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The Western occupation forces in postwar Germany recruited many moderate, reputable conservative politicians from the Weimar era to help rebuild of postwar German government. These conservative politicians began working for a non-socialist alternative to the rapidly growing Social Democratic party. Gradually, a patchwork of non-Left groups developed at the local level, and then developed regional and national networks.
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The CDU represented a sharp break with the tradition of German conservative parties. The party was composed of a heterogeneous group of Catholics and Protestants, business people and trade unionists, conservatives and moderates. The party united behind the principle that West Germany should be reconstructed along Christian and humanitarian lines, without an exclusive Catholic or Protestant orientation.
The CDU was anti-Nazi and anti-Communist, while extolling conservative values and the merits of the social market economy. Konrad Adenauer, the party's first leader, sought to develop the CDU into a conservative " catch-all party " Volkspartei appealing to a wide spectrum of the electorate—a sharp contrast to the fragmented ideological parties of the Weimar Republic. The CSU reflects the strong regional identity of Bavarians as well as their more conservative political views. The two Union parties generally function as one in national politics.
Visit the CDU Online. The election surprised many analysts because the Union emerged as the largest single party and Adenauer built a coalition government to control the new state Table 8. Adenauer rapidly emerged as the dominant figure in postwar West German politics. The Christian Democrats made impressive electoral gains in , and in the Union together with the CSU became the first and only FRG party to ever win an absolute majority in a national election.
When the "old man," as he was ir reverently known, began to fade in the late s, the party shared his struggle. Adenauer was 85 years old at the time of the election more than a decade older than Reagan at his last election in After extended maneuvering, Ludwig Erhard replaced Adenauer as chancellor in Erhard was the architect of the Economic Miracle and a competent administrator, but he was unable to infuse the Christian Democrats with new vision once postwar recovery had been attained. The cabinet positions were distributed between the two parties. Only the small Free Democratic party was left on the opposition benches.
The Grand Coalition's economic policies generally reaped success, and by the nation was on the road to economic recovery. In the election the voters had a difficult time distinguishing between the two major parties that had shared government control. When the votes were in, the SPD allied itself with the Free Democratic party and gained control of the government by a narrow margin of only 12 seats Table 8. The Christian Democrats were very uncomfortable on the hard seats of the opposition benches. The Union parties thus emphasized their role as a shadow government, waiting for what they believed was their inevitable return to power.
This event forced the party to reevaluate its position and to begin the long process of party rebuilding. The CDU expanded its membership base and developed the organizational resources of the national party. At the head of the national party was an aggressive young Minister-president from Rhineland-Pfalz, Helmut Kohl. Buoyed by a rejuvenated party organization, Kohl ran as the CDU chancellor candidate in Because of this experience, Kohl realized the difficulty of winning an absolute majority, and so he advocated a centrist strategy that would attract moderate voters and possibly yield a new parliamentary coalition with the FDP.
In the Union parties agreed to follow this second strategy. Strauss' excessive conservatism and acerbic style alienated many traditional voters.
Perhaps the biggest winner of the election was Helmut Kohl. Kohl became the unchallenged leader of the opposition. Moreover, the CDU mapped out a new party program based on conservative economic policies derived from Thatcher and Reagan, along with moderate social and foreign policies. The Kohl government made substantial progress in addressing Germany's policy problems. The government cut the budget deficit and the economy staged a substantial recovery.
A series of political scandals and declining economic conditions decreased the party's popular support. The CDU was also challenged by a new conservative party, the Republicans Republikaner that championed a more conservative and nationalist program. The collapse of the East German regime in surprised almost everyone in the West and East. Kohl was one of the first to realize that this provided a historic opportunity for the CDU as well as Germany.
While others looked upon the events with wonder or uncertainty, Kohl embraced the idea of closer ties between the two Germanies, leading to eventual confederation or unification. Thus, when the March GDR election became a referendum in support of German unification, this assured a Christian Democratic victory because of the party's early commitment to union.
In the December Bundestag election, Kohl rightly claimed that he and the CDU had been the moving force in German unification, and assured voters that no one would suffer from unification and Germany would prosper. Kohl was victorious in the Bundestag elections. But his government struggled with the policy challenges produced by German unification.
Despite creating images of dramatic renovation in the East, the unification process was slow and costly. Almost immediately after the votes were counted, the government implemented tax increases to pay for the unification costs. Real progress was made, but less than promised and at a higher cost. The governing coalition lost more than 40 seats in the elections, but Kohl retained a slim majority.
By the elections, the accumulation of 16 years of governing and the special challenges of unification had taken their toll on the party and Helmut Kohl. Many Germans looked for a change. After the elections investigators found that Kohl had accepted illegal campaign contributions while he was chancellor. Merkel had learned politics from Helmut Kohl, but also openly criticized him during the party funding scandal. This strange alliance was similar to the U. Democrats and Republicans sharing control of the government! A New Type of Chancellor. Angela Merkel has the most unlikely biography for a German chancellor.
She was born in West Germany in , and her father was a leftist-leaning protestant minister who chose to move to East Germany when Angela was 1 year old. She eventually earned a Ph. Merkel pursued a career as a research scientist, until the GDR began to collapse in In she became the national Chair of the CDU.
With her election in , she became the first woman to head the German federal government and the first former citizen of the GDR. Merkel's style is far different from her predecessor. Instead of forcefully leading the government, her style is to consult and seek consensus. But consensus is difficult when the two large rival parties both form the government, and so little policy change came from the Grand Coalition.
Even when the global economic downturn starting in severely challenged, Germany was slow to act and moved very cautiously. The government at first supported the banks in the fiscal crisis, but then began a cautious policy of tight spending. An even greater challenge was the growing monetary crisis of the Euro and the struggling economies of Southern Europe. Again, she responded cautiously in response to the conflict pressures on the government. In , voters preferred Merkel over her SPD challenger.
It promises a new conservative program to deal with Germany's immediate policy challenges and its long-term needs for policy reform. But it was difficult to govern given the financial strains facing Germany, and tensions grew among coalition partners. In Merkel's position as chancellor candidate was even more secure, but people vote for parties rather than individual candidates. For several months Merkel pursued negotiations to find a new coalition partner, finally reaching agreement with the SPD.
The new grand coalition has the potential to address the policy challenges facing Germany, but it is unclear whether the conflicting ideologies of the coalition partners will allow the government to make real progress. The new SPD defined itself as an ideological party, representing the interests of unions and the working class. The SPD's program was derived from Marxist doctrine, which included the nationalization of major industries and the implementation of state planning. Until his death in , Schumacher consistently opposed Adenauer's Western-oriented foreign policy program, preferring reunification of the two Germanies even at the cost of accommodation with the Soviet Union.
The party's poor showing in the elections dashed its hopes for governing postwar Germany. The party gained some support in subsequent elections, but it seemed to be locked in the percent range. The party's program appealed to the socialist core of the working class, but not to the wider spectrum of German society. Reformers within the SPD lobbied for the party to shed its radical image and broaden its political appeal beyond the working class.
In the SPD undertook a historic change in course. At the Bad Godesberg conference the party abandoned its traditional role as advocate for socialism. In a single act, the party renounced its policies of nationalization and state planning, and embraced Keynesian economics and the principles of the social market economy. Karl Marx would have been surprised to read the Godesberg program and learn that market competition was one of the essential conditions of a social democratic economic policy.
The party still represented working-class interests, but the SPD hoped to attract new liberal middle class voters by dropping its ideological banner and more extreme policies. The SPD wanted to be a liberal-oriented catch-all party that could compete with the Christian Democrats.
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Visit the SPD Online. With a young vibrant Willy Brandt leading the party as chancellor candidate, the SPD posted steady electoral gains. From its lowpoint in , the Social Democrats enjoyed a nearly constant 3-percent gain from election to election in what came to be known as the "comrade trend. The SPD not only improved its image of reliability and trust by sharing national governing responsibility, but it also played an active role in leading the Federal Republic out of the recession.
The new coalition government adopted a program of political reform and modernization. The most dramatic initiatives came in foreign policy. Brandt proposed a fundamentally different policy toward the East Ostpolitik , in which the Federal Republic accepted the postwar political divisions within Europe and sought reconciliation with the nations of Eastern Europe.
In Brandt received the Nobel Peace prize for his actions. Finally, a "Basic Agreement" with East Germany formalized the relationship between the two Germanies. The government broadened access to higher education, and generally improved the quality of the educational system. Social spending nearly doubled between and ; the government enacted new old age pension benefits, health insurance, and social services see Chapter Proud of these accomplishments, in the elections the SPD boasted that they were creating the "Modell Deutschland" that other European democracies could emulate.
