Partisanship, Ministers and Biotechnology Policy

Bäck, H., M. Debus and J. Tosun (2015). Partisanship, Ministers and Biotechnolgy Policy.

Review of Policy Resarch, forthcoming.

Hanna Bäck

Department of Political Science

Lund University

Hanna.Back@svet.lu.se

Marc Debus

School of Social Sciences

University of Mannheim

Marc.Debus@uni-mannheim.de

Jale Tosun*

Institute of Political Science,

Heidelberg University

Jale.Tosun@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de

*corresponding author

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Acknowledgements

This paper was presented at the 72nd annual MPSA conference held on April 3-6, 2014, in

Chicago, at the Annual Meeting of the Working Group “Handlungs- und

Entscheidungstheorie” of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) held on May

23-24, 2014, in Budapest, and at the 8th ECPR General Conference held on September 2-6,

2014, in Glasgow. We thank all participants of the panels where we presented the paper, but

in particular Bernhard Kittel, Monika Mühlböck, Eric Linhart, Paul Thurner and Reimut

Zohlnhöfer. We acknowledge valuable research assistance of Tristan Klingelhöfer and

language editing by James Ferrell.

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Partisanship, Ministers and Biotechnology Policy

Introduction

Green biotechnology has become a controversial area of policy-making in the European

Union (EU). Research has provided many insights in the evolution of public resistance

against the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the last two decades (see, e.g.,

Lieberman & Gray, 2006; Kurzer & Cooper, 2007; Levidow & Boschert, 2008; Seifert,

2009). What is less understood to date is what role political parties have played in the

regulation of biotechnology. To reduce this gap, we are interested in how the ideological

composition of cabinets and the presence of parties with a specific ideological background

and particular interests that hold ministerial posts affect regulation of GMOs. Several studies

revealed that ideological orientations and policy-specific positions of political parties have an

impact on legislative outputs (see, e.g., Hibbs, 1977, 1992; Schmidt, 1996; Cusack, 1997,

1999; Bräuninger, 2005; Martin & Vanberg, 2004, 2011; Schulze, 2014; Cazals & Sauquet,

2015). But how does the partisan composition of a government, its programmatic orientation

and the allocation of cabinet offices in (coalition) governments affect policy-making in a

specific issue like biotechnology? Does the control over the ministry in charge of this specific

issue by a party affect the instituting of a ban for biotech crops? Does the mere cabinet

presence of a party, which has a specific interest and position on the respective issue,

influence decision making in this policy area? These are the three main research questions

guiding this study.

To answer them, we hypothesize that biotechnology policy is shaped by the degree to

which the ideological orientation of a government is pro-environment, societally conservative

or skeptical towards European integration. We contend that the mere presence of agrarian,

Christian democratic and green parties within a government results in the adoption of a ban

on the commercial cultivation of biotech crops. The latter should take place in particular if

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parties from these three party families control the cabinet post in charge of environmental

issues. We evaluate our hypotheses by employing an original dataset that contains

information on GMO cultivation bans in 27 EU member states in the time period from 1996

until 2013, the partisan composition of their governments, the party affiliation of key cabinet

actors and the policy positions of (coalition) governments. Our results show that the presence

of a Christian democratic party in cabinet increases the chances of a ban on biotech crops.

This effect holds true in particular when a Christian democratic party controls the

environment ministry.

The remainder of this paper consists of five main parts. We first provide a short

illustration of the history of EU biotechnoloy regulation in an attempt to set the stage for the

more specific analysis of cultivation bans on GMOs. In the second part, we introduce our

theoretical reasoning and derive some hypotheses. We then discuss the conceptualization and

measurement of the dependent variable. The fourth part presents the findings of our empirical

analysis, and finally we summarize our findings and present some concluding remarks.

Main characteristics of EU biosafety policy

European biosafety policy begins with the adoption of Council Directive 90/219/EEC on the

contained use of GMOs and Council Directive 90/220/EEC on the deliberate release into the

environment of GMOs in 1990. According to the Council Directive 90/220/EEC, farmers or

companies seeking to market or release GMOs had to apply for permission to the competent

national authority of the respective member state. While this directive allowed the cultivation

of GMOs, it also gave the EU member states the possibility to invoke safeguard bans that

would provisionally restrict or even ban the use and/or sale of that product in their territories

(Tosun, 2013: 1523. These safeguard bans had to be based on new scientific evidence about

health or environmental hazards and were subject to approval by the European Commission

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(for an overview, see e.g., Pollack & Shaffer, 2010). Directive 2001/18/EC replaced Council

Directive 90/220/EEC and established a tighter regulatory regime. The new directive was

adopted following the Environment Council meeting in June 1999, when a de facto

moratorium on the authorization of new GMOs was put in place (Lieberman & Gray, 2006).

The de facto moratorium was inspired by two GMO-skeptical groups of member states. The

first group comprised Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, which did not want

to approve any new marketing of GMOs. Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, the

Netherlands and Sweden formed the second group asking for more stringent rules and

indicating that they would authorize no further GMO releases (Tromans, 2001; Lieberman &

Gray, 2006; Tosun, 2014).

Despite the tightening of the regulatory framework by the adoption of Directive

2001/18/EC, GMO-skeptical governments kept insisting on even more stringent EU

regulations (Pollack & Shaffer, 2010). In 2009, 13 member states approached the European

Commission and called for more flexibility to decide not to cultivate GMOs in their territory.

As a result in 2010, the European Commission adopted a proposal which gave additional

possibilities to the EU member states to ban or restrict the cultivation of GMOs in their

territory. In July 2011, the European Parliament issued a positive first reading opinion on the

proposal and presented some amendments, and the Council finally adopted a political

agreement in June 2014, which paved the way for the formal adoption of the proposal.

Overall, the EU’s regulatory framework is characterized by a generally positive approach

towards GMOs by EU institutions and the member states in the early 1990s. In the course of

time, the rules have become more ‘precautionary’ and in fact the most recent political

developments mean that the authorization of GMO cultivation will eventually become re-

nationalized. The European Commission’s decision to take this rather drastic step is a

consequence of the dual pressure it has been confronted with: internal pressure from the

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member states to introduce stricter and external pressure from World Trade Organization

members to faciliate the commercial cultivation of GMOs (Skogstad, 2011).

State of research and theoretical argument

In this section we first review the existing research on our key research questions and then

build on the insights gained to formulate our theoretical argument.

