Explaining Merkel's Autonomy in the Grand Coalition: Personalisation or Party Organisation?

Abstract

Chancellor Angela Merkel's independence from her own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) during the second Grand Coalition (2005–09) can be seen as consistent with broader trends toward presidentialism and personalised politics. Both would suggest that any publicly popular chief executive who seems likely to win it vital voter support can expect broad latitude from a party's dominant coalition while in office. Yet there was also an important organisational dimension to Merkel's chancellorship. Parties like her CDU – with a divided dominant coalition and ever more unstable relations among its factions – would be poorly positioned to constrain a leader to begin with. Thus, as chancellor, Merkel rarely had to fear unified dissent in her own ranks when shaping policy compromises with the Social Democrats (SPD).

Notes

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