Actors, Structures and Strategies: Policy Continuity and Change under the German Grand Coalition (2005–09)

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Notes

This special issue is one of the first comprehensive assessments of the main policy changes under the Grand Coalition of 2005–09 and of the structural constraints facing the Merkel government in overcoming the reform gridlock (‘Reformstau’) many observers identified as a characteristic of the Kohl and Schröder governments. Simultaneously, and independent of the present special issue, a group of scholars assembled by Christoph Egle and Reimut Zohlnhöfer produced a more extensive, but structurally similar account in German: C. Egle and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Die zweite Große Koalition: Eine Bilanz der Regierung Merkel 2005–2009 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010). Furthermore, a special issue of German Politics and Society (Issue 96, 28/3, Fall 2010) offers analyses of some of the main features of the Grand Coalition.

For a concise summary of some basic issues and explanations see S. Green and W.E. Paterson, ‘Introduction: Semisovereignty Challenged’, in S. Green and W.E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.9–16.

K. Hildebrand, ‘Die erste Groβe Koalition 1966 bis 1969. Gefährdung oder Bewährung der parlamentarischen Demokratie in der Bundesrepublik?’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 37/3 (2006), pp.611–25.

P.J. Katzenstein, Policy and Politics in West Germany: The Growth of a Semisovereign State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); S.O. Green and W.E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Egle and Zohlnhöfer refer to this as ‘reform thesis’ (Reformthese) and ‘blockage thesis’ (Blockadethese). C. Egle and R. Zohlnhöfer, ‘Die Große Koalition – Eine “Koalition der neuen Möglichkeiten?”’, in Egle and Zohlnhöfer (eds), Die zweite Große Koalition, pp.17–21.

P.A. Hall, ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain’, Comparative Political Studies 25/3 (1993), pp.275–96.

Ibid., pp.278–9.

F.W. Scharpf, Games Real Actors Play: Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), p.124.

A. Lupia and K. Strøm, ‘Bargaining, Transaction Costs, and Coalition Governance’, in K. Strøm, W.C. Müller and T. Bergman (eds), Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining: The Democratic Life Cycle in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p.59.

See T. Saalfeld, ‘Coalition Governance under Chancellor Merkel's Grand Coalition: A Comparison of the Cabinets Merkel I and Merkel II’, German Politics and Society Issue 96, 28/3 (2010), pp.82–102 (especially p.88) and the contribution of Miller and Müller to this special issue.

For a formal model see A. Lupia and K. Strøm, ‘Coalition Termination and the Strategic Timing of Parliamentary Elections’, American Political Science Review 89 (1995), pp.648–65; for data see T. Saalfeld, ‘Germany: Stable Parties, Chancellor Democracy, and the Art of Informal Settlement’, in W.C. Müller and K. Strøm (eds), Coalition Government in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.32–85.

See the illustration in Saalfeld, ‘Coalition Governance’, especially pp.84–7.

For some brief illustrations pertaining to the 2005–09 Grand Coalition see R. Hilmer, ‘Bundestagswahl 2009: Ein Wechsel auf Raten’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 41/1 (2010), especially pp.148–54.

J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953 [1944]).

W.H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962); W.A. Gamson, ‘A Theory of Coalition Formation’, American Sociological Review 26 (1961), pp.373–82.

M. Leiserson, ‘Factions and Coalitions in One-Party Japan: An Interpretation Based on the Theory of Games’, American Political Science Review 62/3 (1968), pp.770–87.

See, for example, Thomas de Maizière, the cabinet minister heading the Federal Chancellor's office during the Grand Coalition 2005–09 said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on 29 July 2007: ‘Eine Große Koalition ist die Ausnahme’, http://www.bundesregierung.de/nn_915752/Content/DE/Archiv16/Interview/2007/07/2007-07-29-interview-chefbk-fas.html (accessed 6 Aug. 2010).

The origins of the term ‘Groβe Koalition’ have been traced back to the crisis-ridden Weimar Republic. Gustav Stresemann, then leader of the German People's Party and the Weimar Republic's Foreign Secretaries, wrote in 1928 ‘I consider the so-called “Grand Coalition” to be the best practical opportunity to create a reasonably stable government in Germany” (quoted in L. Richter, Die Deutsche Volkspartei 1918–1933 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2001), p. 492). Stresemann referred to a broad coalition including the SPD on the left and the national-liberal DVP (his own party), the liberal DDP, the Roman Catholic Zentrum party and the conservative Bavarian People's Party (BVP) on the centre-right and right. This cabinet was headed by the Social Democrat Hermann Müller. It was formed in 1928 and dissolved in 1930.

W.C. Müller, ‘Austria: Tight Coalitions and Stable Government’, in W.C. Müller and K. Strøm (eds), Coalition Governments in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.86–125.

R. Czada, ‘Konkordanz, Korporatismus und Politikverflechtung: Dimensionen der Verhandlungsdemokratie’, in E. Holtmann and H. Voelzkow (eds), Zwischen Wettbewerbs- und Verhandlungsdemokratie: Analysen zum Regierungssystem der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2000), pp.23–49; E. Holtmann, ‘Gesetzgebung in der Wohnungspolitik des Bundes: Zur Rolle des parteipolitischen Faktors’, in ibid., pp.105–28.

W. Rudzio, ‘Informelles Regieren – Koalitionsmanagement der Regierung Merkel’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B16 (2008), pp.11–17.

On which K. Dyson, ‘Binding Hands as a Strategy for Economic Reform: Government by Commission’, in K. Dyson and S. Padgett (eds), The Politics of Economic Reform in Germany: Global, Rhineland or Hybrid Capitalism? (London: Routledge, 2006), pp.110–33.

Ibid.

E. Jesse, ‘Koalitionsaussagen der Parteien vor Bundestagswahlen’, in E. Jesse and E. Klein (eds), Das Parteienspektrum im wiedervereinigten Deutschland (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007), pp.85–96.

G. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Hall, ‘Policy Paradigms’.

A comprehensive discussion of Gordon Smith's contribution can be found in S. Padgett and T. Poguntke (eds), Continuity and Change in German Politics: Festschrift for Gordon Smith, which was published as a special issue of German Politics 10/2 (2001).