Complex coalitions: political alliances across relational contexts

Abstract: Coalitions are central to politics, including government formation, international relations, and public policy. Coalitions emerge when actors engage one another across multiple relational contexts, but existing literature often approaches coalitions in singular contexts. We introduce complex coalitions, a theoretical-methodological framework that emphasises the relevance of multiple contexts and cross-context dependencies in coalition politics. We also implement tools to statistically infer such coalition structures using multilayer networks. To demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, we compare coalitions among Finnish organisations engaging in climate politics across three con-texts: resource coordination, legacy media discourse, and social media communication. We show that considering coalitions as complex and accounting for cross-context dependencies improves the empirical validity of coalition studies. In our case study, the three contexts represent complementary, but not congruent, channels for enacting coalitions. In conclusion, we argue that the complex coalitions approach is useful for advancing understanding of coalitions in different political realms.