Partisan policy-making

Several studies show that policy decisions are influenced by the partisan composition and the

ideological orientation of parties in government (e.g. Hibbs, 1977, 1992; Schmidt, 1996;

Cusack, 1997, 1999; Imbeau, Pétry, & Lamari, 2001; Bräuninger, 2005; Martin & Vanberg,

2004, 2011; Schulze, 2014; Tosun, 2014; Cazals & Sauquet, 2015). The basic argument is

that political parties represent specific segments in the electorate, which have specific

interests. The social groups that parties represent want to see their policy preferences

implemented. Therefore, parties in parliament and government are expected to make an effort

to satisfy the interests of their voters and implement their policy preferences. This should

increase the chances for parties and their candidates to maximize their vote share in the next

election, so the likelihood increases that the party gains control over governmental offices

and makes it easier to implement the party’s policy position. Hence, parties are assumed to be

instrumentally or intrinsically policy-seeking (e.g., Downs, 1957; Müller & Strøm, 1999).

In terms of economic and welfare policy, the basic argument is that the control over the

government by a left-wing party or its simple presence as a coalition partner increases the

chances for a stronger presence of the state in the economy and an interventionist welfare

state (e.g., Franzese, 2002). The presence of green parties in government should result in

more environment-friendly decisions (e.g., Jahn, 1998, 2000; Scruggs, 1999; Neumayer,

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2003; Schulze, 2014). There are mixed findings when it comes to the impact of Green party

presence in government or parliament on environmental policy outputs. Previous research

show that voting behavior is influenced by perceived distances between the position of a

voter and of the parties or candidates that run for office on an environmental policy

dimension (e.g., Thurner, 2000; Thurner & Eymann, 2000). Parties should have incentives to

implement their environmental policy goals once in power.

Numerous studies have shown that not only the basic ideological orientation of parties –

indicated by their ‘membership’ in a party family – influences policy decisions but also the

specific ideological orientation of parties (e.g., Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006;

Volkens et al., 2014) matters in policy-making. Bräuninger (2005), for instance, shows that

the specific economic position of a government rather than its general left-right position

makes a difference for explaining government expenditures (see also Knill, Debus, &

Heichel, 2010). Bräuninger & Debus (2009) demonstrate that policy-area positions and issue

area saliencies matter for the legislative activity not only of the government and the parties

that support the cabinet but also for the individual members of parliament. Studies by Herzog

(2012) and Alexiadou (2012) show that policy change is associated with changes in the party

that controls the social ministry.

Coalition governance and portfolio allocation

Another strand of relevant literature refers to governance in coalition cabinets in general and

office allocation in particular (see, e.g., Strøm, Müller, & Bergman, 2003, 2008). Most of the

studies that aim at explaining portfolio allocation more specifically have focused on the

‘quantitative’ aspect of portfolio allocation, and several authors have shown that there is an

almost perfect one-to-one proportionality between the share of portfolios received by a party

participating in a governing coalition and the share of that party’s coalition parliamentary

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seats, a relationship dubbed ‘Gamson’s Law’ (see, e.g., Gamson 1961; Warwick &

Druckman, 2006). Some authors have also focused on the more ‘qualitative’ aspect of

portfolio allocation, or the question of: who gets what in terms of ministerial payoffs, and

why? The underlying assumption is that parties may have specific portfolio preferences since

“each party has a particular set of policy concerns, seeing control over a specific portfolio as

an instrumental means of advancing these” (Laver & Schofield, 1990: 183), given a certain

degree of ministerial autonomy.

For example, Budge and Keman (1990: 90) specified “the general policy objectives of

each party, in relation to ministries”. The authors ranked the latter “in order of their

importance to the party” (Budge and Keman 1990: 90). This a priori ranking of general party

policy interests was supposed to indicate substantive preferences of parties for specific

ministries. Bäck, Debus and Dumont (2011) build on these findings and argue that parties

which emphasize themes corresponding to the policy remit of specific cabinet portfolios

during election campaigns are more likely to obtain control over these portfolios. The authors

show that policy saliency is indeed an important predictor of portfolio allocation in postwar

Western European parliamentary democracies.

An important theoretical contribution is Laver and Shepsle’s (1996) portfolio allocation

model, which argues a proposed policy position must correspond to the position of the party

assigned to the portfolio that controls this specific policy dimension to be credible (for a

discussion, see Laver & Hunt, 1992; Warwick, 1999). We follow this reasoning and argue

that individual ministers matter for policy decisions (see also, e.g., Herzog 2012).

A completely different view follows the work by Tsebelis (2002) and assumes that “each

coalition party is a veto player that can maintain the status quo policy position against the

demands of its coalition partner or partners” (Strøm, Müller, & Bergman, 2008: 523).

According to Tsebelis (2002: 96), any coalition party is a veto player, regardless of the

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allocation of cabinet portfolios, and no policy decisions are taken without the support of each

coalition party. In this view, the mere presence of a party in cabinet could lead to a specific

policy output or to a ‘deadlock’ of decision-making.

Hence, the previous literature has presented two ‘extreme’ types of coalition governance

models: (1) the so called veto player model, where policy-making is characterized by the fact

that each player or party in the cabinet is able to veto certain proposals, thereby shaping

government policy in line with the party’s preferences, and (2) the so called ministerial

discretion model, where each minister has a high level of autonomy, allowing ministers to

influence policy in the area controlled by their department in line with their preferences.

Neither of these models are a realistic depiction of policy-making in coalition

governments. As argued by Müller and Strøm (2000: 18), governments do not give complete

autonomy to individual cabinet ministers or department heads. As suggested by Bäck, Müller

and Nyblade (2013), “holding a particular portfolio gives the respective party strong (though

not exclusive) influence over the policy-making in the respective domain and the other

parties’ abilities to veto decisions are considerably constrained”. Several coalition scholars

have also stressed the fact that coalition governments are likely to reach compromises about

policy decisions, which are described in a comprehensive and detailed coalition agreement

(e.g. Strøm, Müller, & Bergman, 2008). According to this third model, called here as the

coalition compromise model, parties are assumed to make compromises and influence policy

according to their joint preferences.

On the basis of these three coalition models, we can formulate expectations about how

partisanship should affect policy decisions. Before doing so, we briefly review the previous

literature in the field of biotechnical regulation.

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Research on biotechnology policy

The issue we study here touches not only a policy area of interest for green parties and their

supporters because of its relevance for environmental protection but is also relevant for

parties that represent the interests of citizens working in the agricultural sector and of

religious segments in the electorate (e.g., Legge & Durant, 2010). Consequently, Tosun

(2014) argues on the basis of the party family concept that, besides green parties, agrarian

and confessional parties should also have incentives to shape the design of biotechnology

policy.

