Parliamentary involvement,party ideology and majority-opposition bargaining: Belgian participation in multinational military operations

This article examines the impact of parliamentary involvement in troop deployment decisions on restrictions on military mandates by examining the Belgian contribution to the 2011 Libya intervention and the coalition against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. More specifically, we analyse (1) the effect of party ideology on mandate preferences, and (2) the impact of bargaining between majority and opposition parties on the outcome of mandate negotiations. Our case study demonstrates that left-wing parties show a strong inclination toward imposing restrictions on the use of military force beyond humanitarian goals, while right-wing preferences tend to depend on the national interests at stake in the operation. With regard to majority-opposition bargaining, our study shows that the impact of opposition parties is dependent on the degree of contention between government and opposition parties, as well as on the extent to which the executive needs to seek support across its own majority.