The German Party System(s) in 2005: A Return to Volkspartei Dominance

Abstract

The article assesses the socio-structural underpinnings and systemic dynamics of the contemporary German party system and identifies four phenomena: an increased level of fractionalisation that has made it more difficult for small parties to assume the ‘kingmaker’ or ‘pivot’ role; the continued strengthening of a two-bloc dynamic; the emergence and persistence of the new territorial cleavage in the united Germany; and, a skew in the party system to the left that has shifted the position of the median legislator. It is argued that all these changes have served to re-assert the dominance of the two Volksparteien and have been particularly advantageous to the SPD. The article concludes by arguing that the outcome of the 2005 federal election can thus be seen as very much in keeping with these trends.

Notes

1. See S. Lipset and S. Rokkan, ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in S. Lipset and S. Rokkan (eds.) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967); R. Rose and D. Urwin, ‘Social Cohesion, Political Parties and Strains in Regimes’, Comparative Political Studies 2 (1969), pp.7–67; R. Rose and D. Urwin, ‘Persistence and Change in Western Party Systems since 1945’, Political Studies 18 (1970), pp.287–319; E. Allardt and S. Rokkan, Mass Politics (New York: Free Press, 1970); R. Rose, Electoral Behaviour: A Comparative Handbook (New York: Free Press, 1974).

2. G. Loewenberg, ‘The Making of the German Party System: Political and Socio-Economic Factors’, Polity 1 (1968), pp.86–113; P. Converse and H. Valen, ‘Dimensions of Cleavage and Perceived Party Distance in Norwegian Voting’, Scandinavian Political Studies 6 (1971), pp.107–52; S. Berglund and U. Lindstrom, ‘The Scandinavian Party System(s) in Transition(?): A Macro-level Analysis’, European Journal of Political Research 7 (1979), pp.187–204.

3. See P. Dunleavy and C. Husbands, British Democracy at the Crossroads (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985); A. Zuckerman, ‘Political Cleavage: A Conceptual and Theoretical Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science 5 (1975), pp.231–48; P. Pesonen, ‘Dimensions of Political Cleavage in Multi-party Systems’, European Journal of Political Research 1 (1973), pp.109–32; D. Rae and M. Taylor, The Analysis of Political Cleavages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); for instance, H. Daalder, ‘Parties, Elites, and Political Developments in Western Europe’, in J. LaPolambara and M. Weiner (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).

4. Lipset and Rokkan, ‘Party Systems and Voter Alignments’.

5. T. Landman, Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics: An Introduction (London/New York: Routledge, 2000), p.129.

6. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, election data 1976–87.

7. W. Claggett et al., ‘Political Leadership and the Development of Political Cleavages: Imperial Germany, 1871–1912’, American Journal of Political Science 26/4 (1982), pp.643–63.

8. C. Lees, Party Politics in Germany: A Comparative Politics Approach (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

9. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 2002; M. Dogan, ‘Class, Religion, Party. Triple Decline of Electoral Cleavages in Western Europe’, in L. Karvonen and S. Kuhnle (eds.) Party Systems and Voter Alignments Revisited (London: Routledge, 2001).

10. Lipset and Rokkan, ‘Party Systems and Voter Alignments’.

11. H. Kitschelt, The Logics of Party Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); H. Kitschelt, ‘Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-nuclear Movements in Four Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science 16/1 (1986); S.G. Tarrow: Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

12. R. Dalton et al., Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Princeton; Guildford: Princeton University Press, 1984).

13. S. Padgett (ed.), Parties And Party Systems in the New Germany (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1993); P. Conradt et al. (eds.), Germany's New Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1990s (Oxford: Berghan, 1990); P. Converse and H. Valen, ‘Dimensions of Cleavage and Perceived Party Distance in Norwegian Voting’, Scandinavian Political Studies 6 (1971), pp.107–52; I. Crewe, ‘Introduction: Electoral Change in Western Democracies: A Framework for Analysis’, in I. Crewe and D. Denver (eds.), Electoral Change in Western Democracies: Patterns and Sources of Electoral Volatility (London: Croom Helm, 1985).

