On 27 September 2009, over 62 million German citizens were called to elect the seventeenth Bundestag. The circumstances surrounding the election could not have been more dramatic: Like most other developed economies, Germany was severely hit by the global financial turmoil of 2008–09. In 2009, Gross Domestic Product contracted by 5.0 per cent compared to the previous year. This reflected a sharp decline in exports and domestic capital investment in the winter of 2008–09. The German economy experienced its deepest recession since the end of the Second World War.Footnote1 Nevertheless, the incumbent federal government at the time, the so-called ‘Grand Coalition’ of Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) led by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, retained surprisingly high rates of popular approval. Shortly before the 2009 election, approximately 60 per cent of respondents to a representative survey conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, one of Germany's leading polling institutes, said they agreed that the government was doing a good job in handling the crisis, only 31 per cent said the government was doing a poor job (9 per cent were not sure).Footnote2 Since the economic crisis was such an important backdrop to the election of 2009, Reimut Zohlnhöfer's contribution will frame many of the subsequent papers in this collection by analysing how the parties of the Grand Coalition (the cabinet ‘Merkel I’) sought jointly to manage the crisis on the one hand, whilst simultaneously competing against each other in a federal election on the other.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the severity of the crisis (the SPD finance minister of the Grand Coalition, Peer Steinbrück, famously said the world had ‘looked into an abyss’ in 2008–09Footnote3), the campaign in the run-up to the election was almost invariably characterised as being uneventful and lacking in controversial issues, especially in the race between the two major parties, CDU/CSU and SPD. The two parties were simultaneously partners in government and main competitors for governmental leadership. More radical policy alternatives were therefore introduced by the smaller parties. The liberal Free Democrats (FDP) pledged sweeping tax cuts and reductions in public spending, whereas the (still) ‘non-coalitionable’ left-wing party Die Linke offered a socialist alternative to the mainstream. A low-key campaign notwithstanding, the contributions to this collection uncover a number of interesting trends below the surface and are dealing with an election that showed some record results. Given the low level of mobilisation – which may well have been connected to a deliberate demobilisation strategy on the part of the CDU/CSU – the lowest ever turnout was not very surprising. It particularly hurt the SPD. With its loss of 11.2 per cent of the party-list votes, the SPD was the first party ever in post-war German history to lose more than 10 per cent of the vote in a single election. While the CDU's and CSU's losses were more moderate, both parties' results were the worst experienced since 1953. Nevertheless, the Christian Democrats were ultimately able to form a government with their preferred partner, the FDP. This was only possible because the latter improved by nearly 5 per cent and achieved its best ever result in the Federal Republic's history.
A LACKLUSTRE CAMPAIGN, OR STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY?
The campaign of 2009 was unusual as the two main contenders for government leadership, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, had been in a coalition with each other since 2005. The result of the previous Bundestag election of 18 September 2005 and the coalition pledges the parties had made prior to the election of 2005 had ruled out any three-party coalition led by either the CDU/CSU or the SPD.Footnote4 As a result, a ‘Grand Coalition’ was formed in November 2005. It was the second coalition of the two major parties after the Kiesinger cabinet of 1966–69, which had weathered the first major post-war recession. The government was led by the CDU leader Angela Merkel, with prominent Social Democrats Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Peer Steinbrück and Franz Müntefering occupying key portfolios (foreign affairs, finance and social affairs, respectively). When Germany was hit by the global financial crisis in 2008, the reluctant partners in government worked together well and ensured that the country's economy returned to the path of recovery early in 2009. Most importantly, perhaps, some vulnerable banks were saved, and the government was able to limit the impact of the recession on the labour market through an extensive system of state-subsidised short-time work programmes in industry.Footnote5 The fact that the two main parties were in government made it difficult to campaign vigorously against each other.
