German Views of the Political System

Abstract

The article analyses Germans' views of democracy in a longitudinal perspective, especially since unification. It is shown that most Germans in both parts of the country strongly support the idea of democracy although many are at the same time dissatisfied with its practice. This dissatisfaction rests on different motives, ranging from high normative democratic ideals over differences between the normative concept of democracy and the implemented one, including misconceptions of what democracy should or can be to anti-democratic attitudes. At present, Germany faces all these motives of dissatisfaction with democracy, yet in different strata and parts of the society. On the one hand, support for democracy suffers somewhat from declining interest in politics in general, which makes citizens unrealistic about political possibilities and their limits. On the other hand, feelings of economic deprivation, especially in the eastern part, still motivate sceptical views on the western kind of democracy and even in smaller parts of the public an alienation from the democratic credo. Growing inequalities throughout the whole of Germany, especially growing poverty in the lowest social strata, will cause additional systems stress, if it is not moderated by the social welfare system. Thus, the country needs more education in democratic politics for the citizens and more responsive politics on the side of the politicians including more open political structures for citizens' demands and participation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bettina Westle has studied political science in Mannheim, worked at diverse universities and now is Professor for Methods of Political Science and Empirical Research in Democracies at the Philipps-University of Marburg. Her main research fields are political culture, voting behaviour and participation and political knowledge.

Notes

1. The former GDR faced the so-called ‘dilemma of simultaneity' to a much smaller degree than other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This dilemma refers to the transformation of the political system, from totalitarianism to democracy at the same time as the transformation from a planned economy to a free market economy, on the country's own responsibility. As the West German political and economic system was widely transferred to the new Bundesländer, there was less objective pressure in institution building coming from these transformations. See Claus Offe, ‘Das Dilemma der Gleichzeitigkeit. Demokratisierung und Marktwirtschaft in Osteuropa’, Merkur 45/4 (1991), pp.279–92.

2. Based on data since 1990 it has been shown time and again that the widespread loyalty towards the former GDR among East Germans has hindered the development of positive attitudes towards democracy in the FRG. Yet, this link seems to weaken somewhat, especially if said loyalty manifests as more of a social, than a political ‘nostalgia’. See, for example, Oscar W. Gabriel, ‘Die Hypothek der DDR-Vergangenheit und die Unterstützung der Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland’, in Martin Fromm et al. (eds), Erfindung der Vergangenheit (München: kopaed, 2003), pp.63–92, Katja Neller, DDR-Nostalgie – Dimensionen der Orientierungen der Ostdeutschen gegenüber der ehemaligen DDR, ihre Ursachen und politischen Konnotationen (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006) and Bettina Westle, ‘Kollektive Identität in Deutschland – Entwicklungen und Zwischenbilanz’, in Silke I. Keil and S. Isabell Thaidigsmann (eds), Zivile Bürgergesellschaft und Demokratie (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013), pp.273–98; and for a cross-national comparison Joakim Ekman and Jonas Linde, ‘Fond Memories of Dictatorships? Nostalgia and Support for Democracy in Post-Communist Europe', in Uwe Backes, Tytus Jaskulowski and Abel Polese, Totalitarismus und Transformation – Defizite der Demokratiekonsolidierung in Mittel- und Osteuropa (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), pp.241–60.

3. Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963).

4. David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1965); David Easton, ‘A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support', British Journal of Political Science 5/4 (1975), pp.435–57.

5. Esp. Bettina Westle, Kollektive Identität im vereinten Deutschland – Nation und Demokratie in der Wahrnehmung der Deutschen (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1999); Bettina Westle, Politische Legitimität – Theorien, Konzepte, empirische Befunde (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1989).

6. Besides, a second dimension of diffuse support, which will not be taken into consideration here, refers to trust and sympathy in regard to institutions of the regime and in regard to compatriots.

7. Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture.

8. Martin Greiffenhagen and Sylvia Greiffenhagen, Ein schwieriges Vaterland. Zur Politischen Kultur Deutschlands (München/Leipzig: List Verlag, 1979).

9. For example, Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Reports on the Government Ability of Democracies of the Trilateral Commission (New York: New York University Press, 1975); Wilhelm Hennis, Peter Graf Kielmansegg and Ulrich Matz (eds), Regierbarkeit – Studien zu ihrer Problematisierung, Vols 1 and 2 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1977 and 1979); Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

10. For example, Claus Offe, ‘Überlegungen und Hypothesen zum Problem politischer Legitimation', in Rolf Ebbinghausen (ed.), Bürgerlicher Staat und politische Legitimation (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1976), pp.80–105; Claus Offe, ‘Unregierbarkeit. Zur Renaissance konservativer Krisentheorien', in Jürgen Habermas (ed.), Stichworte zur ‘Geistigen Situation der Zeit' (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1979), pp.294–318; Ekkehard Lieberam, Krise der Regierbarkeit – Ein neues Thema bürgerlicher Staatsideologie (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag Marxistische Blätter, 1977).

11. For example, Richard Rose and Guy Peters, Can Government Go Bankrupt? (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Max Kaase, ‘Legitimitätskrise in westlichen demokratischen Industriegesellschaften. Mythos oder Realität?', in Helmut Klages and Peter Kmieciak (eds), Wertewandel und gesellschaftlicher Wandel (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 1979), pp.328–50; Dieter Fuchs, Giovanna Guidorossi and Palle Svensson, ‘Support for the Democratic System', in Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (eds), Citizens and the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.323–53.

