A Critical Departure for Women Executives or More of the Same? The Powers of Chancellor Merkel

Abstract

Applying a typology of political systems and executive power, this article focuses on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's powers and autonomy in relation to other female executives worldwide. Like most women leaders, Merkel operates within a dual executive system and is subject to a vote of no confidence. Powers are exercised within a cabinet, suggesting collaborative governance. Coalition politics requires Merkel's cooperation with other actors. State powers also compete with the Federal government. In these ways, Merkel supports the prevailing model of the more constrained female executive. However, German presidential powers are generally symbolic, positioning Merkel as the dominant executive. She also enjoys greater insularity from dismissal than most prime ministers. As the only female head of state in a G-8 country, Merkel plays a visible and central role in global politics. In these ways, Merkel ultimately challenges the weaker model of the female executive, suggesting a mixed pattern overall.

Notes

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Jalalzai, ‘Women Rule’.

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Farida Jalalzai, 'Women Political Leaders: Past and Present', Women and Politics, 26/3–4 (2004), pp.85–108.

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Wolfgang C. Muller, Torbjorn Bergman and Kaare Strom, ‘Parliamentary Democracy: Promises and Problems’, in Kaare Strom, Wolfgang C. Muller, and Torbjorn Bergman (eds.), Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3–32.

While her relationship with Mitterrand aided her advancement to the post, because they were both from the Socialist Party, he had wide latitude in nominating her and retaining her, diminishing her influence. According to her own account, she had little independent power to appoint her cabinet; instead she had to select from Mitterrand's friends (Liswood, Women World Leaders, p.122). Rather than toeing the party line, Cresson was very outspoken, which repeatedly created tensions within the executive branch. When the Socialist Party failed dismally in local elections in 1992, Mitterrand demanded her resignation (Jane S. Jensen, Women Political Leaders: Breaking the Highest Glass Ceiling

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This includes seven from unified systems and the two from dual executive systems already noted. However, it excludes the two women presidents of the Swiss Confederation. They are technically from unified systems since only one person leads the Federal Council at a time. However, the President has only the power to chair council meetings – hardly a dominant force. Thus, women executives are still fairly constrained in their powers and often insecure in their positions.

Latin American women leaders are recently beginning to break this trend of reliance on family ties. However, although Michelle Bachelet is generally not considered to have family ties to power, her father, Alberto Bachelet Martinez, was an Air Force General and major opposition figure. He was imprisoned under the Pinochet regime and ultimately died of cardiac failure. Bachelet and her mother were also imprisoned because of their opposition to the regime. While a political actor unto herself, her family ties through her father should not be ignored. Still, while two other women in this region were elected president in 2010 (after the time analysed in this article), neither Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica nor Dilma Rousseff of Brazil have family ties to power, though their close linkages to the outgoing male presidents were pivotal to their electoral successes and compensated for women's traditional barriers to the presidency. They were surrogates of popular male presidents who were unable to remain in power due to term limitations.

I analyse all countries that meet the following criteria – they are politically autonomous, conform to a traditional executive structure, are not absolute monarchies and executive office is open to contestation such as one-party communist states or absolute military dictatorships (even though in some cases politics may overall be less than democratic).

Author analysis of data from World Political Leaders website: http://www.terra.es/personal2/monolith/00index2.htm (accessed Aug. 2009).

Duerst-Lahti, ‘Reconceiving Theories of Power’; Jalalzai, ‘Women Rule’.

Article 54: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 27 April 2009).

Article 59: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 25 April 2009).

Article 60: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 25 April 2009).

Article 64: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 25 April 2009).

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Ibid. (accessed 25 April 2009). This right is terminated if the Bundestag elects another Chancellor by majority vote.

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These powerful speeches were generally aimed at the importance of Germans remembering the ‘moral turpitude of the Hitler year’. Michael J. Sodaro, Comparative Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 2001), p.517.

Proksch, and Slapin, ‘Institutions and Coalition Formation’.

Clemens, ‘From the Outside In’; Ferree, ‘Angela Merkel’; Thompson and Lennartz, ‘The Making of Chancellor Merkel’; Wiliarty, ‘Angela Merkel's Path to Power’.

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Wiliarty, ‘Angela Merkel's Path to Power’.

The Chancellor does not have to be the head of the dominant party. Ibid.

Proksch and Slapin, ‘Institutions and Coalition Formation’.

Schröder's motivation for refusing to cede the election may have been driven by his belief that a female chancellor would have been unacceptable, though it is impossible to firmly prove this.

