The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117745681 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117745681
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(1) 135 –157
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148117745681
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The unintended consequences
of parliamentary involvement:
Elite collusion and Afghanistan
deployments in Canada and
Germany
Philippe Lagassé and Patrick A Mello
Abstract
This article argues that there is a need to question whether parliamentary involvement actually
leads to the intended effects of increased democratic deliberation and responsiveness. We
compare the unintended consequences of parliamentary votes on the use of force in two
‘most-different cases’: Canada and Germany. Despite substantive differences in the formal war
powers of their parliaments, we find that military deployment votes on Afghanistan led to less
democratic deliberation and responsiveness. Applying rationalist institutionalism, we argue that
the deployment votes incentivised major parties to collude together to lessen debate on the
Afghan mission, despite increasing public opposition and media attention. Rather than enhancing
deliberation and responsiveness, as assumed by proponents of greater parliamentary involvement
in military decisions, these parliamentary votes effectively diminished the willingness of parties to
debate the mission.
Keywords
elite collusion, deployment votes, parliament, unintended consequences, war powers
Introduction
Legislative control of military deployments has been the subject of notable debate
recently. Many contributors in these discussions have assumed that increasing parliamen-
tary control of deployments provides a net democratic benefit.1 Having legislators vote on
operations, it is argued, increases democratic legitimacy, augments debate, and provides
a check on the executive (Dunn, 2007; Granatstein, 2009; House of Lords (HL), 2006;
Joseph, 2013; Lord, 2011). Although there is variation among the formal institutional
structures of democratic systems and the level of control legislatures exercise (Dieterich
The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada and Willy
Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany & Bavarian School of Public Policy,
Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
Corresponding author:
Philippe Lagassé, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University,
1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada.
Email: philippelagasse@cunet.carleton.ca
745681BPI0010.1177/1369148117745681The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsLagassé and Mello
research-article2018
Special Issue Article
136 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1)
et al., 2010; Wagner et al., 2010), ensuring parliamentary votes on these decisions is
understood to produce largely positive results. On the other hand, critics of greater parlia-
mentary involvement argue that security policy often requires executive discretion, swift
decision-making, and secrecy to be effective. The latter position has a long pedigree in
political theory and has repeatedly been brought up in these debates (cf. Damrosch, 2003;
Ku and Jacobson, 2003; Peters and Wagner, 2011).
Reflecting the aims of the special issue (Mello and Peters, this issue), this article
explores the effects of parliamentary participation on security policy. The article ques-
tions the notion that parliamentary votes on military deployments necessarily produce
positive deliberative and democratic outcomes. Analysing two ‘most-different cases’,
Canada and Germany, we find that these votes yielded unintended consequences that ran
counter to the intent of establishing greater parliamentary control and democratic delib-
eration. In examining their missions to Afghanistan, we find that elite collusion allowed
governments to ignore public opinion and media scrutiny. Even though majorities in both
countries opposed the war, mandates were continually renewed and troop numbers
increased. We argue that parliamentary votes incentivised political parties to cease debat-
ing the aims, costs, and benefits of the deployment, reducing overall parliamentary scru-
tiny and questioning.
While an important strand in the literature claims that elite consensus on military oper-
ations tends to strengthen public support (e.g. Berinsky, 2007; Zaller, 1992), we find no
such evidence for the involvement of Canada and Germany in Afghanistan. Major parties
consistently supported the missions, whereas public opinion deteriorated over time and
from 2009 onward majorities in both countries opposed involvement in the war. This
resonates with the argument by Kreps (2010: 191) that elite consensus ‘inoculates leaders
from electoral punishment’ and allows decision makers to defy public opposition and
media scrutiny.
In explaining these outcomes, the article relies on rationalist institutionalism. We argue
that deployment votes were approached in an instrumental fashion by political actors.
Governing and opposition parties focused on how the votes would benefit them politi-
cally, rather than seeing parliamentary control as an inherent democratic good. The
deployment votes deterred actors from working towards the normative goal of the votes:
stronger parliamentary debate and legislative scrutiny. This resulted in decisions that
were removed from public opinion and weakened legislative scrutiny of executive deci-
sions pertaining to the war.
The article offers three novel contributions to the study of parliamentary war powers
and legislative scrutiny of military operations. First, the article highlights how the incen-
tives of parliamentary actors can undermine the normative goals of having parliament
vote on military operations. Second, the article finds that these incentives can be seen
across two notably different democratic systems. And third, the article’s findings suggest
that rationalist institutionalism merits as much attention as regime type comparisons and
normative theories in the study of parliamentary war powers and their effects.
We begin with a discussion of the parliamentary war powers debate and assumptions
on how legislative voting affects political dynamics surrounding military deployments.
Next, the article outlines how rationalist institutionalism offers an alternative account of
how actors will behave before and after these votes. Third, the article applies a rationalist
account to the German and Canadian parliamentary votes on Afghanistan. We conclude
with a discussion of how its findings challenge existing assumptions about the role of
parliaments in military decision-making.
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