involve an advisory committee (sometimes ad hoc) of defined membership (i.e., including an individual performing the function of chair) that holds scheduled meetings with pre-specified agendas, involves staff preparation and briefing papers, and a person responsible for briefing the president with options and recommendations. Given the limited amount of long-term institutionalization of these arrangements, the president’s success in setting up and leading effective advisory processes is an important factor in his performance. Understanding these processes requires analyzing particular decisions in blow-by-blow detail and requires inside information, such as extensive interviewing in the White House.

Inter-sectoral coordination has generally been perceived as an important issue, but rather few institutional mechanisms have in fact been introduced. One of these is the so-called iltakoulu, or evening session, which is an unofficial negotiation session of the cabinet. To a considerable extent, though, coordination proceeds through informal mechanisms. The recent large-scaled policy programs enhance inter-sectoral divisions in policy-making and administration. Additionally, Finnish EU membership has of course brought forth a need for an increased interministerial coordination. Recent research in Finland has only marginally focused on informal mechanisms. Separate case studies suggest, however, that the system of coordination by advisory councils in use has performed well.

In addition to formal coordination, there are a number of informal channels between coalition partners, government and legislative support parties, and ministers and their parliamentary parties. However, the cabinet manual seeks to at least formally clarify which procedures should be used as a guideline in case of informal coordination. For instance, Cabinet Office Circular CO (09) 07 “National-led Administration: Consultation and Operating Arrangements” defines the relationship between government ministers and ministers from parties that are officially not part of the government: “Support-party Ministers are not members of Cabinet. From time to time, support party Ministers and other Ministers outside Cabinet may seek the Prime Minister’s agreement to attend Cabinet when significant matters within their portfolios are being addressed.”

Cabinet ministers meet frequently and are in close touch with each other over policies. There is an effort to encourage cross-ministerial arrangements on the level of officials. There is extensive informal coordination between cabinet and parliamentary committees and party groups.

Given the small size of the federal administration and the tradition of informal coordination, there is reason to assume the presence of strong and effective informal coordination.

Informal coordination occurs through a wide variety of mechanisms, including the whips’ office in Parliament, the proximity between ministers and MPs and members of the House of Lords in Parliament, meetings between governing party MPs, and networks involving special advisers. Under Tony Blair, the government had developed an increasingly informal style of decision-making. Judging from the Blair government record, the informal coordination procedures worked quite well, but critics saw these as detrimental to cabinet government.
Under Prime Minister Brown, the roles of the cabinet and of cabinet discussions were meant to be enhanced again, and a wider formalization of political decision-making was hinted at. There was talk (though nothing came of it) of a written constitution following an all-party convention, and the new prime minister guaranteed that the House of Commons would be able to vote before the UK engaged in any future war.
However, the financial crisis of 2007 demonstrated that in an emergency, the core executive is very effective at developing informal coordination and decision-making mechanisms, such as the one that brought together the Treasury, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England to deal with the crisis triggered by the Northern Rock bank.

Information coordination procedures exist at the level of the party, where informal soundings on policies take place on a regular basis to sure that the party leadership supports the government’s direction; this occurs regardless of which party is in office. The federal system, and the division of responsibilities between the federal government and the state and territory governments, means that informal coordination is always an important component of any policy that may involve the states. These procedures are ad hoc, and take place at two levels, among ministers from different jurisdictions, and at the level of senior public servants.

The existing coordination mechanisms – the weekly informal meeting within the cabinet factions and the whole cabinet, as well as the regular informal meetings of chancellor and vice-chancellor – are efficient. But they do not guarantee in any way a smooth decision-making process based on consensus. But these mechanisms do guarantee that the cabinet is informed of and prepared for the possibilities and impossibilities of cabinet decisions.

Informal coordination plays an important role in settling issues so that the cabinet can focus on strategic policy debates. Existing informal mechanisms could be characterized as “formal informality.”