Despite the government's relative success in coping with the financial storm hitting many advanced economies in 2008–09, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats alike openly considered the Grand Coalition as a ‘necessary evil’ and expressed their preference for a return to a smaller coalition with one of the minor parties. There was no intention to extend the Grand Coalition's life beyond 2009. It came as no surprise, therefore, that on 18 October 2008, a special delegate conference of the SPD confirmed foreign minister Steinmeier as the party's official candidate for the office of federal chancellor, should the Social Democrats win the election. The party's main strategic problem was that it faced political competitors on both sides of the political spectrum. On its right, it had to provide an alternative to the Christian Democrats and attract centrist voters, although Chancellor Merkel had used the Grand Coalition to develop a moderate, centrist profile herself. On the left, the Social Democrats were challenged by Die Linke, which constituted an alliance of the former East German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and a left-wing trades union faction that had broken away from the SPD in 2005, that is, at the height of the left-wing protest against the ‘red–green’ Schröder government's Agenda 2010 legislation. The SPD's poor showing in the polls notwithstanding, it presented its own alternative ‘government programme’ on 14 June 2009. On 30 July, Steinmeier nominated a ‘competence team’ (rather than a shadow cabinet) of 18 politicians, a few of whom had already acquired a strong profile in national politics.Footnote6 In its manifesto, the SPD sought to present itself as a competent government party with a slightly more traditional Social Democratic profile than it had displayed under former Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's leadership. Policy pledges included an increase in the taxation of higher incomes, a special tax on stock market transactions and a reduction of the lowest income tax level from 14 to 10 per cent. The party's commitment to a complete phasing out of nuclear energy in line with the SPD–Green governments' (1998–2005) policies was a clear coalition signal to the Greens.Footnote7
As usual, the CDU and CSU presented a joint manifesto. The Christian Democrats drew lessons from their campaign of 2005, which had led to a relatively successful Social Democratic mobilisation against the Christian Democrats' proposed economic policies, which were portrayed as being socially divisive. Whereas the 2005 manifesto had defined a clear neo-liberal agenda in economic, employment and welfare policy, the parties' 2009 manifesto remained largely silent on radical structural reforms of the economy. By devoting more space to softer welfare issues (such as enhanced support for families), the manifesto was clearly designed to remove popular concerns about a possible neo-liberal backlash pursued by a future CDU/CSU–FDP coalition.Footnote8 The manifesto may also have reflected Merkel's own emerging project of a social modernisation of the CDU, especially in the areas of family policy, education, research and the integration of immigrants and their descendants. Merkel arguably continued to seek ‘electoral openings to associate the CDU with issues important to female voters and to longer-term requirements associated with demographic developments and with sustainable economic development’.Footnote9 Many of these social pledges would not have polarised the electorate. They were difficult for the Social Democrats to oppose. If these conjectures are true, therefore, the seemingly low-key campaign of 2009 revealed much more about fascinating strategic dilemmas and manoeuvres of the major parties than might have been apparent at first sight.
The coalition signals the parties emitted to voters during the campaign indicated that a continuation of the Grand Coalition was not the preferred option for either of the two major parties. Especially in the CDU/CSU there had been voices since the beginning of 2006 indicating that the coalition with the Social Democrats was considered far too costly in political terms. On 19 July 2009, Federal Chancellor Merkel used a television interview to state her party's strong preference for a coalition with the Liberals after the election. The FDP reciprocated two months later at a special election party conference held on 20 September 2009 in Potsdam. Simultaneously, the Liberals ruled out unequivocally a so-called ‘traffic-light coalition’ with the SPD and the Greens after the election. Irrespective of the FDP's unmistakeably negative coalition signal, the SPD stubbornly advocated its own claim to lead the government in exactly such a traffic-light coalition. At the same time, the Social Democrats clearly ruled out a coalition with Die Linke. This negative signal practically eliminated the option of a ‘red–red–green’ coalition of SPD, Greens and Die Linke after the