Die Linke: Still an Eastern Cultural Icon?

Abstract

As the self-proclaimed champion of East German regional identity, the former Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) was often viewed as the central political force of a lingering cultural divide in united Germany. Desperate to increase its paltry electoral support among western voters, the PDS merged in 2007 with a band of western leftists to form the Left Party, casting doubt on whether the new party would remain symbolic of regional division. Using survey data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), this article compares the changing bases of electoral support between eastern and western supporters of the Left Party as evidence for greater change in the political culture of the two regional constituencies. Though notable points of divergence remain, results centre on several areas of convergence that together highlight a common profile for Left Party supporters defined above all by strong leftist ideological views.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Doerschler is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. His research interests focus on immigration and European politics. He recently published a book with co-author Pamela Irving Jackson on the well-being of Muslims in Europe and his scholarly work has appeared in Electoral Studies, the Journal of Migration and Integration, German Politics and Social Science Quarterly among others.

Notes

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9. David Patton, From PDS to Left Party in Unified Germany (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), pp.120–1.

10. Olsen, ‘The Merger of the PDS and WASG’; Hough et al., The Left Party, p.44.

11. Hough et al., The Left Party, p.141.

12. Eve Hepburn and Dan Hough, ‘Regionalist Parties and Mobilization of Territorial Difference in Germany’, Government and Opposition 47/1 (2012), p.74.

13. Geoffrey Roberts, German Politics Today (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p.74.

14. Andreas Staab, National Identity in Eastern Germany: Inner Unification or Continued Separation? (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998); Patricia Hogwood, ‘After the GDR: Restructuring Identity in Post-Communist Germany’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16/4, pp.45–67; Hough, ‘Political Opposition’.

15. Katja Neller and Isabell Thaidigsmann, ‘Das Vertretenheitsgefühl der Ostdeutschen durch die PDS: DDR-Nostalgie und andere Erklärungsfaktoren im Vergleich’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 43/2 (2002), pp.420–44; Michael Brie, ‘Das politische Projekt PDS – eine unmögliche Möglichkeit', in M. Brie and M. Herzig (eds), Die PDS: Empirische Befunde & kontroverse Analysen (Köln: PapyRossa Verlag, 1995), pp.9–38; Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.138; Hepburn and Hough, ‘Regional Parties’; Dan Hough and Michael Koβ, ‘A Regional(ist) Party in Denial? The German PDS and the Arrival in Unified Germany’, Regional and Federal Studies 19/4–5 (2009), pp.579–93.

16. Hough and Koβ, ‘A Regional(ist) Party’, p.583.

17. Dalton and Weldon, ‘Germans Divided?’, p.12.

18. Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.147.

19. Ibid.

20. Von Beyme, Das politische System, p.82.

21. Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.129.

22. March, Radical Left, p.128; Stefan Berg and Sarah Pancur, ‘Letter from Berlin: The Rise and Fall of Germany's Left Party’, Spiegel Online, available from http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/letter-from-berlin-the-rise-and-fall-of-germany-s-left-party-a-738934.html (accessed 16 April 2013).

23. Michael Brie, ‘Die Linke – was kann sie wollen? Politik unter den Bedingungen des Finanzmarkt-Kapitalismus', Supplement der Zeitschrift Sozialismus 3 (2006), p.2, available from http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Sozialismus_Brie_0306.pdf (accessed 16 April 2013).

24. Jürgen Falter and Markus Klein, ‘Die Wähler der PDS bei der Bundestagswahl 1994’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B51–52/94 (1994), pp.22–34; Markus Klein and Claudio Cabalerro, ‘Rückwärtsgewandt in die Zukunft: Die Wähler der PDS bei der Bundestagswahl 1994’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 37/2 (1996), pp.229–47; Gero Neugebauer and Richard Stöss, PDS: Geschichte, Organisation, Wähler, Konkurrenten (Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 1996).

25. Klein and Cabalerro, ‘Rückwärtsgewandt’; Carsten Zelle, ‘Factors Explaining the Increase in PDS Support after Unification’, in C. Anderson and C. Zelle (eds), Stability and Change in German Elections: How Electorates Merge, Converge or Collide (New York: Praeger, 1998), pp.223–46; Krisch, ‘From SED to PDS’; Neugebauer and Stöss, PDS: Geschichte; Jonathan Olsen, ‘Germany's PDS and Varieties of “Post-Communist” Socialism’, Problems of Post-Communism 45/6 (1999), pp.42–52.

26. Peter Doerschler and Lee Ann Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS Over Time: Dissatisfaction, Ideology, Losers and East Identity’, Electoral Studies 26/2 (2007), pp.359–70.

27. Sören Messinger and Jonas Rugenstein, ‘Der Erfolg der Partei die Linke: Sammlung im programmatischen Nebel’, in F. Butzlaff, S. Harm and F. Walter (eds), Patt oder Gezeitenwechsel? Deutschland 2009 (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2009), p.75; Patton, From PDS to Left Party, pp.138–40.

28. Viola Neu, Rechst- und Linksextremismus in Deutschland: Wahlverhalten und Einstellungen (Sankt Augustin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2009), p.75.

29. Dan Hough, ‘Small but Perfectly Formed? The Rise and Rise of Germany's Smaller Parties’, German Politics 20/1 (2011), p.192; Hough, ‘Political Opposition’, p.377; Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.129; Neu, Rechts- und Linksextremismus, p.29; Messinger and Rugenstein, ‘Der Erfolg der Partei’, p.74; Franz Walter, ‘Eliten oder Unterschichten?’, in T. Spier, F. Butzlaff, M. Micus and F. Walter (eds), Die Linkspartei: Zeitgemäβe Idee oder Bündnis ohne Zukunft? (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), p.327.

30. Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.141; Eckhard Jesse and Jürgen Lang, Die Linke: der smarte Extremismus einer deutschen Partei (München: Olzag, 2008), p.174; Cornelia Hildebrandt, ‘Die Linke in Germany’, in C. Hildebrandt and B. Daiber (eds), The Left in Europe: Political Parties and Party Alliances between Norway and Turkey (Brussels: Rosa, 2009), p.137; Matthias Jung, Yvonne Schroth and Andrea Wolf, ‘Regierungswechsel ohne Wechselstimmung’, in Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.), Die Bundestagswahl 2009. Analysen der Wahl-, Parteien-, Kommunikations- und Regierungsforschung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), pp.44–5.

31. Hough et al., The Left Party, p.45; Jens Walther, ‘Zwischen Kooperation und Blockade – Entwicklung und Strategie der Oppositionsparteien währen der Groβen Koalition’, in S. Bukow and W. Seemann (eds), Die Groβe Koalition: Regierung – Politik – Parteien 2005–2009 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), p.332.

32. Charles Lees, ‘The Paradoxical Effects of Decline: Assessing Party System Change and the Role of the Catch-All Parties in Germany Following the 2009 Federal Election’, Party Politics 18/4 (2012), pp.545–62.

33. Ross Campbell, ‘Socialist Values and Political Participation in Germany: A Barrier to “Inner Unity”?’, West European Politics 34/2 (2011), p.371.

34. David Conradt, The German Polity (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), p.168.

35. Doerschler and Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS’; Neller and Thaidigsmann, ‘Das Vertretenheitsgefühl’.

36. Steven Finkel, Stan Humphries and Karl-Dieter Opp, ‘Socialist Values and the Development of Democratic Support in the Former East Germany’, International Political Science Review 22/4 (2001), pp.339–61; Rohrschneider, Learning Democracy.

37. Jörg Jacobs, ‘Gegen die bestehende Ordnung? Die Wähler der PDS in vergleichender Perspektive’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 35/2 (2004), pp.229–40; Zelle, ‘Factors Explaining’; Olsen, ‘Germany's PDS’.

