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This article employs the poliheuristic theory of decision-making (PHT) to analyse German decisions to participate in, or abstain from, multinational military operations. PHT represents one of the leading theoretical efforts at bridging the cognitive-rationalist divide in foreign policy analysis. The theory posits a two-stage model of foreign policy-making: in the first stage, actors rely on a non-compensatory strategy as a cognitive shortcut to eliminate unacceptable alternatives and to reduce the choice set. In the second stage, actors switch to a compensatory mode of information-processing and select the alternative which maximises expected utility. While there is broad agreement that the non-compensatory dimension at the first stage of PHT concerns the domestic repercussions of foreign policy, it is less clear how this 'domestic politics' dimension should be operationalised. This article contributes to this debate by specifying the operationalisation of the non-compenstaory principle in the context of coalition foreign policy making in parliamentary democracies. Specifically, it suggests that the non-compensatory dimension in coalition foreign policy consists of the expected impact of foreign policy on coalition survival. Empirically, the article argues that PHT sheds important new light on arguably some of the most controversial military deployment decisions (Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Libya) of post-unification Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European sovereign debt crisis is widely perceived by the German public as a dangerous threat and has great potential for domestic political mobilisation. The German Federal Government, therefore, faces particular pressures to explain and justify its crisis policy in the public arena. An important instrument for this purpose is the speeches of government representatives in the German Bundestag, which can be understood as a strategic discourse in order to affect the framing of government policy in the broader public debate. Against this background, this article examines the parliamentary discourse about the Euro zone crisis of the CDU/CSU-FDP coalition government between 2009 and 2012. The analysis points to five basic lines of argument, which speak to the attempt of the Federal Government to maintain sufficient domestic leeway to pursue its preferred policy in the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the salience of European issues and the domestic legitimacy demands of the European integration in Great Britain and Germany. It states that the salience of European issues to the general public is a major determining factor of the domestic legitimacy demands that governments face when making European policies. It notes that the British governments are facing tougher domestic legitimacy demands when formulating European policies as compared to the German governments.