The expectation for the impact of green parties is very straightforward. Being the key

allies of the anti-GMO social movements (Kurzer & Cooper, 2007; Weber, Rao, & Thomas,

2009), green parties in government cabinet should increase the likelihood of restrictive

biotechnology policies. Christian democratic parties stress the importance of religious values

and propose policies in accordance with these values in parliament and government (see, e.g.,

Minkenberg, 2002; Bale & Szczerbiak, 2008; Fink, 2008). Religious groups tend to regard

biotechnology as something that is at odds with the Christian ethic of respect for creation and

harmony between nature and human beings. The policy programs of the European Peoples

Party (EPP) stress the connection and the requirement for a balance between environmental

protection, research and development and the goal of ensuring the integrity of creation. For

instance, the EPP action program for the election to the European parliament in 1989

mentioned that “our understanding of environmental protection reflects our Christian view of

mankind and of the human’s responsibility for creation” (EPP, 1988: 29). The EPP manifesto

of 1989 also mentioned that research and technology should always reflect the integrity of

creation (EPP, 1988: 33). In their 1994 election manifesto, they argued that developing

countries should enact an economic and environmental policy that helps saving creation

(EPP, 1993: 58-59). Moreover, the section on environmental policy in the 1999 EPP action

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program was entitled “integrity of creation” (EPP, 1999). Finally, the EPP manifestos from

the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections for the European parliament stress sustainability and its

relevance for the integrity of creation. On that basis, we argue that the participation of

Christian democratic parties in government should also increase the chances of a restrictive

biotechnology policy.

Agrarian parties might also potentially affect the design of biotechnology policy (see, e.g.,

Kurzer & Cooper, 2007; Konefal & Busch, 2010). Even though agrarian parties have

widened their policy profile significantly in the last decades, they still represent the interests

of the countryside and the economic interests of farmers (Batory & Sitter, 2004: 528; Linhart,

2010). In an empirical analysis, which focuses on biotechnology policy in Central and

Eastern Europe, Tosun (2014) argues that agrarian parties tend to represent the interests of

small-scale farmers, who are less inclined to cultivate GMOs on average and therefore favor

stricter rules. We follow this argument here and expect that agrarian parties in government

should push for more restrictive biotechnology policy.

Presentation of the hypotheses

How does partisanship influence biotechnology policy? Does it matter which party holds a

specific ministry, or is it rather the presence of a particular party in cabinet, or the overall

center-of-gravity that matters for policy-making? To derive specific hypotheses here, we rely

on the three coalition governance models presented above. In table 1, we give an overview of

these predictions, which are further elaborated on below.

***Table 1 about here***

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Following Tsebelis’ (2002) veto player model, it is possible to argue that the mere presence

of a political party from the aforementioned party families in the national governments

should matter for policy-making. The argument is that parties should be able to act as veto

players in government and individual parties should have a lasting impact on cultivation ban

policies.1 Our first hypothesis is:

H1. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases with the participation of an agrarian, Christian democratic or green party in

national government.

Drawing on recent work on the impact of environmental policy positions of governments on

the number of implemented environmental policy outputs in modern democracies, we also

hypothesize that the positions of parties in coalition governments should matter for

environmental policy-making. Knill, Debus and Heichel (2010) demonstrate that it is not the

simple participation of Green or left-libertarian parties in a government or the left-right

position of government parties that matters but rather the overall degree of saliency of

environmental protection of the parties participating in government that matters for

explaining policy outputs on environmental issues. Thus following this insight and the

reasoning of the coalition compromise model, we should gain more insights on explaining the

design of biotechnology if we incorporate the policy-specific position of a (coalition)

government, or its programmatic ‘center of gravity’:

H2a. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases with the government parties’ support for environmental protection.

In addition to environmental concerns, biotechnology is also associated with how progressive

a society is and whether it is based on social-conservative values (see, e.g., Twadorski &

Małyska, 2012: 250). Therefore, we suggest that a specific measure of the societal position of

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a government and of the weight a government attached to issues related to the order of

society should allow for a more precise explanation of the design of biotechnology policy. On

the basis of these considerations, we formulate the following hypothesis:

H2b. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases with the government parties’ support for social-conservative values.

Finally, the government parties’ views on European integration should matter for the

biotechnology policy. The authorization of GMOs has been pushed by the European

Commission. Whenever the member states tried to invoke safeguard bans, the European

Commission tried to overturn them (see, e.g., Pollack & Shaffer, 2010; Skogstad, 2011;

Tosun, 2014). From this, it follows that instituting cultivation bans on GMOs represented a

politically costly step for the member states’ governments. Thus, the ideological contestation

must be very high for a government to challenge the European Commission by instituting

such a ban. Therefore, it is conceivable that there is also a European dimension to this

particular policy issue that must be taken into account.

National governments with more skeptical positions on European integration might use the

GMO issue to signal their anti-EU position towards Brussels and towards their voters in the

respective countries. We present an additional hypothesis and argue that:

H2c. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases with the government parties’ holding skeptical view on European integration.

Even though the literature on partisan effects has mainly focused on analyzing the aggregate

representation of certain parties in cabinet, we believe that it is important to also consider the

role of individual cabinet ministers when analyzing such partisan effects. This idea is based

on an assumption that all politicians are policy-seeking, either because they intrinsically care

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about implementing their policy preferences or because they care about this for instrumental

reasons (Müller & Strøm, 1999).

Hence, we expect that when a politician is appointed minister, they should aim for

implementing a certain policy position. Drawing on the ministerial discretion model of

coalition governance, we thus suggest taking into consideration which party wins control

over which cabinet posts in a (coalition) government. If a political party controls a cabinet

office related to a specific issue, it has the power to implement its policy positions. This

implies we must pay attention to which party is able to win control over the cabinet portfolio

that controls issues related to environmental policy in general and biotechnology regulation in

particular.

Related to the findings by Budge and Keman (1990) and Bäck, Debus and Dumont (2011),

we assume that parties from the family of agrarian, Christian democratic and green parties are

more likely to control the ministry of the environment and/or the ministry of agriculture. If an

agrarian, Christian democratic or green party gains control of the Ministry of the

Environment or the Ministry of Agriculture, then we should observe more restrictive

biotechnology policies:

H3a. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases if an agrarian, Christian democratic or green party controls the Ministry of

Environment.

H3b. The likelihood that an EU member state adopts stricter rules on biotechnology

increases if an agrarian, Christian democratic or green party controls the Ministry of

Agriculture.

To sum up, we hypothesize that stricter rules on biotechnology are more likely if an agrarian,

Christian democratic or green party participates in the national government (H1; veto player

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model), if the overall position of the governing parties is in favor of environmental protection,

the more societally conservative the parties in cabinet are and the more skeptical towards

European integration the governing parties are (H2; coalition compromise model). In

addition, we suggest that ministerial allocation matters for the design of biotechnology and

expect stricter rules when an agrarian, Christian democratic or green party controls the

relevant ministry -i.e. the ministry of environment or agriculture (H3; ministerial discretion

model).