election, at least at the national level. The Greens, in turn, stated unmistakeably that they would not be available to shore up the centre-right in a so-called ‘Jamaica coalition’ with Christian Democrats and Liberals. This surprised some observers as the Greens had started to open up to the CDU, in particular. The party had formed its first regional coalition with the – very centrist and urbane – CDU in Hamburg on 7 May 2008. This step signalled the willingness of both Christian Democrats and Greens to explore the possibilities of collaboration after decades of sharp antagonism. More remarkably, this more cooperative approach towards the Greens continued beyond the federal elections: The first regional ‘Jamaica coalition’ of CDU, FDP and Greens was formed in Saarland on 9 November 2009, after this state's election of 30 August 2009 had led to a very fragmented state diet (Landtag). The Saarland ‘Jamaica coalition’ was negotiated during and after the federal election and the Berlin national coalition negotiations. Nevertheless, the preference differences at the national level seemed too stark. Thus, as a result of the parties' pre-electoral coalition signals, any realistic three-party coalition had to be ruled out in Berlin. Since a red–green majority was numerically highly unlikely, voters faced quite a clear choice between a continuation of the Grand Coalition and a Christian–Liberal coalition.Footnote10
Three contributions to this collection deal with the campaign of 2009. Mona Krewel, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Ansgar Wolsing provide a description of the campaign itself and its dynamics. Focusing on the parties, the media and the voter responses to the parties' campaign strategies, they discuss reasons for the absence of a more polarised campaign and show that the CDU/CSU's campaign in many respects had an edge over the SPD's. Marko Bachl and Frank Brettschneider focus on the mass media during the campaign. Building on the literature on political campaigning and using data derived from content analyses of the main evening newscasts in the months prior to the election, they analyse the parties' campaign strategies and their reflection in the news media. Their analysis suggests that the CDU's approach of avoiding controversial issues, highlighting the value of stability and relying on the popularity of their leader, Chancellor Merkel, was an important factor in deciding the election. Jürgen Maier and Thorsten Faas provide an analysis of the 2009 televised candidate debates and compare the results with data for 2002 and 2005. They show that debate exposure had a significant mobilising effect – especially among people less interested in politics. In addition, they find a considerable impact of the debates on party choice, with the strongest effects observable for independent voters. Given the longer-term decline of party identification and the growing importance of campaign effects and short-term influences towards the end of a campaign, all three contributions refine our understanding of the complex factors shaping election outcomes considerably.
THE ELECTION – SOME HISTORIC RESULTS
Only 70.8 per cent of eligible citizens turned out to vote on 27 September 2009 (see ), which was the lowest level in the Federal Republic's history. The main losers of the election were the two government parties, SPD and CDU/CSU. The SPD's vote almost collapsed from 34.2 per cent in 2005 to 23.0 in 2009. This result was by far the worst defeat the SPD had experienced since 1949. By comparison, the CDU/CSU's drop from 35.2 to 33.8 per cent of the second votes seemed to constitute only a moderate loss. Historically, however, this constituted the lowest level of electoral support for the Christian Democrats since 1953. The particular weakness of the Social Democrats is also shown in the Christian Democrats' capturing of almost three-quarters of all constituency seats filled through first-past-the-post: The CDU/CSU won 218 out of 299 such seats, the SPD was left with a mere 64. Sixteen of the remaining constituency seats were won by Die Linke (a dramatic increase of 13 compared to 2005), one was defended by the popular sitting Green Member of the Bundestag, Christian Ströbele, in Berlin.Footnote11 Never before had parties other than the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats captured such a large number of constituency seats.
TABLE 1
RESULT OF THE GERMAN ELECTION ON 27 SEPTEMBER 2009
The three smaller parties, FDP (14.6 per cent of the party-list votes), Linke (11.9 per cent) and Greens (10.7 per cent), were the clear winners of the 2009 election. All three achieved their best results ever. Together they polled 37.2 per cent of the second votes. This led to a level of party-system fragmentation last witnessed in the first Bundestag of 1949. Despite this high level of fragmentation, the improvement in the FDP's position made the formation of a majority coalition cabinet of Christian Democrats and Liberals possible.