Ludger Helms, ‘The Grand Coalition: Precedents and Prospects’, German Politics and Society 78/41 (2006), pp. 47–66.

The President is not required to put forward the party choice, but needs to name someone who will command a majority.

Helms, ‘The Grand Coalition’.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1737962,00.html (accessed 28 April 2009).

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Article 67: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 29 April 2009).

Stuart Parks, Understanding Contemporary Germany (New York: Routledge, 1997).

Office of Chancellor website: http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/Webs/BK/EN/Office-and-constitution/office-and-constitution.html (accessed 29 April 2009).

For example, Kim Campbell was Prime Minister of Canada for less than one year. Still, women like Margaret Thatcher were able to hang one for long tenures, though the risk of being ousted is always a possibility, limiting their ultimate autonomy.

Article 64: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 29 April 2009).

http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 29 April 2009).

Office of Chancellor website.

Article 65a: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 27 April 2009.

Article 115b: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 27 April 2009).

Judy Dempsey and Alan Cowell, ‘More German Troops to Afghanistan’, New York Times( 25 June 2008, available from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/world/europe/25iht-25german.13964407.html (accessed 16 Nov. 2010).

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Independent analysis of the author of sources described in the text.

Stuart Parks, Understanding Contemporary Germany (New York: Routledge, 1997).

Michael J. Sodaro, Comparative Politics: A Global Introduction (New York: McGraw Hill, 2001), p.52.

Helms, ‘The Grand Coalition’.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Roderich Egeler, ‘Detailed Results of the 2009 Bundestag Election’, Dec. 2008, available from http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/BTW_BUND_09/presse/76_Detailliertes-Ergebnis.html (accessed 15 Jan. 2010).

Louise K. Davidson-Schmich, ‘Women in the Executive Branch: What Difference Does Gender Make and How do we Know? The Case of Angela Merkel’. Paper prepared for the 32nd Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, 2–5 Oct. 2008, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Andreas Rinke and Stephen Brown, ‘Special Report: the Two Lives of Angela Merkel’, Reuters, 16 Nov. 2010, available from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AF29220101116 (accessed 18 Nov. 2010).

Tony Paterson, ‘Weak Merkel Stokes Xenophobia as She Fights for Political Survival’, The Independent World, 18 Oct. 2010, available from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/weak-merkel-stokes-xenophobia-as-she-fights-for-political-survival-2109433.html (accessed 1 Nov. 2010).

Rinke and Brown, ‘Special Report: the Two Lives of Angela Merkel’.

Ibid.

France's Cresson did not hold as much influence as prime minister as the president.

International Monetary Fund website – this excludes the European Union: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2008&ey=2008&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds (accessed 25 April 2009).

William Drozdiak, ‘Urgent: Creating a Merkel Miracle’, Foreign Policy (Jan./Feb. 2006), pp.68–72.

Helms, ‘The Grand Coalition’.

Hanns W. Maull, ‘Germany and the Art of Coalition Building’, Journal of European Integration 30/1 (2008), pp.131–52.

‘Angela Merkel's Big Political Year’, The Economist 390/8614, 17 Jan. 2009, pp.51–2; Rinke and Brown, ‘Special Report: the Two Lives of Angela Merkel’.

Expenditures for 2008: €31,921 million, representing 1.5 per cent of overall gross domestic product – Stockholm International Peace Research website: http://www.sipri.org/ (accessed 23 April 2009); percentage of GDP from the CIA worldfactbook productbrary/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gm.html#Military (accessed 24 April 2009).

German Constitution: http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt (accessed 25 April 2009).

Jackson Janes, ‘The Change in Government and Transatlantic Relations’, German Politics and Society 24/1 (2006), pp.119–33.

Maull, ‘Germany and the Art of Coalition Building’.

Paterson, ‘Weak Merkel Stokes Xenophobia as She Fights for Political Survival’.

Maull, ‘Germany and the Art of Coalition Building’.

Charles Forelle, 'EU Rejects a Rescue of Faltering East Europe', The Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2009, available from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123591435325503221.html (accessed 4 May 2009).

Janes, ‘The Change in Government and Transatlantic Relations’.

Joyce Mushaben, ‘Madam Chancellor: Angela Merkel and the Triangulation of German Foreign Policy’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (Winter/Spring), pp.27–35.

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Stephen Brown, 'Analysis: Merkel Talks Tough on Bailout to Gain at Home', Reuters, 28 Nov. 2010, available from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AR39520101128 (accessed 30 Nov. 2010).

Brown, ‘Analysis: Merkel Talks Tough on Bailout to Gain at Home’.

Mushaben, ‘Madam Chancellor’.