Stratified coalitions and political individualisation: a structural analysis of organisations and their affiliates in Irish climate politics

Wagner, Paul

Abstract

Coalitions that engage in political advocacy are constituted by organisations, which are made up of individuals and organisational sub-units. Comparing the coalition-building behaviour of organisations to the equivalent behaviours of their constituent parts provides a means of examining the extent to which their coalition memberships align. This paper applies inferential network clustering methods to survey data collected from organisations engaging in Irish climate change politics and to X data extracted from both the primary accounts of these organisations and the accounts of the individuals and sub-units affiliated with them. Analysis of the survey-based organisation-level policy network finds evidence of an outsider coalition, formed by non-governmental organisations, labour unions and left-leaning political parties, and an insider coalition formed by the two main political parties in government, energy sector organisations, business and agricultural interests, scientific organisations, and government bodies. An analysis of the X-based account-level endorsement network finds evidence for a stratified coalition structure wherein there are multiple distinct communities, but which largely align with the organisation-level coalitions. Most interestingly, the largest and most active community is formed by accounts affiliated with the organisations with agricultural interests – the sector that has most opposed and weakened climate action. The results show how the somewhat disjoint behaviours of formal organisations and their affiliates give rise to stratified coalitions, which can only be identified by disaggregating organisations by their constituent parts, and thereby adding non-trivial nuance to the study of climate politics.

Citation

Wagner, P. (2024, March). Stratified coalitions and political individualisation: a structural analysis of organisations and their affiliates in Irish climate politics. Presented at CPN-CSS Network Conference 2024, Online

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: CPN-CSS Network Conference 2024
• Start Date: Mar 14, 2024
• End Date: Mar 15, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 20, 2024
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed