News-related activities:
- Predictions of three coalition agreements after the general elections in March 2017
- Interview in Sociologie Magazine September 2017
- Interview by Energy network company Enexis 2016
- Predictions of coalition and coalition agreements in The Netherlands after the general elections of June 9, 2010
- Prediction of the outcomes of COP15 in Copenhagen, December 2009
- Required Institutional Changes to Tackle Climate Change and Avoid Peak Oil
- Predictions of coalition and coalition agreements in The Netherlands after the general elections of November, 2006
- The Power of the European Presidency


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Predictions of three coalition agreements after the general elections in March 2017

On March 23, a few days after the general elections on March 15, 2017, we published the expected coalition agreements on 11 main issues for three minimal winning coalitions, making use of our voting position exchange model.

The model enables us to predict whether a coalition is likely to reach agreement, and if not, on which issues they are likely still to disagree at the end of the negotiations. Moreover, we can evaluate the attractiveness of different coalitions for parties.

The Liberal Party VVD remained the largest party, but in the fragmented parliament no workable majority coalitions can be formed without both the Christian Democratic Party CDA and the Neo-liberal Party D66. For that reason these two parties are at least as powerful as the VVD and determine whether they will go to the Right, the Left or form a Broad coalition with both the VVD and the Green Party.

Our results show that both CDA and D66 are able to realize many more of their program items in a Rightist coalition with the VVD and the Christian Union than in the broad coalition with the Green Party or in a coalition without the VVD and including all Leftists parties. D66 is able to realize only its position on their most important issue 'EducationÕ in all three coalitions, CDA only their most important issue ÔDefenseÕ.

On the basis of these results, we expect that at last a Rightist coalition will be formed or, if also that fails, a minority coalition of CDA, D66 and VVD.

The document is an article in Dutch that summarizes the results of our analyses. See

Frans Stokman, Paul Lucardie, Jelle van der Knoop, Jelmer Draaijer,
Voorspelling van akkoorden van drie mogelijke coalities in 2017. Technical Report


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Interview in Sociologie Magazine September 2017

Onze manier van leven en produceren is niet houdbaar



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Interview by Dutch Energy Network Company Enexis


The Dutch Energy Network Company Enexis asked Ageda Venema to make a short video for its employees about future developments in local energy production.

Decentral production, distribution and storage of solar energy



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Predictions of Coalitions and Coalition Agreements in The Netherlands after the General Elections of June 9, 2010

The day after the general elections on June 9, 2010, we published in our first report the expected coalition agreements on 12 main issues for several possible minimal winning coalitions, making use of our voting position exchange model.
The model enables us to predict whether a coalition is likely to reach agreement, and if not, on which issues they are likely still to disagree at the end of the negotiations. Moreover, we can evaluate the attractiveness of different coalitions for parties.
On the basis of these parameters, we predicted which coalition is most likely to be formed.
We predicted that, first, parties will negotiate two coalitions: a Leftist (denoted Paars+, see Addendum I) and a Rightist coalition (denoted Rechts, see Addendum II), but we predicted that both will fail to be formed. We predicted that properly.
Now, two Dutch parties (the Christian Democratic Party CDA and the Liberal Party VVD) negotiate a minority coalition with political support from a third, the party PVV of Geert Wilders. We did not have that option. In Addendum III we show that two other coalitions can be formed that are expected to be more attractive for the CDA on the basis of the expected outcomes on the 12 issues.
At the end of the coalition negotiations, we scored the coalition agreement on the twelve main issues and report them in Addendum IV. This enabled us to calculate the utility losses of the coalition partners and to evaluate how well we predicted the outcome of the coalition agreement in Appendum III.
We showed that the Liberal Party (VVD) was the clear winner, but that the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) realized a better agreement than could be expected on the basis of its number of seats in Parliament.
In 2003 we predicted five of the six issues right, in 2007, 9 of the eleven.
As the present coalition is a minority coalition (CDA-VVD) with political support of a third party (PVV), we compared our predictions for the three-party coalition with those for the minority coalition without political support of the third party. On eight issues, the two coalitions produce the same outcomes. For six of these issues we predicted the outcome right, for two wrong. For the four other issues, all outcomes lie between the two predicted ones, as one may expect in case of political support without formal participation.


The documents are regretfully only in Dutch.