14. R. Ingelhart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); R. Ingelhart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977); S. Flanagan, ‘Changing Values in Advanced Industrial Society’, Comparative Political Studies 14 (1982), pp.403–44; see also R. Dalton, Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 2^nd edn. (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1996); R. Dalton, and M. Kuechler (eds.), Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

15. Dalton et al., ‘Two German Electorates?’, in G. Smith, and W. Patterson (eds.), Developments in German Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), p.55.

16. Although already neutralised as an electoral force the KPD was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956.

17. Lees, Party Politics in Germany.

18. D. Black ‘On the rationale of group decision making’, Journal of Political Economy 56 (1948), pp.23–34; K.J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1951).

19. R.G. Niemi, ‘Majority decision making with partial unidimensionality’, American Political Science Review 63 (1969), pp.488–97; G. Tullock, and C.D. Campbell, ‘Computer Simulation of a Small Voting System’, Economics Journal 80 (1970), pp.97–104; K. Koga and H. Nagatani, ‘Voter Antagonism and the Paradox of Voting’, Econometrica 42 (1974), pp.1045–67.

20. See M. Laakso and R. Taagepera, ‘“Effective” Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 12/1 (April 1979), pp.3–27; also C. Lees and A. Taylor, ‘Explaining the 2005 Coalition Formation Process in Germany – A Comparison of Power Index and Median Legislator Coalition Models’, Politics 26/3 (2006), pp.151–60.

21. J.-E. Lane and S. Ersson, Politics and Society in Western Europe, 4^th edn (London: Sage, 1999), pp.142–3.

22. K. Shepsle, ‘Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models’, American Journal of Political Science 23 (1979), pp.27–60.

23. G. Smith, ‘Western European Party Systems: On the Trail of a Typology’, West European Politics 2/1 (1979).

24. Ibid., p.135.

25. F. Pappi, ‘The West German Party System’, West European Politics 7 (1984), pp.7–26.

26. Since the 2005 federal elections there has been a renewal of interest in the Social-Liberal model. The main driver for this has been the election of Kurt Beck as Chairman of the SPD in May 2006. As Minister President of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Beck has in the past ruled in coalition with the FDP. Given that Beck will almost certainly be the SPD's chancellor-candidate at the next federal elections, the prospect of a federal-level coalition involving the SPD and FDP is far more likely than it has been in the recent past.

27. See for instance C. Lees, The Red-Green Coalition in Germany: Politics, Personalities, and Power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

28. Lees, Party Politics in Germany.

29. Lees, The Red-Green Coalition in Germany.

30. See G. Smith, ‘The ‘New Model’ Party System’, in S. Padgett, W. Paterson and G. Smith (eds.), Developments in German Politics 3 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), p.98.

31. Robert Axelrod developed the idea of ideological connectedness as a response to the predictive weaknesses of ‘pure’ office-seeking models of coalition formation. Axelrod's work was subsequently refined by, amongst many others, Abram de Swaan, who is associated with initial work on the median legislator/Mparty model. See R. Axelrod, Conflict of Interest (Chicago: Markham, 1970); A. de Swaan, Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formation (Amsterdam/Oxford, 1973: Elsevier). Another method of calculating the decisiveness of a political party in a given coalition game is through the use of power indices such as the standardised Banzhaf index. Such indices are contested in the literature (see Maclean et al., 2005, for instance).

32. A. de Swaan, Coalition Theories And Cabinet Formation (Amsterdam/Oxford: Elsevier, 1973).

33. See Lees, The Red-Green Coalition in Germany, Party Politics in Germany.

34. Ibid.

35. It might be argued that Green portfolios that oversee such key policy areas and large budgets as health or agriculture are not second-order ministries. However, it is generally agreed that first-order ministries are those of finance, foreign affairs, environment, defence, transport, and the interior. Please refer to Müller and Strøm, 2003, for a useful generic ranking of specific ministries in a comparative context.

36. This includes the Sűdschleswigsche Wählerverband (SSW), which exists to defend the interests of the territorially distinct Danish ethnic minority in Schleswig-Holstein. For the purposes of this article, however, it cannot be considered part of the ‘national’ party system.

37. Smith 2003.

38. Lees, Party Politics in Germany.

39. For a more developed argument in this vein, using power index analysis, see Lees and Taylor, ‘Explaining the 2005 Coalition Formation Process’, pp.151–60.

40. Ibid.