Jacob Christensen

Okay, I managed to stay clear of the semis and the first hour (so I missed the “spectator” joining the Spanish entry) but the constant stream of sarcastic tweets from all over Europe lured me into the second half. So here are the votes notes of the Danish jury:

• The winning formula for Germany is: The neighbour’s daughter. Kawaii.
• The losing formula for Germany is: Everything else. Especially anything involving irony
• Lena’s “English” was among the most bizarre I have ever heard. And remember that I’m used to hearing Danes abusing the language.
• One of the writers behind the winning entry lives in Århus. The other is American.
• Most women will look good in a black cocktail-dress.
• I have absolutely no idea about how the names of the Danish performers are supposed to be written, yet alone pronounced.
• “Big in Russia” is the new “Big in Japan”.
• Yes, it was a bizarre rip-off of The Police and Army of Lovers. Another victory for the mash-up strategy.
• Having David Miliband perform a tired piece of early 80s pop is not a winning formula.
• The Armenian Angelina Jolie-lookalike was 1.9 m tall? Awesomeness.
• Not all women look good in latex catsuits. The Romanian singer is an exception to this so what the h%€k was she doing sitting behind a piano for most of the performance? What were you thinking?
• Sweden loves the ESC. The ESC does not love Sweden. I wonder what Ingmar Bergman could have made of this.
• There was a Belgian entry?
• Brunettes are in fashion. Even in Russia. I’m definitively not complaining.
• The Turks should have let the robot sing.

And just in case you should get the idea that the Germans are taking it easier when it comes to life and culture these days, I point you to Süddeutsche Zeitung for a thorough discussion of the pros and cons of having Ms Meyer-Landrut representing Tschörmänie.

By the way: Lena’s Satellite wasn’t the first to reach the skies of the ESC. Back in 1979, the talented Ted Gärdestad (whose career was tragically cut short by psychiatric illness) performed this at the ESC. For some reason it was a complete dud back then, but as pop songs go, I actually like it.

SDU is placed on a field in the middle of … well, next to BILKA, actually. But if you take another route, you go through this wood.

Today’s poll is indeed interesting: A combined support of 48,2 percent for the Social Democrats and SF would put a parliamentary majority within reach for the first time since – well a long time ago. Short of a majority, the poll gives the Social Democrats the control of the long-desired median legislator – and consequently the choice of cooperating with DF, the Social Liberals or the Red-Green Alliance.

But before the champagne is ordered and the corks fly, politicians and commentators are well advised to consider a couple of factors:

1. It’s the economy, stupid

If we look at the support for the Liberal-Conservative governments and the right side in general, it has had a tendency to vary with unemployment and the strength of the economy. When unemployment rise and the economy is perceived as weak, the government faces problems. Which is why I predict that an election is some time away.

2. Don’t confuse short-term jumps with medium-term trends

Remember the Espersen effect which never really transformed itself to a stable increase in the support for the Conservatives? (In an way, there may be an Espersen effect, just not in the way commentators assumed back in 2008) Similarly, some elements of the crisis package are controversial and likely to lead to short-term reactions.

3. An election is not imminent

An established truth in political science is that opinion polls – especially when an election is not imminent – reflect the general mood among voters, not voting intentions.

4. Still…

The poll comes at a time when the trend has been to show a majority supporting the four opposition parties – but without giving SD-SF a free choice of partners. I would expect that coming weeks and months will see a return to this pattern.

In case you don’t know, the ketchup-bottle problem is when you shake and shake the damned thing and nothing happens until – the bottle empties its entire contents over your dish. And other inconvenient places.

In a way, this was what happened over the weekend when everybody looked for a conflict over tax rates and indexation of benefits and then – whoops – the government and the Danish People’s Party agreed on major reforms of the unemployment insurance: The benefit period is halved and the rules for qualifying for the benefit tightened. Along with the special early retirement benefit (not to be confused with what was once the disability pension), this has been an issue in Danish labour marked policy for the past 4-5 years.

