Small but Perfectly Formed? The Rise and Rise of Germany's Smaller Parties

Abstract

This article analyses the reasons for the rise and stabilisation of the Free Democrats, the Greens and the Left Party as long-term actors in the German party system. It explains why they have become more electorally relevant in recent years and also analyses what effect this is having on the dynamics of everyday political life in Germany. It analyses the bases of their support as well as their future prospects, before concluding with a discussion of their impact on the German party system.

Notes

See for example, M. Kintz, ‘The Landtag Election in Saxony’, German Politics 19/2 (2010), pp.230–36; G. Heinrich and S. Schoon, ‘The 2006 Landtag Election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’, German Politics 16/4 (2007), pp.526–33.

See S. Green, D. Hough, A. Miskimmon and G. Timmins, The Politics of the New Germany (London: Routledge, 2007), pp.79–82.

J. Dittberner, Die FDP. Geschichte – Personen – Organisation – Perspektiven (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2005).

T. Poguntke, Alternative Politics: The German Green Party (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993).

D. Hough, M. Koß and J. Olsen, The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007); T. Spier, F. Butzlaff, M. Micus and F. Walter (eds), Die Linkspartei. Zeitgemäße Idee oder Bündnis ohne Zukunft? (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007).

O. Niedermayer, ‘Das fluide Fünfparteiensystem’, in H. Oberreuter (ed.), Unentschieden. Die erzwungene Koalition (Munich: Olzog, 2009), pp.287–314.

I. Freitag, FDP. Das Parteibuch für die Besserverdienenden (Munich: Tomus, 1998).

For more on the functions and roles of small parties see G. Smith, ‘In Search of Small Parties: Problems of Definition, Classification and Significance’, in F. Müller-Rommel and G. Pridham (eds), Small Parties in Western Europe (London: Sage, 1982), pp.36–8.

E.G. Frankland and D. Schoonmaker, Between Protest and Power: The Green Party in Germany (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992); I. Bluehdorn, F. Krause and T. Scharf (eds), The Green Agenda. Environmental Politics and Policy in Germany (Keele: Keele University Press, 1995).

C. Lees, The Red–Green Coalition in Germany: Politics, Personalities and Power (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).

J. Olsen, ‘The Merger of the PDS and WASG: From Eastern German Regional Party to National Radical Left Party?’, German Politics 16/2 (2007), pp.205–21.

V. Neu, Bundestagswahl in Deutschland am 27. September 2009 (Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2009), p.39.

D. Hough, The Fall and Rise of the PDS in Eastern Germany (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press, 2001).

R. Anderson and A. Zimdars, ‘Class, Education and Extreme Party Support in Germany, 1991–98’, German Politics 12/2 (2003), pp.1–23.

Attempts were made by Gerhard Schröder's SPD/Green administration in 2003 to ban the NPD. This attempt failed quite spectacularly. It did not, however, fail on substantive grounds, and the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), the final arbiter in such cases, ultimately rejected the application for procedural reasons. The FCC argued that the government's use of undercover informants created too much ambiguity, and the government needed to withdraw information from these informants if it were to hope to be successful in the future. See Deutsche Welle, ‘High Court Judge Reignites NPD Ban Debate’, 30 Jan. 2005, available from http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1473573,00.html (accessed 6 Dec. 2010). For a critical analysis of this see E. Jesse, ‘Der gescheiterte Verbotsantrag gegen die NPD – Die streitbare Demokratie ist beschädigt worden’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 44/3 (2003), pp.292–301.

G. Sartori, Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

J. Blondel, ‘Party Systems and Patterns of Government in Western Democracies’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 1/2 (1968), pp.180–203; S. Rokkan, Citizens, Elections, Parties (Oslo: Universitetforlaget, 1970).

A. Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

C. Zelle, ‘Social Dealignment versus Politial Frustration: Contrasting Explanations of the Floating Voter in Germany’, European Journal of Political Research 27/3 (2006), pp.319–45.

J. Meyer, Politikverdrossenheit in der Bundesrepublick Deutschland: Dimensionen, Determinaten, Konsequenzen (Wiesbaden: Leske und Budrich, 2000).

See Infratest Dimap, 2005, available from http://tns-infratest.com/03_presse/Presse/2005_01_20_TNS_Infratest_Reputation.pdf (accessed 17 Dec. 2010).

Olsen, ‘The Merger’.

Green et al., The Politics of the New Germany, chapter 8.

P. Bleses and M. Seeleib-Kaiser, The Dual Transformation of the German Welfare State (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004), pp.89–93; G. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

For more detail on both of these things see D. Hough and M. Koß, Territory and Electoral Politics in Germany (Brighton: SEI Working Paper, 95, University of Sussex, 2007).