38. Hilde Coffé and Rebecca Plassa, ‘Party Policy Position of Die Linke: A Continuation of the PDS?’, Party Politics 16/6 (2010), pp.721–35.

39. Campbell, ‘Socialist Values’, pp.369–70.

40. Jesse and Lang, Die Linke, pp.138–9.

41. Harald Bergsdorf, Die neue ‘Linke': Partei zwischen Kontinuität und Kurswechsel (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 2008), p.97.

42. Hough, ‘Political Opposition', p.147; Hough et al., The Left Party, p.143; Patton, From PDS to Left Party, p.137.

43. Hepburn and Hough, ‘Regionalist Parties', p.81.

44. Campbell, ‘Socialist Values’, p.363.

45. Nicolas Scharioth, ‘“Suffering” in Germany Twice as High in East as in West’, Gallup (2012), available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/155252/Suffering-Germany-Twice-High-East-West.aspx (accessed 2 July 2012).

46. Ibid.

47. Nicolas Scharioth and Cynthia English, ‘East–West Divide Evident in Some Aspects of Germans’ Health’, Gallup (2011), available from http://www.gallup.com/poll/150890/East-West-Divide-Evident-Aspects-Germans-Health.aspx (accessed 2 July 2012).

48. Spiegel Online, ‘Arbeitslosenquote der 15- bis unter 25-jährigen’ (2012), available from http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-27227.html (accessed 2 July 2012).

49. Gallup, ‘“Suffering”'.

50. Patrick Moreau and Viola Neu, Die PDS zwischen Linksextremismus und Linkspopulismus (Sankt Augustin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1994); David Patton, ‘Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism in Comparative Perspective’, East European Politics and Societies 12/3 (1998), pp.500–26.

51. Hildebrandt, Die Linke in Germany, p.137.

52. Campbell, ‘Socialist Values’, pp.371–3; Angelika Vetter and Jürgen Maier, ‘Mittendrin statt nur dabei? Politisches Wissen, politisches Interesse und politisches Kompetenzgefühl in Deutschland, 1994–2002’, in O. Gabriel, J. Falter and H. Rattinger, Wächst zusammen, was zusammengehört? Stabilität und Wandel politischer Einstellungen im wiedervereinigten Deutschland (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2005), pp.51–90.

53. Doerschler and Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS’, p.365; Viola Neu, Das Janusgesicht der PDS (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2004); Falter and Klein, ‘Die Wähler der PDS’; Zelle, ‘Factors Explaining’.

54. Doerschler and Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS’.

55. The Zentralarchiv für Sozialforschung (Köln) and the Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden and Analysen (Mannheim) conducted these surveys. Data were made available by the Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung (Köln). These analyses use the following datasets: 3451 [2000], 4500 [2006], 4600 [2008], 4610 [2010].

56. Missing values for respondents’ monthly net income were recoded to the mean.

57. As noted in previous analyses by Doerschler and Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS’, this variable is somewhat ambiguous in that it could also reflect respondents’ nostalgia for values of the old GDR.

58. Reliability tests using Cronbach's alpha were used to assess the statistical relationship of these two measures in the construction of a scale. 2000 = .569; 2006 = .492; 2010 = .427. Factor analysis shows the two measures compose a single component in all three years.

59. Respondents with stronger feelings that other Germans are foreign were more likely to support the Left Party in 2006 and 2010 while the eastern identity index was only significant in 2006.

60. A dichotomous variable representing pensioners was substituted for older respondents in multivariate analyses with no substantive change in results.

61. See Doerschler and Banaszak, ‘Voter Support for the German PDS’.

62. This is reinforced by the fact that the variables controlling for socialisation effects were not significant in any of the models.

63. Spiegel Online, ‘Bundeswahlkampf: Linke tritt mit achtköpfigem Spitzenteam an’ (2013), available from http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundestagswahlkampf-linke-tritt-mit-achtkoepfigem-spitzenteam-an-a-878793.html (accessed 5 March 2013).