Stokman, F.N., R.C.H. van Oosten, J. Dijkstra 2010
Voorspelling Coalitie en Coalitieakkoorden 2010. Internal Publication

Stokman, F.N., R.C.H. van Oosten, J. Dijkstra 2010
Komt er een Paars+ akkoord? Hoe ziet dat er dan uit en wie profiteert van vrije kwesties? Addendum I bij Rapport Coalities en Coalitieakkoorden 2010. Internal Publication

Stokman, F.N., R.C.H. van Oosten, J. Dijkstra 2010
Komt er een Rechts akkoord? Hoe ziet dat er uit? Wie doen er mee en wie gedoogt? Addendum II bij Rapport Coalities en Coalitieakkoorden 2010. Internal Publication

Stokman, F.N., R.C.H. van Oosten, J. Dijkstra 2010
Andere aantrekkelijke coalities voor het CDA. Addendum III bij Rapport Coalities en Coalitieakkoorden 2010. Internal Publication

Stokman, F.N., R.C.H. van Oosten, J. Dijkstra 2010
Het regeerakkoord van het Kabinet Rutte: Is het veiligheids- en immigratiebeleid wel van de PVV? Addendum IV bij Rapport Coalities en Coalitieakkoorden 2010. Internal Publication
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Prediction of outcomes of the negotiations at the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen, December 2009

In November 2009, I predicted that the negotiations at the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen will fail, unless the contributions of the United States, China, and India are voluntary rather than obligatory. This prediction was right.
In the paper, I suggested a strategy to make the agreement stronger by a specific arrangement for the size of the Technology Fund. This strategy was not adopted, but is still an attractive option for COP16 in Mexico to align interests of different groups.


The document can be downloaded in Englich and in Dutch.

Stokman, Frans N. 2009
Is a Copenhagen Climate Treaty Still Possible? Scientific Analysis Provides New Insights for Agreement and a Better Treaty for the Planet. English version / Dutch version


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Required Institutional Changes to Tackle Climate Change and Avoid Peak Oil

Stokman, Frans N. 2012
Keynote 'The Social Forces of the Energy Revolution' at SUNday 2012 Conference, Den Bosch, The Netherlands, November 7, 2012

Stokman, Frans N. 2009
The Two Faces of Lovelock. An Alternative Social and Political View. Internal Publication

Stokman, Frans N. 2009
Climate Change and Peak Oil: An Analysis of (False) Beliefs Re Two 21st Century World Challenges. In: Cherkaoui, M. and Hamilton, P. (eds), Raymond Boudon: A Life in Sociology. Essays in Honour of Raymond Boudon. Volume Four. Part Four. Actions, Institutions and Political Repertoires. Oxford, Barwell Press, 123-144


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Predictions of Coalitions and Coalition Agreements in The Netherlands after the General Elections of November 22, 2006

The day after the general elections on November 22, 2006, we published the expected coalition agreements on 11 main issues for several possible minimal winning coalitions and one four party, not minimal winning, coalition, making use of our voting position exchange model.
The model enables us to predict whether a coalition is likely to reach agreement, and if not, on which issues they are likely still to disagree at the end of the negotiations. Moreover, we can evaluate the attractiveness of different coalitions for parties.
On the basis of these parameters, we predicted which coalition is most likely to be formed.
By the end of November 2006, we predicted both the coalition to be formed and the coalition agreements for the most likely alternative coalitions.
We predicted that the four party, not minimal winning, coalition would be formed, consisting of the Green Party (GroenLinks), the Socialist Party (PvdA), Christian Union (CU), and the Christian Democratic Party (CDA). We showed that the Green Party would experience the largest utility loss in this coalition. As the Green Party did not want to take part in the coalition negotiations, the three remaining parties formed a coalition.
We repeated in January 2007 our prediction for the outcomes on the eleven issues of the three party coalition at the start of their negotiations. At the end, we proved to be exactly right on nine of the eleven issues and close to the two others.


The document is an article in Dutch that summarizes the results of our analyses.

Septer, T., Stokman, F.N., and Van der Iest, H. 2008.
Geven en Nemen in Coalitiebesprekingen. (Eng. Transl.: Giving and Taking in Coalition Negotiations) DNPP Jaarboek 2007, 72-101




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The power of the European Presidency

In the scientific literature there is quite a debate whether or not the Presidency is able to obtain better outcomes for its Member State. In the article we show that Presidencies are likely to obtain better results for its Member State only at the time of the closure of the negotiations.

Schalk, J., Torenvlied, R., Weesie, J. and Stokman, F.N. 2007
The power of the presidency in EU Council decision-making. European Union Politics, 8, No 2, 229-250 (Award by Sage Publications: Best 2007 article in European Union Politics journal)






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