Method and data

To evaluate our hypotheses, we take into consideration one specific aspect of biotechnology

policy: the instituting of a cultivation ban on biotech crops as the measurement of the

dependent variable. Furthermore, data is required on the partisan composition of

governments, the programmatic profiles of the parties and the patterns of office allocation. In

particular, we need information on the partisan affiliation of the Minister of Environment and

the Minister of Agriculture. We make use of several data sources, which are described below.

Our cases include 27 EU member states; Croatia is excluded from this analysis since it

only joined the EU in 2013. The observation period starts in 1996 and ends in 2013. Of

course, the starting dates vary across the different types of EU member states. For the EU-15,

the observation period starts in 1996. For the EU-10, it begins in 2003 and for Bulgaria and

Romania in 2006. For all cases, the observation period starts one year before a ban could

principally be instituted. In the case of the EU-15, this refers to the authorization of the first

GMO product for cultivation in 1997, while for the other countries a ban was only possible

after they had formally joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. In the following two subsections, we

describe in greater detail the data sources for the dependent and independent variables. In

addition, we present the statistical approach applied.

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The dependent variables

This analysis uses two dependent variables. The first dependent variable is the instituting of a

ban on the cultivation of the commercially most relevant GMO product: MON810 maize.

Austria banned MON810 maize in 1999, Bulgaria in 2010, France in 2008, Germany in 2009,

Greece in 2005, Hungary in 2005, Italy in 2004, Latvia in 2009, Luxembourg in 2009 and

Poland in 2013. While MON810 maize is the single most important GMO product that is

currently cultivated in the Czech Republic, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain, it is not

the only GMO product authorized in the EU. In some cases, MON810 maize was not the first

GMO product that was banned in a member state. While a detailed overview over the various

bans that have been adopted by individual countries over time with respect to different GMO

products would go beyond the scope of this paper, it should be noted that these can be found

in the work by Lieberman and Gray (2006), Sabalza et al. (2011) and Tosun (2014).

Since we regard the most important decision taken by policy-makers at the national level

the first time they decided to deviate from EU rules, we need another dependent variable that

captures this aspect. The second dependent variable refers to the point in time when the first

ban on the commercial cultivation on any GMO product was instituted, regardless of the

exact specification of that product. The first ban instituted in Austria was in 1997 (Bt176

maize), in Bulgaria in 2010 (MON810), in France in 1998 (MS1 x RF1 rapeseed), in

Germany in 2000 (Bt176 maize), in Greece in 1997 (Bt176 maize), in Hungary in 2004

(MON810), in Italy in 2004 (general ban on all GMOs authorized in the EU), in Latvia in

2009 (general ban on all GMOs authorized in the EU), in Luxembourg in 1997 (Bt176 maize)

and in Poland in 2013 (MON810). It should be pointed out that the bulk of first bans adopted

by the West European member states fall within the crucial time frame of the de facto

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moratorium (1999-2004) or prior to that, which suggests that this event is potentially relevant

for explaining subsequent cultivation bans.

The measurement of the dependent variables is binary, taking the value 0 for each year

when no cultivation ban was adopted and 1 otherwise. This produces a dataset of yearly

events. Figure 1 presents the Nelson-Aalen cumulative hazard estimates for the two

dependent variables, which shows how the hazard (for adopting a ban) develops over time.

For the ban on MON810 maize, the hazard gets greater over time and then levels off, while

the hazard levels off much quicker for the second dependent variable.

***Figure 1 about here***

Explanatory variables and estimation strategy

We have compiled a dataset that contains information on the partisan composition of

governments, the strength of government parties and their policy positions on environmental

and societal issues. In addition, we coded whether a party from the agrarian, Christian

democratic or green party family controlled the ministry of the environment and the ministry

of agriculture within the respective cabinets on the basis of the Comparative Manifesto

Project (Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006; Volkens et al., 2014).2 Information on

the composition of governments, on which party held the ministry of environment and the

ministry of interior and on how many seats the respective parties held in parliament, were

mainly obtained from the ParlGov database (Manow & Döring, 2013).3 This data was

supplemented by internet-based research that relied heavily on the European Journal of

Political Research Data Yearbook and on entries by the websites of the respective national

governments.

While this information allows for evaluating our first and third hypotheses, more detailed

information is required regarding the measurement of the policy-area specific positions

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governments adopt on the policy dimensions in focus -the center of gravity of the cabinets.

Since the Comparative Manifesto Project dataset covers issue saliencies only and assumes

that one can derive policy positions on the basis of issue saliencies (see, e.g., Laver, 2001;

Benoit, Mikhaylov, & Laver, 2009), we need to identify a data source that provides

information on the positions of parties on the respective issues studied here. One such source

is expert surveys that differentiate between several policy areas like Laver and Hunt (1992),

Warwick (2006) or Benoit and Laver (2006). We refer to the Benoit and Laver (2006) survey,

conducted in the time period between 2003 and 2004.4 The authors provide information on

the position on a societal policy dimension – measured by a dimension related to issues like

abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia –, on an environmental policy dimension and on a

dimension that differentiates between positive and negative stances on European integration.

The environmental policy dimension emphasizes the relationship between the environment

and the economy, differentiates between support of protection of the environment even at the

cost of economic growth and support of economic growth even at the cost of damage to the

environment.

On the basis of the Benoit and Laver (2006) policy position data and the dataset on the

partisan composition of governments and the seat share of the governing parties (measured as

the seat share that they contribute to the overall number of parliamentary seats controlled by

the government), we calculated the government’s ‘center of gravity’ regarding the position of

the government on societal, environmental and EU integration policy (Gross & Sigelman,

1984). This allows for evaluating hypotheses 2a-c, which focus on the impact of the policy

positions of the cabinet as a whole on biotechnical policy-making.

In addition to these main explanatory variables, a number of control variables are included

in the estimation models, which are all time-varying. The variable share of employment in the

agricultural sector assesses the economic importance of agriculture. The data is taken from

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the World Development Indicators. The variable new EU member state distinguishes between

member states that joined the EU before and after 2004. It is analytically necessary to

differentiate between the old and the new EU member states since the EU had put significant

pressure on the latter to demonstrate conformity with European rules and guidelines when

they still were accession candidates (Tosun, 2014).