So, why did this happen? First, we should remember that neither the government nor DF are interested in an early election. Sure, DF is playing on the possibility of cooperating with a future SD-SF government but a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.

Second, when SD and SF walked (or was thrown out) of the negotiations over the proposed cuts in indexation, the government and DF faced an interesting dilemma: They had to either break an earlier agreement with SD and SF, opening for a potentially explosive parliamentary situation, raise taxes or find some other object where savings could be made. In the end, unemployment insurance and child benefits fitted the bill.

In a way, this could be seen as a massive “f€%k you right back” from DF to the trade unions which have put their weight behind the Social Democrats – a major cut in the tax benefit for union fees are also included in the austerity plan. As the value of the unemployment insurance is lowered and union fees effectively raised, they will find it harder to attract members. At the same time, the plan also works by targeting groups which enjoy no general public sympathies – the unemployed and immigrants – while popular groups like early retirement benefit recipients and old-age pensioners do not suffer cuts. The later groups, incidentally, make up a large portion of DF’s electorate.

In a more general perspective, we are seeing a case of a solution (cutting unemployment insurance) looking for a decision opportunity (an austerity programme).

In a historical perspective, cuts in the unemployment insurance are unusual during economic crises. We have to go back to the 1920s to find good parallels. Some – both politicians and academics – will argue that shortening the benefit period and tightening access to the benefits will increase the supply of labour but the development also raises some questions about the future of unemployment insurance in Denmark.

Sure, the benefit period is not particularly short, but large groups on the labour market have insecure employment contracts and the system has become increasingly penalistic during the last decade (today, even policy makers openly admit that the aim of activation measures is not to improve the qualifications of the unemployed but to scare unemployed from claiming benefits) while the replacement rate has been effectively declining since the early 1980s. In a way, unemployment benefit today is worth as much (or as little) as it was in the 1950s.

We saw a first reaction against this earlier this year when trade unions managed to get employers to accept the introduction of severance pay as part of the latest rounds of collective bargaining. In effect this was a call for a higher degree of job protection. The unions desperately need something to motivate workers to join or stay, and as unemployment funds lose their value, other measures may step in. (What surprised me wasn’t the demand made by the unions but that employers accepted an – albeit limited – scheme of pay).

I would expect the Social Liberals to block any moves to extend the benefit period, so a future SD-SF government will face a limited number of choices in reforming unemployment insurance – easier access to benefits could be one approach, higher benefits (at least in the first part of an unemployment period) another. Finally, we could see calls for job security or an extension of severance pay for workers.

My profound insights into the changing nature of the Danish welfare state in general and the Social Democrats and SF in particular can be found here. Well, look closely and you’ll find it.

On a slightly more serious note, the interview raised an issue: Do I have to report a one-line mentioning in our “activities” system? After close considerations, I decided not to – just as I don’t list blog posts or comments on other blogs in my activities list. But I’m sure that a number of bureaucrats at the Ministry of Research have considered this closely, just as the committee at SDU which constructed the reporting system. And I wasted some time checking if this was something I ought to report and my head of department subsequently review.

Isn’t the brave new academic world wonderful?

The Jam live in 1979.

Wikipedia article on the song.

Jonathan Hopkin:

This arrangement [Parliamentary elections as "presidential elections"] has been moribund for around four decades, but strangely the two-party logic still infuses the political debate. The reason is that although the share of the vote won by the Labour and the Conservatives has been in steady decline ever since the 1950s, the decline of the two-party system has been largely masked by two factors. First, the British electoral system vastly over-represents the two largest UK-wide parties, consistently awarding Labour and the Conservatives the vast majority of seats in the House of Commons even as their joint vote share declines. Second, because for most of the last 40 years one of the two parties has performed badly enough to hand a parliamentary – if not an electoral – majority to the other. Labour’s travails gave the Conservatives a free run from 1979 until the 1990s, whilst the Conservatives ceased to be competitive from 1997 until quite recently.

Hopkin also discusses the policy positions of the three main parties and sees complications.

The LSE’s guide to voting systems.