Even nearly 20 years after unification, the 2009 election still displayed significant differences in voting behaviour between the ‘old’ western states and the ‘new Länder’. As in previous elections, turnout in the east (64.8 per cent compared to 74.3 per cent in 2005) was substantially lower than in the west (72.3 per cent compared to 78.5 in 2005). A comparison of eastern and western regions also displays clear differences in the fate of the different parties. For the first time since 1994, the CDU regained the top spot as the strongest party in the east due to its aggregate gains of approximately 4.5 per cent in the states of Mecklenburg Upper Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia (compared to losses of 2.8 per cent in the west). The SPD, the strongest party in the east in 2005, lost 12.5 per cent in the eastern states (compared to losses of 11.0 per cent in the west) and dropped to third place in the ‘new Länder’, behind die Linke. With a share of 28.5 per cent in the eastern states, Die Linke was almost neck and neck with the CDU (29.8 per cent of the party-list votes) in the east, whereas it remained clearly the weakest of the three smaller parties in the west, despite its improvement by 3.4 per cent to 8.5 per cent of the party-list votes in the ‘old Länder’.Footnote12
In addition to the differences between eastern and western Germany, the results of 2009 also underscored the traditional variations between north and south. The CDU/CSU achieved better than average results in Bavaria (42.6 per cent of the party-list votes), Baden-Württemberg (34.4 per cent) and Rhineland-Palatinate (35.0 per cent). As in previous elections, the SPD gained its highest shares of the vote for its regional party lists in Lower Saxony (29.3 per cent) and Bremen (30.3 per cent). Nevertheless, both major parties experienced dramatic losses precisely in those strongholds. In Bavaria, the CSU lost 6.6 per cent compared to the 2005 Bundestag election, in Baden-Württemberg, the CDU's losses of 4.8 per cent were also far above the party's aggregate national losses, the CDU's weakest performance in the south-western state since 1949. Similarly, the SPD's losses were highest in its traditional strongholds: compared to 2005, it lost 13.9 of the list votes in Lower Saxony and 12.6 per cent in Bremen.Footnote13
Three contributions to this collection deal with individual voting behaviour. Harald Schoen investigates whether the election was a referendum on Chancellor Merkel. He finds that candidate orientations were indeed more effective as predictors of individual voting behaviour than issue orientations. Given Chancellor Merkel's increase in popularity and the substantive effect of candidate preference on vote choice, Merkel was a strong electoral asset for the CDU/CSU in 2009. Despite the importance of candidate effects, social-structural influences on voting behaviour are still important. Martin Elff and Sigrid Roßteutscher examine how social class impinged on support for the Social Democrats and for the post-communist PDS/Left and how church attendance and religious denomination affects the tendency to vote for Christian Democrats. They find that it is much too early to write off the electoral relevance of social cleavages. The ‘core constituencies’ of cleavage-based parties have anything but disappeared and still show marked differences in voting patterns even though their numerical importance has declined. Hans Rattinger and Markus Steinbrecher investigate how the economic crisis affected voting behaviour. The economic crisis hit Germany hard before the 2009 Bundestag election. Against this background the extent of economic voting in this particular election is analysed. Using data from the 2009 German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), they show that economic evaluations did not have a dominant effect on the electoral decisions of German voters in 2009. In all their analyses, party identification was by far the strongest predictor of electoral choice. Strikingly, previous analyses of economic voting in Germany had reported much stronger effects of economic perceptions on voting than in 2009, although the objective economic situation was much more serious in 2009.
COALITION NEGOTIATIONS AND FORMATION OF THE SECOND MERKEL CABINET
The FDP's strong gains allowed a return to a coalition of Christian Democrats and Liberals (as in 1982–98). Despite its losses, the CDU/CSU was in a strong bargaining position. There was no two-party coalition possible without the Christian Democrats. All other numerically feasible alternatives had been ruled out before the election. One day after the election, a first meeting was held in the Federal Chancellor's Office between CDU leader Merkel and her opposite number in the FDP, Guido Westerwelle. The two party leaders agreed on a timetable for the negotiations, which were to be completed by 9 November. On the next day, Merkel met with CSU leader and Bavarian minister-president Horst Seehofer to decide on the members of the CDU/CSU negotiation team. Formal coalition negotiations started on 5 October and were completed by 24 October. The coalition agreement was ratified by the new government parties at special delegates' conferences on 25 October and signed by the three party leaders on 26 October. Despite the clear preference for a Christian–Liberal coalition in all three parties' leaderships, the negotiations over policy had been much tougher than anticipated, with conflicts arising, amongst others, in the areas of tax, health, civil liberties and defence policy.