The Danish administrative system is a mix of formal rules and norms and more informal traditions. Officials hold informal talks in the halls of government, over lunch, during travel to and from Brussels, as just a few examples. The informal mechanisms can make formal meetings more efficient. But important decisions must be confirmed in more formal settings.
At the political level, informal mechanisms are probably more important than among officials.

In addition to formal coordination meetings, informal coordination is often crucial. One “invisible” facilitator stems from the fact that at least some members of the political staff (the so-called cabinet du ministre) in all ministries come from a dominant ministry (e.g., finance) or even more importantly from the old-boy network of elite universities (grandes écoles). Personal links and connections are of great help in overcoming conflicts related to role positions. Other informal meetings include, for instance, the interventions of majority party leaders of the two assemblies or the weekly “breakfast” between the president, the prime minister and other politicians or high civil servants involved in the matter under discussion.

The nature of Irish coalition governments makes it very likely that policy proposals are effectively coordinated by informal mechanism before they come to cabinet for decision. The impression conveyed by accounts of cabinet meetings is that the debates and discussions are not very fundamental or profound. The agenda is usually too heavy to allow long debates on fundamental issues, which tend to have been settled in various ways prior to the cabinet meeting. Whether this makes for an effective and democratic decision-making process is unclear, but the informal coordination mechanisms do work effectively.

It is almost folk wisdom that informal contacts between Japanese decision makers are extremely important. During formal meetings, it is difficult to mention all important points explicitly, for instance in order to avoid “loss of face” situations. For that reason, considerable effort is made to prepare meetings in an informal manner, ensuring a “binding of roots” (nemawashi), or to reach the “true” decisions in an informal environment, such as during visits to restaurants or bars. While this may involve only those persons who are formally involved in the decision making, such procedures can also reach well beyond the circle of those who are formally involved, sometimes leading to collusion, nepotism or even corruption.

On the level of “organized informal mechanisms,” one of the most important channels of coordination for policy-making has been the informal meetings and debates between the ministries and the policy research departments of the major parties, particularly of the LDP. It has sometimes been suggested that the directors of the LDP policy research departments, which closely mirror the ministry structure of the government, may have been as or even more powerful than the serving ministers. With the advent of the new DPJ-led government, this system has come to a halt. The DPJ has pledged to abolish its policy research branch and to rely only on official mechanisms.

There are many informal meetings within the Mexican system. They involve, among other things, discussions between senior government officials and politically powerful individuals such as party leaders and state governors. It is impossible to understand the Mexican governmental system without the observation that private consultation is at least as important as formal procedure. Mexico is substantially governed by dialogue. As some observers have noted, the present government is especially open to policy dialogue given its minority status in congress. Dialogue has been sometimes constrained by the fact that the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, PRD), one of the major opposition parties in congress, has a strong radical wing which continues to contest the legitimacy of the past presidential election and is therefore against any dialogue with the current government. Moreover, the general political strength and thus the overall coordination capacity of the current National Action Party (Partido Accion Nacional, PAN) government was weakened during 2009 and 2010, as the midterm elections saw a strong comeback by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), which is now playing a crucial role in congress with regard to pending reforms.

Informal coordination mechanisms are central to governmental functioning and coordination in Portugal. The absence of formal structures of interministerial coordination is both a cause and a consequence of the degree of informality within the ministries and government. Moreover, the government’s inner core has retained its role as political coordinator. The new Sócrates government, which took office in October 2009, retained half (eight) of the ministers of the outgoing government. Of these, the ministers with important political roles all remained in office, indicating that the political inner core was being maintained. Finally, the PMO’s influence on ministries and agencies is also exerted largely through informal means. While these mechanisms have on the whole served the Sócrates governments well, there is evidence of increasing strain in terms of coordination in the new Sócrates government. As highlighted above, public signs of internal splits and rifts have become more common, and the coordination mechanisms have not yet fully adjusted to the conditions imposed by minority support in parliament, or to the pressures to control public expenditure.

