Socio-Economic Change, Party Competition and Intra-Party Conflict: The Family Policy of the Grand Coalition

Abstract

The German welfare state has historically been characterised as a prototype of the ‘strong male breadwinner model’. Although there have been incremental innovations and expansions of various family policies since the mid-1980s, which accelerated during the Red–Green government of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is argued that paradigmatic change towards an employment-oriented family policy only came about during the Grand Coalition. This article systematically analyses family policy change and the factors that have determined it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper greatly benefited from the collaborative work with Timo Fleckenstein (LSE).

Notes

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This section draws heavily on P. Bleses and M. Seeleib-Kaiser, The Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004).

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Nevertheless, some policy elements supporting ‘choice’ remain in effect, the most important being joint taxation and the so-called splitting system – for a discussion of the tax system see I. Dingeldey, ‘Familienbesteuerung in Deutschland: Kritische Bilanz und Reformperspectiven’, in A. Truger (ed.), Rot–Grüne Steuerreformen in Deutschland. Eine Zwischenbilanz (Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 2001), pp.201–27 – as well as the derived healthcare benefits for non-working wives.

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Chancellor Gerhard Schröder famously characterised family policy as Gedöns.

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Nevertheless, the proposal made it into the 2005 SPD election manifesto. See SPD, Vertrauen in Deutschland. Das Wahlmanifest der SPD (Berlin: SPD, 2005).

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To some extent this is symbolised by the fact that she kept Malte Ristau, a political appointee of her predecessor Renate Schmidt and the key person within the Ministry to develop the approach of a ‘sustainable family policy’, as the key civil servant responsible for the development of family policy.

This framing had also already been developed by her predecessor. Interview with a senior bureaucrat in the Family Ministry, 5 Feb. 2008.

A search of Google Scholar demonstrates the rapid increase in the usage of the term ‘Demographische Krise’ within the academic community (1996–2000: 1420; 2001–05: 3830; 2006–10: 5670); the search was conducted on 22 July 2010.

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Cited in ‘Das “familienfreundlichste Land in Europa”’, FAZ, 13 April 2005, available at http://www.faz.net (accessed 19 May 2009); author's translation.

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Cited in ‘Streit in CDU und CSU: Union zankt um Familienpolitik’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15 Feb. 2007, available at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/367/403147/text/ (accessed 17 May 2010).

Cited in S. Weiland, ‘Union und Familienpolitik: Kinder, Karriere, Krippenplätze’, SpiegelOnline, 14 Feb. 2007, available at http://spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,466410,00.html (accessed 24 May 2010).

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Cited in ‘Familienpolitik: Von der Leyen warnt Union vor Comeback der 50er Jahre’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 Feb. 2007, available at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/883/402664/text/ (accessed 17 May 2010).

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‘Stoiber attackiert SPD-Familienpolitik’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26 Feb. 2007, available at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/380/393170/text/ (accessed 17 May 2010).

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‘Stoiber attackiert SPD-Familienpolitik’; SPD, Vertrauen in Deutschland, p.30.

Wolfgang Rudzio, ‘Informelles Regieren – Koalitionsmanagement der Regierung Merkel’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 16 (14 April 2008), available at http://www.bundestag.de/dasparlament/2008/16/Beilage/002.html (accessed 29 May 2010).

See G. Sydow, ‘Editorial: Der Gesetzgeber ist in seiner Entscheidung frei’, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 21 (2008), available at http://rsw.beck.de/rsw/shop/default.asp?sessionid=FFCACBBB5C304F57896FAB8610584949&toc=NJW.040308 (accessed 29 May 2010).

BDA, Ausbau der Kinderbetreuung richtig und überfällig (Berlin: BDA, 2008); cf. Fleckenstein and Seeleib-Kaiser, ‘Business, Skills and the Welfare State’.

For a detailed discussion of the concept see S. Stiller, Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010).

Viola Neu, Bundestagswahl in Deutschland am 27. September 2009 (Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Dec. 2009).

It is important to note that it is not the first time that the Christian Democrats have changed their party preferences with regard to family policy. Under the intellectual leadership of Heiner Geissler the CDU had successfully introduced the concept of ‘choice’ into the discourse and subsequently enacted a number of important policy changes; see Bleses and Seeleib-Kaiser Dual Transformation, p.115.