The pace of social reform slacked in the mids, mainly as a result of the worldwide economic problems arising from the rising price of oil. The Federal Republic simultaneously suffered from economic stagnation and inflation. Willy Brandt left the chancellorship in Although the SPD retained government control in the and elections, these were trying times for the party. Policy divisions also developed within the SPD. At the same time, many young middle-class SPD supporters opposed nuclear energy and economic development projects that might threaten environmental quality.
Other disagreements arose over defense policy, and the Federal Republic's willingness to accept a new generation of NATO nuclear missiles. As the economic and political situation worsened in the months following the election, the governing parties struggled to deal with these problems. The SPD was forced out of office.
The party suffered heavy losses in the election, and faced an identity crisis. The party was challenged on the left by the Greens and on the right by the Christian-Liberal government. Should the party attempt to accommodate the Greens or adopt a centrist program in competition with the government? In the SPD followed a centrist strategy, but did not significantly improve the party's vote share. In they planned to appeal to the liberal, middle-class voters, but the SPD's campaign was overtaken by events in the East.
The SPD expected the East to be a bastion of socialist support because of Weimar voting patterns, and saw the Christian Democrats capture the votes of this new constituency. The SPD's poor performance in the Bundestag elections reflected the party's inability to either lead or follow the course of the unification process. Frustrated by Germany's course after unification, the public came to the brink of voting the SPD into office in , and then pulled back. The SPD made broad gains in the election and formed a new coalition government with the environmental Green Party.
For instance, overdue reductions in tax rates and government spending were paired with a new environmental tax advocated by the Greens. The government allowed German troops to play an active role in Kosovo and Afghanistan, while mandating the phasing out of nuclear power. As the election approached, however, the German economy was struggling and the SPD-led government was behind in the polls. This strategy worked, and the SPD-Green government gained a small majority and returned to office. But as soon as the election was over, the new government again began to struggle. This was a gamble.
At first, his planned seemed to go awry. On election night, the post-election forecasts were unsure which was the largest party because the votes were so close see Table 8. But the electoral math did not add up. The SPD negotiated with the CDU to form a grand coalition, because the splintering of the vote to smaller parties made other coalition options more difficult. An SPD leader has served as vice chancellor in the new government, and the two large parties theoretically share the responsibility of government. The party suffered severe losses in the election see Table 8.
Many leftist voters supported either the Linke or the Greens. Now in opposition, the party must reassess how it competes in the more fragemented party system of contemporary Germany. As an opposition party, the SPD increased its vote share slightly since However, the SPD had excluded cooperation with the Linke because of its communist roots.
Stability and Change in German Elections
So after months of negotiations, it again found itself in a grand coalition. Like a married couple that had divorced earlier, the SPD choose to renew its vows to the Christian Democrats. But what is uncertain is whether this marriage will repeat the problems of the past, leaving the SPD struggling as it had after the previous grand coalition.
Or will this tryst rejuvenate the party? The party has a distinct political philosophy. The party is a strong advocate of private enterprise and opposes some of the more liberal economic policies of the SPD. At the same time, the FDP's liberal social policies contrast with the Christian orientation of the Union parties. The FDP was one of the first four parties licensed by the occupation forces, and it used this early start to win representation in the preliminary round of state and local elections.
The party emerged from the elections as the third largest party in the Bundestag. As part of the government the FDP advocated policies aimed at stimulating postwar economic development, represented the interests of agriculture, and endorsed Adenauer's Western-oriented foreign policy. Visit the FDP Online. In the late s the Free Democrats developed a new party image on non-economic issues. This transformation led to the decision to form a new alliance with the SPD after the Bundestag elections.
The party called for the democratization of society, social reforms, and more socially-minded economic policies. The party supported Brandt's Ostpolitik, and the two governing parties worked closely together on social modernization policies. Walter Scheel, the F. Each previous time the FDP had changed direction, in and , the party had suffered at the polls, and the same thing happened in see Table 8.
The party's vote share dropped from Just as political analysts were preparing eulogies for the FDP, the party made a dramatic recovery. The Free Democrats pressed for fiscal policies to lessen the federal deficit and restore economic growth. Foreign minister Genscher won public favor by continuing to advocate detente with the East. Analysts interpreted the results as a sign that the public wanted to strengthen the FDP's position as a moderating influence on the Union parties.