Their policy differences notwithstanding, the parties concluded their negotiations ahead of the timetable set out by the party leaders, and Angela Merkel was elected Federal Chancellor on 28 October 2009 with 323 of the 332 votes controlled by the government parties. Like each of her predecessors, Angela Merkel did not receive the unanimous backing of all coalition members of the Bundestag. Since the ballot is secret, it is not possible to identify the dissenters, but at least nine coalition Bundestag members must have failed to support Merkel. The cabinet members were appointed by the Federal President and sworn in by the President of the Bundestag on the same day. The SPD had already elected Frank-Walter Steinmeier to serve as the leader of the Social Democrats' parliamentary party on 29 September. He became the official leader of the opposition for the next Bundestag. On 13 November 2009, Sigmar Gabriel, the Grand Coalition's environment minister, succeeded Franz Müntefering as leader of the SPD extra-parliamentary party, being the party's fifth leader since Gerhard Schröder resigned in 2004.Footnote14
TABLE 2
MEMBERS OF THE CABINET MERKEL II, 2009
shows that the CDU held eight cabinet portfolios in the new government (including the chancellorship), the FDP was allocated five portfolios (including the deputy chancellorship, which is not a separate portfolio) and the CSU three. The coalition agreement was over 41,000 words long, just marginally shorter than the 45,000-word agreement (without appendices) of 2005, the latter being the longest in the Federal Republic's history. Like all German coalition agreements in the past, the 2009 agreement was overwhelmingly a policy document (98.9 per cent of the entire text referred to policies). Nevertheless, the agreement also included a set of rules for the management of inter-party conflicts, which is largely standard for German coalition agreements.Footnote15 These rules include the norm to establish inter-party consensus over each policy decision taken by the government. In practice, this means that the parties would introduce legislation jointly and refrain from voting on opposite sides in the Bundestag and other bodies (e.g., the Bundesrat). A coalition committee was to be established, meeting at the beginning of each week when the Bundestag is in session, discussing issues of fundamental importance and seeking agreed solutions in emerging areas of inter-party divergence. The coalition committee was to consist of the three party leaders, the leaders of the parliamentary parties, the parties' general secretaries and chief whips, the chief of the Federal Chancellor's Office, the finance minister and one further person nominated by the FDP.
Like the 2005 document, the 2009 coalition agreement was found to be relatively vague where the coalition partners' policy preferences diverged. This vagueness (the postponing of specific decisions to a time after the formation of the government) allowed the parties to progress swiftly in the coalition negotiations. However, the agreement's very vagueness soon turned out to increase the political cost of governing together. The conflicts between CDU/CSU and FDP in the year following the election of Chancellor Merkel to a second term were amongst the most acrimonious ever experienced in the Federal Republic's history.
Partly as a result of very incomplete coalition negotiations, partly due to events outside its control, the government did not have the usual ‘honeymoon’ in the media. On 27 November, the Federal Chancellor had to carry out her first cabinet reshuffle. The employment minister, Franz-Josef Jung, was forced to resign over his earlier handling of a mistaken air strike against civilians in Afghanistan on 4 September 2009, at a time when he was defence minister of the Grand Coalition. Ursula von der Leyen, the minister for families, senior citizens, women and youth, took over the employment portfolio. Kristina Schröder was appointed to the cabinet at the age of 32, replacing von der Leyen.
