Australia or the Free Democrats in Germany are alliances they can form. In the
case of Australia the National Party’s alliance with the Liberals is, consequently,
virtually indestructible. However, political change can break up what seem
almost totally united alliances. From 1969 to 1982 West Germany was ruled by
a coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats which many commenta-
tors thought indissoluble. Nevertheless, the Free Democrats ended the alliance,
and Germany was then ruled by a coalition of Christian Democrats and Free
Democrats. In part this demonstrates the counter-intuitive power that a very
small party such as the Free Democrats could wield: as it was the only possible
partner for two other parties, neither of which were likely to want to coalesce
with the other, that small party was able to dominate politics. Only when a
second small party, the Greens, became electorally successful enough to be an
alternative coalition partner on the left, in 1998, did the Social Democrats
return to power. Indeed, it is this disproportionate power of small political
entities that is often used as the principal argument againstproportional
representation.
Coalitions can occur in any political situation involving several rival forces
which are in fairly close agreement on essentials. Sometimes they are only
intended to be short-lived, or even concerned with a single issue: voting in the
multi-party assembly of the FrenchFourth Republicalways involved the
creation of anad hocmajority of deputies who were agreed only on supporting
a particular bill; and despite the two-party system the same situation prevails in
the US Congress. Though often accused of leading to unstable governments,
coalitions are in fact more likely to be the result of political instability than its
cause, and occur wherever several political forces, whether because of electoral
rules or some other mechanisms, exist in a rough equilibrium. Traditionally
Britain has only resorted to coalition governments in time of war or severe
economic crisis, but this is largely because the electoral machinery seldom
produces a parliament in which no single party has a majority. When this has
occurred, as in the last years of the 1974–79 Labour government, a coalition
has been created in fact if not in name.
Coalitions are of equal importance in international relations, especially in
defence policy. Few major wars for the last three centuries have actually been
fought between two countries (the Franco–Prussian War being an unusual
counter-example), instead, they have been coalition wars. In this context there
can be eitherad hoccoalitions, forged by the crisis of a war where naturally
opposed partners have to co-operate to defeat a common enemy, the Second
World War coalition between the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the
USA being a good example, or long-standing arrangements made in peacetime
between countries with common aims against a common group of enemies,
the post-war opposition betweenNATOand the now defunctWarsaw Pact
being an obvious example. Interestingly, in both domestic and international
Coalition