We then include the variable cultivation to check whether the member states commercially

cultivate MON810 as reported by the Monsanto Company on an annual basis. Despite being

authorized in 1998, the cultivation of MON810 only started in 2003 in Spain and was then

extended to a handful other member states. The commercial cultivation of MON810 maize

can have two different effects. First, it can indicate that there are interests that seek to

maintain the legal status of GMOs in an EU member state. Second, a government can be

more likely to consider banning the cultivation of GMOs if there are any GMO products

cultivated on its territory. Any ban needs to be justified vis-à-vis the European Commission,

so a rational policy maker is expected to evade these costs if there is no threat arising from

GMOs. This variable is lagged by one year to make sure that there is no simultaneity between

the year in which a ban is adopted and the cultivation of GMOs.

Furthermore, we include a dummy variable that indicates which member states urged the

European Commission to institute a moratorium on the authorization of new GMOs in 1999.

This variable seeks to capture a long-lasting and particularly strong anti-GMO position of

some EU member states. Finally, we control for whether the ban on MON810 was the first

cultivation ban instituted by a national government or whether it succeeded an already

existing ban for another GMO product (prior ban). Table 2 provides an overview of the

variation in our independent variables.

***Table 2 about here***

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In light of the characteristics of our dependent variables, which focus on predicting when a

specific ban was implemented, the analysis is based on event history or duration models.

Such models are useful when the dependent variable of interest is the time to the occurrence

of an event, which in our case is the implementation of a GMO ban. We rely on the Cox

proportional hazards model, which focuses on the relationship between the dependent

variable and the covariates of theoretical interest but leaves the shape of the transition rate as

unspecified as possible (see Box-Steffensmeier & Jones, 2004).

Empirical analysis

We estimate five models in order to evaluate our hypotheses. The results are presented in

table 3. The first model includes the control variables only as a base model. It covers the

countries’ share of employment in the agricultural sector in a given year. Model 1 also covers

the variables cultivation and moratorium and includes a dummy variable that differentiates

between old and new member states. None of the effects of the other independent variables

reach statistical significance, as the results of the Cox model show, except for the variable

that provides information on whether or not a country already previously adopted a ban on

GMOs. Only after introducing the political variables, the statistical models reach a higher

share of explanatory power and provide more coefficients that are significantly different from

zero. Model 2 includes information on the question as to whether a party from the agrarian,

Christian democratic or green party family is included in the government. In line with our

first hypothesis, we find that the simple presence of a Christian party in the cabinet results in

an increase of the odds for instituting a ban. While this finding is line with the ones found by

Tosun (2014), we find no significant impact of the governmental presence of an agrarian or

green party. This effect indicates that – even when controlling for further, theoretically

19

derived variables – the simple presence of a Christian Democratic party in a national

government matters for policy-making in an area that is influenced by ethical and moral

issues.

Models 3, 4 and 5 introduce variables that cover information on the government’s center

of gravity in terms of their positions on environmental, societal and European policy. The

effects of these variables are not statistically significant. This indicates that neither a

government with more social-conservative or traditional positions on societal issues nor a

government that places environmental protection over economic growth is more likely to

implement a ban on MON810 maize. Also, the position of a government regarding further

steps on European integration does not matter for the likelihood that a country implements a

ban on biotech maize in the 27 European countries under study.

While these findings do not support hypotheses 2 a-c, we find evidence in models 4 and 5

that the control over the ministry of the environment or the ministry of agriculture by parties

from one of the three party families matters for the instituting of a ban.5 Once a Christian

democratic party controls the ministry of the environment or the ministry of agriculture, the

respective country is much more likely to implement a cultivation ban. Combining this

finding with the effect of the presence of a Christian democratic party in cabinet suggests that

parties from this party family seem to do everything to ban biotech maize and even when in

conflict with EU law. This provides some support for the ministerial discretion model. We do

not find a similar pattern in case of agrarian parties, when they win control over the ministry

of the environment.

***Table 3 about here***

20

Table 4 presents the results of the same regression models but with the inclusion of a variable

that provides information on whether the ban on MON810 maize was the first ban ever

instituted or whether it was preceded by a ban on another biotech product. In this way, we

seek to take into account potential path-dependent processes, for which we find no empirical

support. As the results reveal, there is still evidence that the control of a Christian democratic

party over the ministry of the environment results in a higher likelihood that a country

introduces an early ban of GMOs (model 4). There are no effects when we shift our focus on

the ministry of agriculture and the control of this portfolio by a Christian democratic party.

***Table 4 about here***

Finally, we analyze the determinants of the first-ever ban instituted on a GMO product. We

find that – at least on the basis of the third model presented in Table 5 – if a Christian

democratic party is represented in the national government, then the chances significantly

increase that an EU member state will implement a ban on GMOs. Thus, our findings

demonstrate that the presence of specific political parties in the government – more precisely

of Christian democratic parties – matter for the regulation of biotechnology.

***Table 5 about here***

Concluding remarks

How do the partisan composition of a government, its programmatic orientation and the

allocation of cabinet offices in (coalition) governments affect policy-making in

biotechnology? Does the control over the ministry in charge of this specific issue by a party

affect the instituting of a ban for biotech crops? Does the mere cabinet presence of a party,

21

which has a specific interest and position on the respective issue, influence decision making

in this policy area?

Our findings show that a ban on biotech crops was much more likely if a Christian

democratic party was in government and/or in charge of the ministry of the environment.

There is no evidence that the governmental presence of agrarian and green parties matter. In

contrast, the effect of Christian democratic parties’ government membership is quite robust,

suggesting that there is a ‘religious’ component to the debate on GMOs that needs to be taken

into account (see also, e.g., Minkenberg, 2002; Fink, 2008). This implies that ‘parties do

matter’ also in case of very complex policy issues that are related to several different policy

areas. It could be characterized as a sort of ‘least likely case’ for finding support for a partisan

hypothesis. This sets incentives for a more detailed study on the intra-party ‘handling’ of

specific policy issues. Since the institutional foundations of decision-making in cabinets

varies across Europe (see, e.g., Andeweg 2000; Kam et al., 2010), future research could look

at the impact of the partisan affiliation of the prime minister and the policy goals mentioned

in the coalition agreement. Such agreements offer clearly defined statements on the

negotiated policy compromises and the prospective policies of the government during the

following legislative term (see, e.g., Timmermans, 1998, 2006; Müller & Strøm, 2008).