The FDP benefitted from its support of unification and the positive role that Genscher played in this process. Then it took to the opposition benches when the SPD-Green coalition won in In Guido Westerwelle won the party leadership; his goal is to return the FDP to a role in the national government. The party was the clearest advocate for many of the economic and social reforms that many analysts favored.
The party used its time on the opposition benches to strengthen its appeal to the voters. The FDP's record underscores the potential importance of small parties in a multiparty system. Although the FDP is the smallest of the established parties, its influence in the party system has greatly outweighed its share of the popular vote.
Government control in the German parliamentary system, at the federal and state levels, routinely requires a coalition of parties. The FDP has often controled enough votes and a strategic centrist ideological position to play a pivotal role in forming government coalitions and direct the course of politics. But living small is risky. Pundits predicted the FDP would fail to win representation in several previous elections.
It always proved the pundits wrong-until The party fell a fraction below the five percent required for representation in the Bundestag. Now the party has to regroup at the state and local level to offer voters a better choice at the next election, if it is to regain national representation. Environmental issues first attracted widespread public attention in the late s and early s. As the Federal Republic enjoyed the products of the Economic Miracle, some citizens grew concerned about mounting environmental problems.
The catalyst for citizen concern was often a local problem, pollution by a local company or the construction of a nuclear power plant. Because the established parties generally were unresponsive to these issues, environmentalists organized citizen action groups outside the party system to lobby on environmental issues. In the late s the environmental movement entered a new phase. Frustrated by the lack of progress in working from outside the political system, local and regional ecological groups started to work for change from inside the system.
The first environmental lists appeared in the local elections in Schleswig-Holstein. The Greens proclaimed themselves as a party of a new type, advocating a society in harmony with nature and a party free of bureaucratic structures. At the outset the party was a multicolored rainbow. It attracted a heterogeneous mixture of students, farmers, and middle class supporters. Prominent figures within the party ranged from a former CDU Bundestag deputy to former Maoists, from a retired army general to a convicted student terrorist. Visit The Greens Online. The Greens fared poorly in the election, but by the end of the Greens had won seats in six state legislatures.
The party also developed a more extensive political program that included issues such as support for women's rights, minority rights, and the further democratization of society and the economy. This new ideological focus drove many conservative members out of the party, as the Greens became a representative of New Left and alternative political viewpoints.
The party's election manifesto called for predictable environmental policies such as the immediate halt of all nuclear power activity, the dismantling of nuclear power plants, and the elimination of pesticides from agriculture. In addition, the Greens called for more unconventional policies: The Greens represented a new political philosophy in partisan politics. In the elections the Greens emphasized the issues of environmental protection and nuclear weapons. Riding on these two issues, the Greens won 27 seats in the Bundestag with 5.
Using their new political forum, the Greens vigorously campaigned for an alternative political view on the environment, defense policy, citizen participation, and minority rights. At the same time, the Greens added a bit of color and spontaneity to the normally staid procedures of the political system.
The Greens were a party of youthful exuberance. The normal dress for Green deputies is jeans and a sweater, rather than the traditional business attire of the established parties. Many political analysts initially expressed dire concerns about the Greens impact of the political system, but experts now generally agree that the party was instrumental in bringing attention to new political viewpoints.
Based on this performance, the Greens increased their share of the popular vote to in the elections. Internally, the party was divided between " Fundis " fundamentalists and " Realos " realists. The Fundis believed the party should maintain an uncompromising commitment to a radical restructuring of society and politics. Purity of thought and action—and eventually radical social change—is more important than short term results. The Realos were more pragmatic. They were willing to work within established channels for incremental social reform, even accepting positions in local and state governments.
The factional battles between Fundis and Realos created an ongoing identity crisis for the Greens. Even worse, some Green party leaders advocated an alliance with the recently dethroned communists in the East.
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Furthermore, to stress their opposition to the fusion of both Germanies, the Western Greens refused to develop a formal electoral alliance with any eastern party until after the elections. Separate Green slates ran in the West and in the East. The Eastern coalition of the Greens and Alliance '90 won enough votes to gain 8 seats in the Bundestag. However, the Western Greens failed to win any parliamentary seats on its own.