The first serious policy conflicts between the parties escalated in the areas of health policy and taxation. The new FDP health minister, Philip Rösler, immediately set out to initiate radical changes to the funding of health care. This met with a robust veto of Bavarian minister-president Horst Seehofer. The confrontation was so fierce that Rösler publicly threatened to resign in February 2010. The conflicts were equally tough in the area of tax policy. The FDP had committed itself to a significant reduction of the tax burden. Yet the CDU finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, resisted these policy proposals (largely successfully) as his priority was the reduction of the budget deficit, which had accumulated during the global recession.Footnote16
These few examples illustrate the challenges the new, second Merkel cabinet has faced since October 2009. While the details of different policy agendas are not the focus of this collection, the illustrations remind us of the continuing, deep-rooted structures of conflict and cooperation in the German party system – and that a mere return to the stable patterns of the Kohl era is not likely.
Thus, a number of contributions to this collection deal with the broader implications of the 2009 election result for the German party system, drawing out continuities and possible changes. Focusing on the major parties, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, Charles Lees analyses important longer-term trends in the evolution of the German party system and explores the general implications of these developments for the process of coalition formation in the near future. He argues that the major parties have lost in electoral strength, but that these changes have shifted power relations within the coalition game away from the smaller parties towards the two major parties. This counter-intuitive finding is entirely compatible with the notion of ‘strong party’ in more formal work.Footnote17
Marc Debus and Jochen Müller provide a more specific empirical analysis of how the new pattern of five-party competition has influenced government formation after the 2009 election. Using information on the strength of the parties in the Bundestag, pre-electoral coalition signals and policy differences, they demonstrate that the CDU/CSU–FDP coalition had always been the most likely outcome, but that, structurally, the so-called ‘Jamaica coalition’ between Christian Democrats, FDP and Greens and a coalition between SPD, Greens and the ‘Linke’ would be realistic alternatives to a Grand Coalition. Whilst such coalitions are still not within the range of feasible options politically, the incentives expressed in Debus and Müller's model are likely to shift the parties' attitudes in the longer run.
Dan Hough describes some of the opportunities and risks facing the three smaller parties – FDP, Greens and Die Linke – under the new conditions of a ‘fluid five-party system’. Adopting an angle complementary to Debus and Müller's, he argues that the current level of party-system fractionalisation is likely to stay for the foreseeable future. ‘Post-industrial politics’, he argues, provides niches for smaller parties, as socio-economic and other interests abound in the political market and programmatic diversity increases. From a normative perspective, this does not have to be seen as threat in his view as German liberal democracy is firmly established.
Finally, Uwe Jun provides an analysis of how the German ‘catch-all parties’, CDU/CSU and SPD, have sought to adapt to the challenges they have faced for some time as membership organisations and major contenders for public office. He takes a realistic perspective and argues that the decline of the membership base is unlikely to be reversed in the near future. This, he argues, shifts the emphasis on electoral and media-based strategies. Considerable electoral success is still possible for the catch-all parties, provided they offer an attractive range of ‘content and personnel’, if they align themselves with appropriate issues, expand options for participation within their organisations and increase their credibility.
All in all, the experts contributing to this collection show that the 2009 election was far from boring. The election demonstrated more drastically than ever before how vulnerable the two major parties have become. The election result suggests a consolidation of a five-party system.Footnote18 These developments have serious implications for the parties as organisations, for voters and for political scientists seeking to analyse voting behaviour, party strategies, the effects of campaigns and coalition formation.
Notes
Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland, Pressemitteilung No. 012, 13 Jan. 2010, available from http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Presse/pm/2010/01/PD10__012__811,templateId=renderPrint.psml (accessed 10 Dec. 2010).
M. Jung, Y. Schroth and A. Wolf, ‘Regierungswechsel ohne Wechselstimmung’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 51 (2009), p.13. These ratings were slightly better than those experienced by the UK government: Asked how the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the chancellor of the exchequer, Alastair Darling, had handled the crisis in the financial markets, 55 per cent of respondents to an ICM Guardian Poll agreed that the government had handled the crisis ‘well’ compared to 39 per cent who said ‘badly’ (6 per cent did not know), see http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2008_oct_guardian_poll.pdf, Table 6 (accessed 10 Dec. 2010).