If the ‘cabinet principle’ dominates in a country, then the likelihood should increase that

not only the simple presence of a party in the government matters for policy outcomes but

also the preferences of other government parties. This could be included in the coalition

agreement. Adopting such a perspective would help us to gain an improved understanding of

the decision-making process on complex issues in (coalition) governments like

biotechnology. Hence, we suggest that when analyzing the effect of the partisan profile of the

cabinet minister on environmental policy, we should also take into account that we may be

dealing with very different institutional contexts. One feature that is especially important to

22

consider when analyzing partisan effects of ministers is the institutional degree of ministerial

autonomy. As described above, ministers should always have some degree of discretion, but

this type of institutional feature is likely to vary across countries. In some countries, ministers

have considerable discretion to act on their own right, whereas this is not the case in other

polities. Partisan effects of ministers should be pronounced in contexts where the ministers

are not highly constrained by the prime minister or the cabinet as a whole.

Moreover, there are incentives to study the impact of exogenous shocks or events on the

design of biotechnology policy (see, e.g., Carmines & Stimson, 1986; Laver & Shepsle,

1998). If parties and their representatives in parliament and government are vote-seeking

actors, they should do everything to satisfy the interests of the voters that resulted from an

exogenous shock related to GMOs. This would increase policy responsiveness and the quality

of a representative democracy (see, e.g., Powell, 2000, 2004). In these cases, agrarian,

Christian democratic and green parties should be even more likely to implement new, critical

policies regarding the use biotech crops. Otherwise, they risk losing credibility among their

core voter clientele and votes in forthcoming elections.

We know from studies focusing on veto points and veto players in modern democracies

that specific institutional barriers must be taken before a new policy is implemented

(Tsebelis, 2002). From this perspective, it appears promising to study how parties and their

representatives behave after an exogenous shock related to the GMOs. And how they tackle

the institutional constraints in order to satisfy the interests of their voters.

23

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Figure 1. Nelson-Aalen curves for the two dependent variables (left panel: cultivation bans

on MON810; right panel: first cultivation bans)0.

000.

250.

500.

751.

00

0 5 10 15 20Years to ban

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

0 5 10 15 20Years to ban

Note: In the left panel the observation begins in 1997 for the old EU member states and in the

right panel in 1996.

30

Table 1. Predictions derived from three coalition governance models

Coalition governance model Argument Specific predictions

Veto player model Individual parties in

government can

veto/implement policies

Stringent biotechnology policy more likely to be

implemented when… Greens are in cabinet

Christian Democrats are in cabinet

Agrarians are in cabinet

Coalition compromise model The aggregate preferences

in the cabinet matter for

policy implementation

Stringent biotechnology policy to be implemented

when the cabinet centre of gravity is… More pro-environmental

More socially conservative

More skeptical to EU integration

Ministerial discretion model The preferences of the

party controlling the

relevant ministry matters

for policy implementation

Stringent biotechnology policy more likely to be

implemented when Greens, Christian Democrats

or Agrarians hold post as… Minister of Environment

Minister of Agriculture

31

Table 2. Descriptive statistics

Variable N Average SD Min. Max.Party family in cabinetGreen party 396 .141 .349 0 1Christian party 396 .341 .475 0 1Agrarian party 396 .124 .330 0 1Cabinet center of gravityPosition environmental policy 375 12.34 2.21 7.01 17.35Position European integration 375 7.89 3.56 1.79 17.60Position societal policy 375 10.45 3.43 4.39 17.16Minister of EnvironmentGreen party 396 .114 .318 0 1Christian party 396 .124 .330 0 1Agrarian party 396 .061 .239 0 1Minister of AgricultureGreen party 396 .030 .172 0 1Christian party 396 .187 .390 0 1Agrarian party 396 .101 .302 0 1ControlsShare of employees in the agricultural sector 369 5.92 5.19 1 30.5New member state 396 .318 .466 0 1Cultivation 369 .152 .359 0 1Moratorium 369 .203 .403 0 1Prior ban 369 .125 .331 0 1

32

Table 3. Event history analyses of the determinants of cultivation bans on MON810 maize (1997–2013)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5Party family in cabinet

Green party 0.94 (-0.07) 0.93 (-0.10) 1.94 (0.68) 2.15 (0.76)Christian party 2.92 (1.78)* 3.43 (1.93)* 2.71 (1.82)* 0.59 (-0.28)Agrarian party 1.90 (0.99) 1.34 (0.41) 7.28 (1.35) 2.65 (0.90)

Cabinet center of gravityPosition environmental policy 1.12 (0.77) 0.99 (-0.05) 1.28 (1.19)Position European integration 1.03 (0.38) 1.05 (0.50) 1.12 (1.42)Position societal policy 1.06 (0.53) 1.15 (0.78) 1.09 (0.62)

Minister of EnvironmentChristian party 39.37 (2.13)**

Agrarian party 0.23 (-0.96)Minister of Agriculture

Christian party 35.24 (1.65)*

ControlsShare of employees in theagricultural sector

1.02 (0.47) 1.01 (0.17) 1.02 (0.33) 0.93 (-0.75) 1.05 (0.90)

New EU member state 4.65 (1.49) 4.44 (1.29) 7.01 (1.43) 10.06 (1.90)* 26.39 (2.22)**

Cultivation 1.04 (0.05) 1.17 (0.15) 0.98 (-0.02) 1.88 (0.74) 1.38 (0.53)Moratorium 7.03 (2.27)** 7.27 (2.09)** 6.29 (2.00)** 6.34 (2.46)** 6.70 (1.98)**

N 310 310 298 298 298pseudo R2 0.103 0.155 0.187 0.347 0.307AIC 60.52 63.45 66.84 61.61 61.92

Remarks: The dependent variable refers to changes implying a partial or complete cultivation ban for MON810 maize. Reported are hazard ratios: a hazard ratio larger than 1indicates a positive relationship and a hazard ratio smaller than 1 a negative relationship; t statistics in parentheses.* = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01.

33

Table 4. Event history analyses of the determinants of cultivation bans on MON810 maize with prior ban (1997–2013)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5Party family in cabinet

Green party 0.97 (-0.04) 1.43 (0.53) 2.11 (0.90) 2.28 (0.75)Christian party 1.94 (0.89) 2.80 (1.08) 1.74 (0.42) 0.77 (-0.14)Agrarian party 2.22 (1.18) 1.98 (0.77) 6.74 (1.13) 2.60 (0.90)

Cabinet center of gravityPosition environmental policy 1.47 (2.16)** 1.21 (1.32) 1.40 (2.14)**

Position European integration 1.05 (0.47) 1.08 (0.76) 1.11 (1.30)Position societal policy 0.95 (-0.75) 1.00 (-0.02) 1.00 (-0.05)

Minister of EnvironmentChristian party 21.85 (2.15)**

Agrarian party 0.44 (-0.45)Minister of Agriculture

Christian party 12.94 (1.48)Controls

Share of employees in theagricultural sector

1.03 (0.72) 1.02 (0.43) 1.04 (0.75) 0.95 (-0.49) 1.06 (0.85)