Andrew Rudalevige summarises the logic of the 55%-clause:

…we will all go together when we go…

Erik Voeten considers another mystery of the C-LD coalition: The speed.

…the British coalition seems based on a pretty loose set of principles and was negotiated in a similarly ad hoc manner…

…Given the many difficult decisions the government faces, not in the least on how to balance the budget, one needs not go out on a limb to predict that there will soon be important issues on the table that the coalition partners have not yet bargained about. It would seem equally unadventurous to predict that this government will not last five years.

I’m by no means an expert on the UK constitution but there is one thing about tonight’s developments which made me wonder during this exciting evening: The UK has had a change of Prime Minister, the new Prime Minister has stated his intention to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats but the appointment and the announcement came before either party had formally confirmed any agreement, let alone a government programme.

(The thing is that the UK does not know the concept of an informateur or a formateur. In this case, Brown could have tendered his resignation and continued as caretaker prime minister while Cameron conducted negotiations with the LibDems – and unlike the Dutch, you don’t have to spend months on forming a government).

It is obvious that the leaders of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats want to enter a formal coalition and we should assume that there is a substantial amount of consensus between the parties (if the latter does not apply, look here for an example of how you should not form a government).

But both the Conservative and Liberal Democratic leadership also need to anchor the decision with the relevant bodies – and in the case of the LibDems there is a triple-bind rule in the party statues to prevent the leadership from entering any kind of coalition without securing the consent of the party organisation – Nick Clegg needs support from a massive 3/4 majority in the party executive and 3/4 of the parliamentary group. If he does not, the agreement has to part a vote among the party’s members. If Clegg gets this level of support from the parliamentary party and the executive, we would expect it to be a good thing for the future stability of the coalition, but if he does not, we’re in really messy territory. By letting the announcement of the coalition be made public before the formal accept by the party bodies has been reached, Clegg is either brave or foolish – if he hasn’t put a great deal of effort into testing the waters in his party. (The Guardian says he has)

Needless to say, British media have pointed out that there are LibDem MPs and activists who would rather have died a very painful death than supported the Conservatives – at least before the results of the election were known last Thursday. We are in interesting territory here. And Clegg and the LibDems between a rock and a hard place.

Similarly, Cameron takes a risk, even if it is marginally smaller than Clegg’s. If the deal falls through, he will have to scrape through on support from the DUP and other minor parties and an election in the very near future is almost certain.

So, why did Gordon Brown announce his resignation before the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had formally closed the deal? Was it a spontaneous initiative? (Hardly – surely the Cabinet Office would have prevented this) Did Cameron phone Brown to announce that he was ready to form a government? Or did Brown seize what was left of his initiative to put Cameron and Clegg into what the Germans call Zugzwang – (the ball is in your corner, now you must either deliver or make fools of yourself).

I expect that we will know more on Wednesday. But the signs look set for the first formal peacetime coalition government in the UK since the rather unusual 1931-1940 National Government. Political Science textbooks may have to be rewritten in the coming years.

There is nothing as fascinating as a juncture where established procedures no longer seem to work. A case in point is the 1973 Danish general election where all existing parties were thoroughly whacked by the voters and five new parties won 30% of the vote (and of the seats in parliament). Political routines which had developed since 1920 had to be thrown out the window and the next six or so years were a pretty bumpy ride as voters and politicians tried to adjust to the new circumstances. Eventually, after a number of trial and errors, politicians in 1982 hit upon the minority coalition as the solution which combined a useful mix of stability and flexibility in a multidimensional political spectrum.

The voters in the UK similarly decided (if “voters” can actually “decide” anything – elections are the outcomes of millions of individual decisions) to pull a nasty trick on the parliamentary elite. Yes, the Conservatives noted a modest but not excessive win. Yes, Labour suffered a defeat but not a debilitating one, and the Liberal Democrats enjoyed the smallest of gains counted in votes and a marginal loss of seats.

Now, the parties face two problems: One short-to-mid-range and one long-range.

The mid-range problem has to do with the economic state of the UK which is complicated enough as it is.