Steinbrück used such apocalyptic terminology several times, amongst others, in an interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel on 29 Sept. 2009, available from http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-60666803.html (accessed 10 Dec. 2010).
U. Thaysen, ‘Regierungsbildung 2005: Merkel, Merkel I, Merkel II?’ Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 37/3 (2006), pp.582–610.
See the contributions to a special issue of German Politics (19/3–4, 2010) edited by Kenneth Dyson and Thomas Saalfeld, and to C. Egle and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds.), Die zweite Große Koalition: Eine Bilanz der Regierung Merkel 2005–2009 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010).
The team consisted of ten women and eight men: Harald Christ (small business); Karin Evers-Meyer (disabilities); Udo Folgart (agriculture); Dagmar Freitag (sport); Sigmar Gabriel (environment); Hubertus Heil (new media), Barbara Hendricks (consumer and investor protection), Barbara Kisseler (culture), Ulrike Merten (defence), Andrea Nahles (education), Thomas Oppermann (home affairs), Carola Reimann (health), Olaf Scholz (employment and social affairs), Manuela Schwesig (family affairs), Peer Steinbrück (finance), Wolfgang Tiefensee (transport and development of eastern Germany), Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (international development), Brigitte Zypries (justice).
For a detailed account see T. Saalfeld, ‘Regierungsbildung 2009: Merkel II und ein höchst unvollständiger Koalitionsvertrag’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 41/1 (2010), pp.181–206.
F. Decker, ‘Koalitionsaussagen und Koalitionsbildung’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B 51 (2009), pp.23–4.
K. Dyson and T. Saalfeld, ‘Actors, Structures and Strategies: Policy Continuity and Change under the German Grand Coalition (2005–09)’, German Politics 19/3–4 (2010), p.270.
See Saalfeld, ‘Regierungsbildung 2009’, pp.182–3; F. Decker and V. Beck, ‘Looking for Mr. Right? A Comparative Analysis of Parties’ Coalition Statements Prior to the Federal Elections in 2005 and 2009', German Politics 19/2 (2010), pp.164–82.
Bundeswahlleiter, Wahl zum 17. Deutschen Bundestag am 27. September 2009. Heft 5: Textliche Auswertung der Wahlergebnisse (Wiesbaden: Bundeswahlleiter, 2010), p.61.
Jung et al., ‘Regierungswechsel’, p.15.
Ibid.
Franz Müntefering (elected 21 March 2004), Matthias Platzeck (15 Nov. 2005), Kurt Beck (10 April 2006), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (acting leader 7 Sept. to 18 Oct. 2008), Franz Müntefering (18 Oct.2008), Sigmar Gabriel (13 Nov. 2009).
T. Saalfeld, ‘Coalitions in Germany: Stable Parties, Chancellor Democracy and the Art of Informal Settlement’, in Wolfgang C. Müller and Kaare Strøm (eds.), Coalition Government in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.32–85; T. Saalfeld, ‘Coalition Governance under Chancellor Merkel's Grand Coalition: A Comparison of the Cabinets Merkel I and Merkel II’, German Politics and Society 28/3 (2010), pp.82–102.
Saalfeld, ‘Regierungsbildung 2009’, pp.204–5.
See, for example, M. Laver and K. Shepsle, Making and Breaking Governments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
D.P. Conradt, ‘The Shrinking Elephants: The 2009 Election and the Changing Party System’, German Politics and Society 28/3 (2010), pp.25–46; S. Weldon and A. Nüsser, ‘Bundestag Election 2009: Solidifying the Five Party System’, German Politics and Society 28/3 (2010), pp.47–64; W.E. Paterson and J. Sloam, ‘The SPD and the Debacle of 2009 German Federal Election: An Opportunity for Renewal’, German Politics and Society 38/3 (2010), pp.65–81.