New member state 14.22 (1.89)* 11.54 (1.70)* 29.35 (2.55)** 37.73 (2.16)** 37.62 (2.43)**

Cultivation 0.64 (-0.54) 0.72 (-0.36) 0.43 (-1.02) 0.86 (-0.22) 0.70 (-0.38)Moratorium 1.69 (0.39) 1.87 (0.44) 1.77 (0.42) 2.68 (0.85) 2.98 (0.68)Prior ban 16.22 (1.50) 13.36 (1.24) 26.15 (1.43) 13.59 (0.88) 6.39 (0.76)

N 310 310 298 298 298pseudo R2 0.206 0.230 0.288 0.390 0.325AIC 56.46 61.05 63.00 61.14 62.89

Remarks: The dependent variable refers to changes implying a partial or complete cultivation ban for MON810 maize. Reported are hazard ratios: a hazard ratio larger than 1indicates a positive relationship and a hazard ratio smaller than 1 a negative relationship; t statistics in parentheses.* = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01.

34

Table 5. Event history analyses of the determinants of the first cultivation bans on GMOs ever adopted (1996–2013)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5Party family in cabinet

Green party 1.66 (0.73) 1.60 (0.81) 1.92 (0.75) 2.88 (1.48)Christian party 3.11 (1.44) 4.92 (2.06)** 3.14 (1.28) 1.47 (0.28)Agrarian party 1.86 (0.67) 2.44 (1.06) 3.91 (1.13) 3.01 (0.90)

Cabinet center of gravityPosition environmental policy 1.27 (0.98) 1.19 (0.93) 1.15 (0.59)Position European integration 0.80 (-0.81) 0.80 (-0.66) 0.84 (-0.58)Position societal policy 0.82 (-1.77)* 0.83 (-1.75)* 0.85 (-1.23)

Minister of EnvironmentChristian party 7.99 (1.48)Agrarian party 1.18 (0.15)

Minister of AgricultureChristian party 8.74 (1.21)

ControlsNew member state 0.65 (-0.61) 0.42 (-0.86) 0.16 (-0.93) 0.11 (-0.96) 0.31 (-0.52)Share of employees in theagricultural sector

1.03 (0.65) 1.03 (0.40) 1.02 (0.25) 1.05 (0.60) 1.06 (0.79)

N 288 288 276 276 276pseudo R2 0.010 0.075 0.128 0.173 0.170AIC 65.39 67.34 69.23 70.48 68.69Remarks: The dependent variable refers to changes implying a partial or complete cultivation of GMOs ever adopted. Reported are hazard ratios: a hazard ratio larger than 1indicates a positive relationship and a hazard ratio smaller than 1 a negative relationship; t statistics in parentheses.* = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01

35

Table A1. Coding Decisions for Parties that were not included in Benoit/Laver (2006) according to ParlGov linkings

Country Missing Party / Ministry Coding JustificationAustria Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (Alliance for the Future of Austria) FPO Is a splinter of FPO.Belgium Christen-Democratisch & Vlaams/Nieuw-Vlaams Alliantie (Christian-

Democrat and Flemish/New Flemish Alliance)CD&V Combined list of CD&V and NV-A. Only the former

sent ministers into cabinet.Belgium no Ministry of Environment (2008-2010) PS Held Ministry of Climate and Energy.Belgium no Ministry of Environment (2011-2013) CDH Held State Secretary of Environment.Belgium Parti Réformateur Libéral / Front Démocratique des Francophones

(Liberal Reformation Party / Francophone Democratic Front)MR Later merged into MR.

Bulgaria Grazhdani za evropeysko razvitie na Balgariya (Citizens for EuropeanDevelopment of Bulgaria)

NDST Founder of the party is a former member of NDST.

Bulgaria Koalicija za Balgarija (Coalition for Bulgaria) BSP BSP is largest party of the Coalition. All participatingparties are left-wing.

Bulgaria Politicheski klub "Ekoglasnost" (Political Club "Ecoglasnost") .Cyprus Evropaiko Komma (European Party) NEO Merger of NEO and GTE.Cyprus Greek .Czech Republic LIDEM (LIDEM) US Both are liberal Parties.Czech Republic Občanská demokratická aliance (Civic Democratic Alliance) US Both are liberal Parties.Czech Republic Tradice Odpovědnost Prosperita 09 (Tradition Responsibility Prosperity

09)KDU Splinter of KDU.

Czech Republic Věci veřejné (Public Affairs) US Both are liberal Parties.Denmark no Ministry of Interior (2006-2007) V Competences were part of the Ministry of Welfare.Estonia Erakond Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit (Union of Pro Patria and Res

Publica)ResP Merger of ResP and Isam. ParlGov assigns ResP.

Estonia Koonderakond ja Maarahva Ühendus (Coalition Party and Rural Union) ERe Both are liberal parties.France Mouvement des citoyens PS Both are moderate left parties.France Nouveau centre (New Centre) UDF Successor of UDF.France Parti radical de gauche PS Both are moderate left parties.France Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a Popular Movement) RPF Successor of RPF.Greece Laïkós Orthódoxos Synagermós (Popular Orthodox Rally) .Hungary Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt (Christian Democratic People's Party) FIDESZ Satellite party of FIDESZ.Hungary no Ministry of Environment (2010-2013) FIDESZ Competences are part of Ministry of Rural DevelopmentHungary no Ministry of Interior (2006-2009) indep Split into Ministry of Local Government and Ministry of

Justice and Police. Ministry of Justice and Police seemsapplicable.

36

Ireland Democratic Left (Democratic Left) SF Both are communist parties.Ireland no Ministry of Interior various Ministry of Justice is applicableItaly Centro Cristiano Democratico / Cristiani Democratici Uniti (Christian

Democratic Center / United Christian Democrats)UDC Predecessor of UDC.

Italy Coalizione di centro-destra FI Electoral coalition around FI.Italy Con Monti per l'Italia .Italy I Democratici (Democracy) DS Was part of the Olive tree.Italy Italia. Bene Comune DS Electoral coalition around DS.Italy Lista Dini – Rinnovamento italiano (Dini-List-Italian Renewal) DS Was part of the Olive tree.Italy Nuovo Centrodestra (New Centre Right) FI Splinter of FI after Berlusconi.Italy Nuovo Partito Socialisti Italiani (New PSI) FI Seems to serve as an internal Faction of FI/PdL.Italy Partito Repubblicano Italiano (Republican Party) Marg Both are liberal parties.Italy Popolari per Prodi (Popular Party for Prodi) DS Was part of the Olive tree.Italy Rinnovamento Italiano (Italian Renewal) DS Was part of the Olive tree.Italy Unione dei democratici per la repubblica (Union of republican

democrats)UDC Both are Christian Democratic.