In the Fico government, informal coordination procedures played a significant role in policy coordination. The leaders of the three parties in government met frequently and took major decisions in the coalition council. Press conferences after these meetings were rare. When they took place, very limited information about the decisions taken was given. The dominant role of the three party leaders in their parties also meant that a lot of policy coordination took place in party meetings.

Informal mechanisms of coordination are common and important in the Swedish system, although they may not always be effective. Such informality occurs both at the civil servant level as well as at the political level. Informal coordination procedures effectively filter many but not all policy proposals.

There are always informal mechanisms in governments, whether single party or coalition. These core groups are composed of senior party people, classmates or peers. However, these bodies basically design the general framework of an issue in consultation with the experts, while civil servants develop proposals and finally the upper administrative echelon finalizes the policy outcome.
The higher echelons of the ruling party in particular, in line with the relatively high number of younger ministers who have considerable experience in their fields, form a thick network of communication and debate, and contribute substantially to the preparation of policy.

Many, but not most policy proposals are coordinated through informal mechanisms, such as informal meetings with government members or across levels of government.

Informal coordination mechanisms have featured prominently in the Czech political culture. Under the Topolánek government, coalition party leaders met as required to resolve major policy disputes. The effectiveness of this practice in resolving disagreements is clear from the infrequency of open disputes in government. The Fischer government rested on an agreement made with all of the main political parties and was thus also highly dependent on informal coordination among the parties.

Most important policy decisions are taken by the coalition committee. This was true for both governments in power during the period under review. Both coalitions’ coalition committees were fairly successful in reaching compromises, even though in some cases no decision was made. Both were very successful in keeping conflicts out of cabinet sessions.

Most coordination mechanisms in the Greek government are informal. The PMO discusses policy proposals with ministers in ad hoc meetings; individual ministers inform one another of policy initiatives over the phone or in brief personal meetings; and advisers to the prime minister confer with ministers on policy issues when the prime minister selectively invites ministers to the PMO headquarters for consultation.

Looking at evidence of the recent past, there seems to have been growing levels of informal cooperation between groups of ministers outside cabinet meetings. There are examples of “super-ministerial groups,” as they are called in the parliament’s Special Investigation Commission (SIC) report. The SIC points out that examples of such cooperation dating from the time immediately after the collapse show there is a need for clear rules on reporting what is discussed and decided in such informal meetings. The SIC report also points out that there has been a tendency to move big decisions and important cooperative discussions into informal meetings between the chairmen of each coalition government party. A prime example is the case of the two ministers who decided essentially on their own to commit Iceland to participation in the war in Iraq in 2003.

The government program plays a significant role as an instrument for reducing controversies within the majority. Informal mechanisms of coordination such as meetings between the prime minister and other party leaders of the majority coalition, or simply among the party leaders themselves, play a significant role in guiding the policy-making process. In the Berlusconi government, a fairly institutionalized informal mechanism of coordination is the weekly dinner with Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League. When conflicts emerge between different ministers or between parties of the governing coalition, informal mechanisms play a particularly important role.

Despite the various attempts at strengthening the formal mechanisms of interministerial coordination, informal coordination mechanisms have continued to play an important role. For one thing, meetings of the coalition partners have been used for solving conflicts between PO- and PSL-led ministries. For another, many ministers have been active and high-ranking party members, so that part of the interministerial coordination takes place within the PO and PSL leaderships.

In Spain, the weakness of formal coordination among ministry civil servants (see Line Ministry Civil Servants) is to some extent compensated for by relatively effective informal procedures. When administrative coordination is needed because interministerial problems are real and cannot be solved by invoking vertical hierarchy, informal contacts or meetings between officials of the various ministries involved are organized. Many policy proposals can in fact be coordinated in this fashion (ad hoc working groups are rare but may also be created). As Spanish senior civil servants are clustered into different specialized bureaucratic corps, informal mechanisms rely often on the fact that officials involved in the coordination may belong to the same corps or share a network of old colleagues.
At a more political level, informal coordination procedures include weekly meetings of an inner core of ministers politically close to the prime minister. These meetings, held every Monday morning have been dubbed “matins” by journalists, and among others include the three deputy prime ministers and the ministers of the interior and for Infrastructure. Relations with the party governing structure are channeled through the prime minister himself (who is secretary general of the PSOE) and post-2009 Minister for Infrastructure José Blanco, the party’s deputy secretary general.