The Greens unconventional politics finally caught up with them, at least temporarily. The election results increased the factional conflict between Fundis and Realos, which the realists won. The Greens swept away many of its unconventional organizational structures and moved toward more pragmatic political style. These actions evoked the wrath of the Fundis, but it yielded strong showings for the Greens in subsequent state elections.
The party reentered the Bundestag in This Red-Green coalition received a majority in the election, and for the first time the Greens became part of the national government. It is difficult to be an outsider when one is inside of the establishment, however. The antiparty party struggled to balance its unconventional policies against the new responsibilities of governing—and steadily gave up its unconventional style.
For instance, the party supported military intervention into Kosovo, despite its pacifist traditions. It supported tax reform that lowered the highest rates in exchange for a new environmental tax. It pressed for the abolition of nuclear power, but agreed to wait thirty years for this to happen. In the campaign, the anti-elitist Greens ran a campaign heavily based on the personal appeal of their leader, Joschka Fischer. The Greens had become a conventional party in terms of their style, now pursuing unconventional and reformist policies.
The Greens gained votes in , but were left out of the eventual governing coalition. The Greens standing increased in the election with its highest vote share ever. The party system of the German Democratic Republic reflected the contrast between political rhetoric and reality found throughout the system. The GDR ostensibly was a multiparty democracy, but the Communists held the rein of power very tightly. The SED was the ruling institution in the East. Membership in the SED plummeted and whole local and regional party units abolished themselves.
The omnipotent party suddenly seemed impotent. In an attempt to remain competitive in the new democratic environment in the East, the party changed its name in February and became the Party of Democratic Socialism PDS. New moderates ousted the old party guard and took over the leadership of the PDS. The PDS gained 11 percent of the eastern vote, which enabled it win seats in the new all-German parliament. The PDS became an advocate for Easterners who felt overlooked in the unification process.
The PDS shared in the proportional distribution of Bundestag seats after the and elections. The PDS faced an uncertain future following the election. The party held only two seats in the Bundestag and gained less than 5 percent of the national vote. Many analysts predicted the eventual end of the party as a national political force.
Visit Die Linke Online. As the election approached, the party's fate took a new turn. In June the two parties formally merged and now function under the label "Die Linke" the Left Party. The Linke is an alliance of easterners who are dissatisfied with their situation, and far left voters from the West. In the East, it is supplanting the SPD as the main leftist party. The Linke's strong showing in and suggests the party has institutionalized itself as another member of the party system.
One of the most essential functions of political parties in a democracy is the selection of political elites. Elections give individuals and social groups with an opportunity to select officeholders who share their views. In turn, this choice leads to the representation of group interests in the policy process, because a party must be responsive to its electoral coalition if it wants to retain its voting support. While Bundestag deputies are selected in free and competitive contests, the structure of the German electoral system differs decidedly from the American or British system.
During elections in Germany, the government provides a limited amount of free advertising to political parties on television and radio. These ads were traditional shown as a bloc before the prime time television started in the evening. The parties have minutes to present their message. Other ads run in the movie theaters before the previews of coming attractions. As a result, these party ads typically tell a story, rather than offer a few short soundbites.
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Many of ads for past elections have been uploaded to YouTube. The ads are in German, but they are still interesting if you don't speak German because they are visually so different from American campaign ads. My favorites--for videography and style rather than political content--are marked by an asterisk. The framers of the Basic Law had two goals in mind when they designed the electoral system. One was to reinstate the proportional representation PR system that was used in the Weimar Republic.
A PR system allocates legislative seats on the basis of a party's percentage of the popular votes. If a party receives 10 percentage of the popular vote it should receive 10 percent of the Bundestag seats. Other experts saw advantages in a system of single-member districts as used in Britain and the United States. They thought that this system would avoid the fragmentation of the Weimar party system and ensure greater accountability between an electoral district and its representative.
To satisfy both objectives, a hybrid system of "personalized proportional representation" was developed with elements of both models. The first vote Erststimme goes to a candidate running to represent the district. Anderson and Carsten Zelle Pt. A New Type of Voter? Gluchowski and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. A Third Face of Dealignment? Candidate Evaluations and Party Choice in Germany, A New Type of Nonvoter? Collisions Between East and West? Regional Differences in Party Systems. Voting Behavior in Subnational Elections: Candidate Characteristics and Electoral Performance: Notes Includes bibliographical references p.
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