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Abstract
For most of her political career Angela Merkel has been perceived as a pragmatic political leader, avoiding tough and divisive decisions wherever possible, and joining decision-making coalitions on contested issues when they emerged. To some extent, this remarkable ability appears to explain her extended hold on the German chancellorship. In the midst of her third term, however, her behaviour changed suddenly and unexpectedly, or so it seemed. When in July 2015 the euro crisis flared up again due to the standoff between Greece and its EU partners on the second bail-out, Merkel let her European convictions prevail and backed another support package against the wishes of many in her party. Moreover, when Germany was hit by a wave of refugees only a few months later, Merkel became the torch-bearer of a ‘culture of welcome’ and defended her ‘open-door’ policies with a measure of conviction that few observers would have considered possible. This paper looks at Merkel’s leadership performance during her third term through the lens of the concept of ‘conviction leadership’, and inquires if, or to what extent, Merkel can be meaningfully considered a ‘conviction leader’.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees of this journal for their most insightful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ludger Helms is a Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He has formerly been a Senior Research Professor at Webster University and a visiting fellow at Harvard, Barnard, UC Berkeley, Tokyo, CEU and LSE. His research focuses on comparative political institutions, governance, and leadership. He is the author of five books, 50 book chapters, and more than 80 articles in learned journals. He is also the editor or co-editor of eight edited volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives (forthcoming).
Femke Van Esch is an Associate Professor of European Integration at the Utrecht University School of Governance (USG), The Netherlands. She has published widely in the fields of European integration and comparative European politics, with a special focus on the role of leaders’ beliefs and national culture. Her work has appeared in such journals as European Political Science, European Political Science Review, Journal of European Integration, Journal of European Public Policy and West European Politics.
Beverly Crawford is a Professor Emerita of Political Science and Political Economy at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and the former Director of Berkeley’s Center for German and European Studies (currently Honorary Chair) and the EU Center of Excellence. She is the author of Power and German Foreign Policy: Embedded Hegemony in Europe (Palgrave, 2014). Her articles have appeared, inter alia, in Comparative Political Studies, German Politics and Society, The Journal of Contemporary Security Policy and World Politics.
Notes
1 See, for example, Spiegel Online, 15 Nov. 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/triumph-des-pragmatismus-wie-merkel-ihre-macht-absichert-a-661175.html; Zeit Online, 17 Sept. 2017, http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-09/angela-merkel-politik-pragmatismus-fluechtlingspolitik
2 As set out in more detail below, our understanding of leadership, and ‘conviction leadership’ more specifically, is tied to agency-centred notions of leadership. To us, manifestations of leadership are essentially driven by what leaders do, bringing to bear their different skills and styles. This is not to say that context – including both structures and other actors – do not matter a lot. Indeed, all leaders operate, and all leadership evolves, in context (see Bell, Hargrove, and Theakston Citation1999; Hargrove and Owens Citation2003). In particular institutions have been shown to have a strong explanatory power for different manifestations and patterns of leadership (see Helms Citation2014b), yet context includes many other aspects to be accounted for, such as the cultural parameters of a given regime, different types of time, and a wealth of situational factors (‘t Hart Citation2014a, Citation2014b, ch. 5). Context shapes leaders’ perceptions, choices and their overall room for manoeuvre as well as the effects that leaders and leadership may have in a particular setting. In turn, leaders may shape the contexts in which they operate – an acknowledgment which is at the heart of the ‘interactionist paradigm’ of leadership (see Elgie Citation2015, ch. 1) which our research is closely related to. Thus, our emphasis on the importance of agency, and the difference that leaders may make, is less in opposition to contextual approaches, and rather distinguishes our understanding of leadership from ‘leader-free’ notions of leadership (see e.g. Raelin Citation2016).
3 The word fiscal support may be deceptive, as all fiscal support measures consisted of loans to be paid back with interest. They thus increased Greece’s already substantial debt.
4 In 2016, the ECB again introduced new non-standard measures that Merkel opposed for similar reasons.
7 ‘Compassion for Refugees Isn’t Enough’, International New York Times, 10 Sept. 2015
8 Quoted in ‘Mother Angela: Merkel’s Refugee Policy Divides Europe’, Spiegel Online International, 21 Sept. 2015.
10 ‘Zahl der Migranten: Merkel: Grundrecht auf Asyl kennt keine Obergrenze’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11 Sept. 2015, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/fluechtlingskrise/merkel-grundrecht-auf-asyl-kennt-keine-obergrenze-13797029.html
11 European Commission Statement following the decision at the Extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council to relocate 120,000 refugees, Brussels, 22 Sept. 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-15-5697_en.htm
12 Quoted in ‘Berlin Calls for Sanctions on EU States that Reject Refugee Quotas’, Deutsche Welle, 15 Sept. 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-calls-for-sanctions-on-eu-states-that-reject-refugee-quotas/a-18714957
13 As of Aug. 2017, 44,284 refugees had been distributed throughout Europe. https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/press-material/docs/state_of_play_-_relocation_en.pdf
14 ‘Commission Presents Recommendation for a Voluntary Humanitarian Admission Scheme with Turkey for Refugees from Syria’, Strasbourg, 15 Dec. 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6330_en.htm
15 https://bundestagswahl-2017.com/angela-merkel. All four electoral races in four state elections held in 2016 saw the AfD gaining double-digit percentages of the votes and corresponding seats in state parliaments. Considered to be the most devastating blow to Merkel, the CDU came in third behind the Social Democrats and the AfD in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomeraina on 4 Sept. 2016.
17 On the various agreements implemented see: European Commission, ‘Towards a new Partnership Framework with Third Countries under the European Agenda on Migration’, Fact Sheet, Strasbourg, 7 June 2016.
18 In December 2017 it emerged that in the first half of 2017 Germany had processed a greater number of applications for asylum that all other EU member states combined; see http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/halbjahresbilanz-357-625-asyl-entscheidungen-in-deutschland-199-405-in-der-restlichen-eu/20665604.html
20 Indeed, the hard-won agreement between CDU and CSU of early October 2017 did not establish a strict upper limit, but rather a target cap (of 200,000 people a year). Also, the number is not binding and asylum seekers will not be turned away at the German border. See https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/union-obergrenze-107.html