Italy Unione Democratici per l'Europa (Union of Democrats for Europe) UDC Both are Christian Democratic.Latvia Demokrātiskā partija "Saimnieks" (Democratic Party Saimnieks) .Latvia Jaunā partija (New Era Party) LPP When dissolution happened, one third of all MPs joined

LPP.Latvia Kristīgi demokrātiskā savienība (Christian Democratic Union) .Latvia Latvijas Ceļš (Latvian Way) LPP Later merged with LPP.Latvia Latvijas Nacionālās Neatkarības Kustība (Latvian National

Independence Movement)TB/LNNK Later merged into TB/LNNK.

Latvia Latvijas Pirmā partija / Latvijas Ceļš (Latvian First Party / Latvian WayParty)

LPP Merger of Latvian first party and LPP. Only the latter inBenoit/Laver (2006).

Latvia Latvijas Vienības Partija (Latvian Unity Party) PCTVL Both are communist/socialist.

Latvia Latvijas Zemnieku Savienība (Farmers Union of Latvia) ZZS Later merged into ZZS.Latvia Pilsoniskā savienība (Civic Union) TB/LNNK Splinter of TB/LNNK.Latvia Tēvzemei un Brīvībai (For Fatherland and Freedom) TB/LNNK Later merged into TB/LNNK.

Latvia Vienotība (Unity) JL Electoral alliance of JL, Civic Union, and the "Societyfor Other Politics". JL is the biggest.

Latvia Zatlera Reformu partija (Zatlers' Reform Party) .Lithuania Brazausko socialdemokratiné koalicija (Brazauskas Social Democratic

Coalition)LSDP Main party in coalition is LSDP.

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Lithuania Darbo Partija (Labour Party) NS/SL Later merged with NS/SL.Lithuania Liberalų ir centro sąjunga ir Tautos prisikėlimo partija (United Faction

of the Liberal and Centre Union and Nation's Resurrection Party)LiCS Splinter of Tautos prisikėlimo partija (National

Resurrection Party), which later merged with LiCS.Lithuania Lietuvos centro sąjunga (Center Union of Lithuania) LiCS Predecessor of LiCS.

Lithuania Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija (Democratic Labour Party ofLithuania)

LSDP Predecessor of LSDP.

Lithuania Lietuvos lenkų rinkimų akcija (Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania) .Lithuania Pilietinės demokratijos partija (Civic Democratic Party) NS/SL Splinter of Darbo Partija, which later merged with Later

merged with NS/SL.Lithuania Tautos prisikėlimo partija (National Resurrection Party) LiCS Later merged with LiCS.

Lithuania Tvarka ir teisingumas LDP Successor of LDP.Luxemburg no Ministry of Environment CSV Held Ministry of Sustainable Development.Poland Socjaldemokracja Polska (Social Democracy of Poland) SLD Splinter of SLD.Rumania Frontul Democrat al Salvării Nationale (Democratic National Salvation

Front)PSD Later merged into PSD.

Rumania Partidul Social Democrat Român (Romanian Social Democratic Party) PSD Later merges into PSD.Rumania Partidul Unitatii Naţionale a Romanilor (Romanian National Unity

Party)PUR Is later absorbed into PUR.

Rumania Uniunea Naţională pentru Progresul României (National Union for theProgress of Romania)

PSD Splinter of PSD.

Slovakia MOST-HID (Most-Hid) SMK Splinter of SMK.Slovakia Sloboda a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity) .Slovakia Slovenská demokratická koalícia (Slovak Democratic Coalition) SKDU Coalition around SKDU.Slovakia Strana občianskeho porozumenia (Party of Civic Understanding) Smer Later merged into Smer.Slovakia Združenie robotníkov Slovenska (Associaltion of Workers of Slovakia) SDL Splinter of SDL.Slovenia Državljanska lista - Citizen's list .Slovenia Lista Virant (Virant List) .Slovenia Pozitivna Slovenija - Positive Slovenia .Slovenia Slovenski krščanski demokrati (Slovenian Christian Democrats) SLS Later merged into SLS.Slovenia Socialni demokrati ZLSD Successor of ZLSD.Slovenia Zares (Zares) LDS Merger of LDS and AS.Sweden no Ministry of Interior (1995, 1999-2009) various Competences distributed; here: Ministry of Justice

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Notes

1 A potential problem with this argument is – if we follow Tsebelis (2002) – that the status quo policy is more

likely when parties in cabinet have the ability to veto certain policy reform proposals. There may, of course, be

other reasons for the individual parties to be able to influence policy in certain areas, particularly if these issues

are highly salient for the specific party (Agrarians/Christian Democrats/Greens), but not for their coalition

partners – then these parties are more likely to be able to push through such policy-making decisions, such as

the implementation of a cultivation ban. That is, the effect of the presence of specific parties in cabinet may

have more to do with bargaining between parties with different saliency profiles than with a veto player

mechanism. These mechanisms are however difficult to disentangle.

2 In some cases, the minister of the environment and the minister of agriculture did not belong to any party. In

this case, the minister was not allocated to any party family.

3 There is no ministry of environment in some countries and/or some time periods. Accordingly, we identified

the ministry that comes closest to environmental affairs in the specific country and time period.

4 While expert surveys bear the problem that they provide only positions and saliencies of political parties at one

point in time, so that changes in the preferences of parties over time cannot be covered, the Chapel Hill expert

surveys were performed at several points in time. However, the positions of parties on the environmental policy

dimension were only measured in the 2010 survey (see Bakker et al., 2013), which is why we do not use these

data. Naturally, there are a number of parties missing due to the longer time span of this study. In this case, we

applied a two-step procedure. First, we determined whether a missing party was a split of or later merged into

another party, which itself was included in the expert survey. If this was the case, the party was assigned the

code of its predecessor or successor. Information on party splits and mergers was also taken from the ParlGov

database (Manow & Döring, 2013). Second, if the party had no (identifiable) predecessor or successor, it was

given the code of a comparable party in the respective party system. A comparable party is one that belongs to

the same party family. Classification of parties into party families was again obtained with ParlGov (Manow &

Döring, 2013; see also Table A1 in the appendix).

5 Since Green parties almost always control the ministry of the environment once in government in the countries

and time span under study in this paper, we cannot include a variable in model 5 that provides information on

whether the ministry of the environment was led by a politician from a Green party or not. A similar problem

39

applies in case of agrarian parties: once in cabinet, agrarian parties almost always win control over the ministry

of agriculture.