The long-range problem is about constitutional reform, or to be more specific: A reform of the electoral system. The LibDems want some kind of proportional representation (apparently, some kind of AV is the most likely outcome), the Conservatives – in particular backbenchers and members of the party organisation – want to retain the status quo and Labour – well, Labour may be late converts to PR.

One frequent argument against introducing PR is that it will lead to instability and sinister back-room dealings between politicians, presumably moving influence from voters to parliament. The counter-argument is that no UK election since 1901 has resulted in any one party receiving a majority of the votes cast. Strictly speaking, every government since 1945 with the exception of those operating under the Lib-Lab pacts have operated against a popular majority. Parliamentary agency is a fundamental fact in any form of parliamentary government. The Conservatives have been the main beneficiaries for the last 65 years and so it is no surprise that the party organisation would prefer the world in general and Westminster in particular to stay as it was in 1945 (well, actually 1951 would be their year of choice).

This makes the prospect of a C-LD agreement (either in the form of a formal coalition government or a tolerated minority government) puzzling. In policy terms (in particular foreign policy and Europe, the nemesis of John Major and every subsequent Conservative leader) the Conservatives and the LibDems appear to have very little in common and in constitutional policy, they are polar opposites.

So how about Lab-LD? Even if the LibDems are closer to Labour in many areas, Labour never delivered on its loose promises of electoral reform – and let’s face it: Labour managed to hold on to power in 2001 and – crucially – 2005 thanks to FPTP – so there is a credibility issue here. And even more importantly, despite all talk of a rainbow coalition, Labour and the Liberal Democrats do not have a working majority in the new House of Commons. If there had been a majority, a Labour-Liberal Democrat deal would have been a no-brainer and the Conservative backbenchers would already be reaching for their knives.

But now look at the mess: The only viable coalition appears to be C-LD, but LD surrendering to the facts (provided those are the facts) would be a deadly strategy. On the other hand, David Cameron might look weak – especially in the eyes of the Norman Tebbits of the world – if he gave too large concessions.

The relatively weak performance of the Conservative Party in this election could be a blessing in disguise for David Cameron. Sure, a number of die-hards and right-wing newspapers would argue that the Conservatives should just sit out the storm, call a snap election in six months’ time and – whoopla! – the world is back in order and the lower classes know their place in society.

But Cameron could just as well argue that in the short term a coalition with the LibDems is a prerequisite for winning government office, and – hey, we have done business with the LibDems now, so electoral reform (but preferably in the most minimal of alternatives) could in fact help us in the long run. After all, the UK has now had two elections in a row where no party won more than 36% of the vote (okay, 36,1%, but still), despite FPTP. Maybe this kind of fragmentation is the reality of the 21st Century, and the political leader who is the first to realise this and act accordingly could have a big advantage.

Anyway, I foresee a great number of academic papers and books analysing the dilemmas faced by the parties and their strategies in the negotiating process as well as its eventual outcome (I would still put my money on some kind of C-LD deal). Plus endless gabbing by pundits, of course.

Oh, and the post-election process has been interesting in one particular way: Note how civil the politicians have been and that the negotiating process(es) actually appears to have been carried out in a quite professional way. Not a bad performance for a system used to single-party majorities.

“If this were repeated across the country, it would be very messy”. Somehow Monty Python got it right.

Patrick Dunleavy on a more serious note: “Nobody has won in terms of votes, but the last-minute momentum was to Labour”

Other LSE experts weigh in. I particularly like this one:

Charlie Beckett – POLIS Director

In media terms, what have we learnt?

1. That opinion polls during an election campaign are an expression of sentiment, not intention

2. That the TV debates shook up the campaign but they were platforms to perform, not parliaments to decide power

3. That the right-wing newspapers were unable to shift votes significantly, as the Tory share declined over the last month

4. That journalists were right to report the campaign process, but wrong to confuse polls, online memes and TV performance with real politics

Beckett’s comments should be the dashboard of every political journalist’s computer. And I mean every. (Right-wing newspapers play a lesser role in Danish politics but the other three points apply).