Compromise over Commitment: An Evaluation of the Impact of Intra-Coalition Dynamics on German Energy and Climate Policy During the Schröder and Scholz Governments

Studying the development of climate change and energy policy is critical to understanding how to effectively meet the challenges of our warming world. This project identifies how intra-coalition bargaining dynamics influence German climate change and energy policy during coalition governments, with the pro-green, Green Party (Bündes 90/die Grünen) as a coalition member. The cases of Green Party coalition membership are the Schröder government (1998-2005) and the Scholz Government (2021-2025). I employ a combination of Tsebelis’s (2011) Veto-Player Theory and Martin & Vanberg’s (2014) Coalition Compromise Model to determine the party preference points of the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) (2000) and the Heating law (2023). The Intra-Coalition Policy Compass (ICPC) visualizes policy movement, indicating their locations with respect to party preference. This work identifies institutions of origin, periods of coordination, and threats by named actors that influence the end stage of the policy through a layered veto-player pattern.