Belgian governments are always coalition governments and, normally, mechanisms such as the Council of Ministers enforce effective coordination within the government coalition. Political parties are also strong and well organized. Party presidents (some of whom also happen to be deputy prime ministers) are dominant figures who guide policymaking and enforce strong coordination within each party, such as at different government levels (regional and national). At both levels, a government must first be formed, during the process of which the party negotiates the government agreement. This agreement is very detailed and operates as an ex ante contract that limits possible deviations once the governing coalition is in office. Decisions are made collegially, and all government officials must defend the decisions made by the Council. Thus, as long as government decisions remain within the boundaries set by the government agreement, coalition committees and the weekly meetings of the Council effectively coordinate policy proposals.
There is however a noticeable exception for the period under review. Belgium suffered through a major political crisis from 2008 to 2009, just before the peak of the global financial crisis. Tensions among members of government were high and the government’s coordination mechanisms essentially collapsed. Prime Minister Yves Leterme had to step down after being accused of illegally trying to influence judicial action in the bankruptcy of Fortis. He was replaced briefly by Herman Van Rompuy, European Union president, who managed to revive political cohesion within the majority. Yves Leterme, once cleared of the original accusations, reclaimed the prime minister post when Herman Van Rompuy left. Yet Leterme had to delegate certain issues seen as politically sensitive to other informal mechanisms outside his responsibility, to avoid a potential repeat of the political crisis.

As minority governments, the Gyurcsány and Bajnai governments were dependent on the support of the liberal SzDSz, the former coalition partner of the MSzP. The necessary informal coordination turned out to be relatively easy, especially under Bajnai’s less partisan “expert” and “caretaker government.” Most liberal MPs accepted the case for reform and did not want to risk early elections. Under Prime Minister Gyurcsány, informal coordination within the socialist MSzP featured prominently as well. After all, Gyurcsány resigned because of its loss of authority in the MSzP.

Very little is actually known about informal coordination at the (sub-)cabinet level regarding policy- and decision-making. The best-known informal procedure is the so-called Torentjesoverleg in which the prime minister and core cabinet ministers consult with the leaders of political parties that support the coalition in parliament. Criticized as too “monistic” of a process and abolished in 2002, it has since been tacitly reinstalled. Coalition cabinets cannot survive without this kind of high-level political coordination between government and parliament. In addition, it is well known that politicians and (deputy) ministers use weekends for party-political and constituency work. How much coalition-coordination work actually takes place in this time span is unknown; but it cannot be much, given that (deputy) ministers also need time for their family and private life.
Under the present conditions in which civil servants are subject to increasing parliamentary and media scrutiny, and in which gaps in trust and loyalty between the political leadership and the bureaucracy staff are growing, informal coordination as well as personal chemistry among civil servants is what keeps things running. Regarding interministerial coordination, informal contacts between the senior staff working as advising counsels in the prime minister’s cabinet and senior officers working for ministerial leadership are absolutely crucial. Nonetheless, such coordination is trumped by insufficient or lacking informal political coordination. In the case of the Balkenende IV cabinet, the lack of political will to cooperate translated into insufficient informal political coordination, leading to the cabinet’s demise.

Most coordination between ministries is informal. However, it is not very effective due to the hierarchical government system. There is also a clear hierarchy structuring the ministries. Staffers at the newly created Ministry of Strategy and Finance see themselves as the elite among civil servants, and look down on other ministries. In addition, informal coordination processes tend to be plagued by nepotism and regional or peer-group loyalties (particularly among high-school and university alumni).