12. For example, Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977); Samuel H. Barnes, Max Kaase, et al., Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (London: Sage, 1979), Kendall L. Baker, Russell J. Dalton and Kai Hildebrandt, Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

13. Westle, Politische Legitimität.

14. For example, Franz Urban Pappi, ‘Politische Kultur. Forschungsparadigma, Fragestellungen, Untersuchungsmöglichkeiten', in Max Kaase (ed.), Politische Wissenschaft und politische Ordnung. Analysen zu Theorie und Empirie demokratischer Regierungsweise. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Rudolf Wildenmann (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986), pp.279–91; David P. Conradt, ‘Changing German Political Culture’, in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds), The Civic Culture Revisited (Newbury Park: Sage, 1989), pp.212–72.

15. There have been two intensive debates on how to measure support for democracy. Whereas earlier research mostly relied on the indicator ‘satisfaction with the way democracy works in your country', two German authors have shown that this only covers a part of Easton's concept and that one should differentiate at least between the idea and the practice of democracy (additionally the levels of the constitution and the institutional structure can be differentiated), see Westle, Politische Legitimität, and later on Dieter Fuchs, ‘Welche Demokratie wollen die Deutschen’, in Oscar W. Gabriel (ed.), Politische Orientierungen und Verhaltensweisen im vereinigten Deutschland (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997), pp.81–113. Later on, many authors agreed with this concept and started to differentiate further between democracy as a normative concept and its realisation in specific countries. For an overview on conceptualisations and empirical research on democracy in Germany see also Bettina Westle, ‘Political Beliefs and Attitudes: Legitimacy in Public Opinion Research', in Achim Hurrelmann, Steffen Schneider and Jens Steffek (eds), Legitimacy in an Age of Global Politics (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp.93–125. For an overview of results in empirical research on attitudes towards democracy, in Germany since its unification, see also Oscar W. Gabriel, ‘Bürger und Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland', Politische Vierteljahresschrift 48/3 (2007), pp.540–52. For more recent results see Bettina Westle and Oskar Niedermayer, ‘Orientierungen gegenüber der Demokratie’, in Steffen Kühnel, Oskar Niedermayer and Bettina Westle (eds), Wähler in Deutschland – Sozialer und politischer Wandel, Gender und Wahlverhalten (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2009), pp.11–29 and Edeltraud Roller, ‘Einstellungen zur Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland – gibt es Anzeichen für eine abnehmende Differenz?’, in Peter Krause and Ilona Ostner (eds), Leben in Ost- und Westdeutschland – eine sozialwissenschaftliche Bilanz der deutschen Einheit 1990–2010 (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2013), pp.597–614. And last but not least, for a cross-national comparison and discussion of the indicator ‘satisfaction with the way democracy works' see Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman, ‘Satisfaction with Democracy: A Note on a Frequently Used Indicator in Comparative Politics', European Journal of Political Research 42/3 (2003), pp.391–408. For the second debate see note 22.

16. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

17. Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

18. Hans-Dieter Klingemann, ‘Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis', in Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens, p.54.

19. Ibid., p.56.

20. Russell J. Dalton, ‘Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies’, in Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens, p.74.

21. Ibid, p.75.

22. In the context of the system transitions after 1990 a second debate on how to measure support for democracy emerged. It started when Mishler, Rose and Haerpfer doubted that citizens in Central and Eastern Europe distinguish between a democratic government and a democratic regime, reasoning that these people had not been socialised into a democratic mindset and had additionally experienced the equation of government and regime in the communist era. Therefore, they argued that the people would evaluate the new regime based on a comparison of its performance with that of the previous communist regime. They even call this comparison of the idea of democracy and the practice of democracy an ‘idealistic approach’, not only in the sense that reality is compared to an ideal, but in the sense of an unrealistic scientific approach. See Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and William Mishler and Richard Rose, ‘Trajectories of Fear and Hope: Support for Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe’, in Comparative Political Studies 28 (2006), pp.553–81 as well as William Mishler and Richard Rose, ‘Learning and Re-Learning Regime Support: The Dynamics of Post-Communist Regimes’, European Journal of Political Research 41/5 (2002), pp.5–36. Similarly, Inglehart is convinced that questions on support for democracy merely measure ‘overt lip service'. Instead he proposes questions on tolerance, trust in politics, political activism and post-materialism, as well as self-expression values as better indicators for a stable democracy; see Ronald Inglehart, ‘How Solid Is Mass Support for Democracy – And How Can We Measure it?’, Political Science and Politics 36/1, pp.51–7. Yet, Fuchs and Roller argue against the assumption, that socialisation and direct personal experience are the only sources for evaluations of political systems. As such an approach would fail to take information provided by mass media and modern communication techniques into account, which also transported information about western democracies into the communist countries. This could lead citizens of such countries to compare their own regime with western democracies. Empirically, they were able to show that in most central and eastern transition countries the understanding of the meaning of democracy comes close to the western concept of democracy, revealing for example ideas of political liberties and participation rights and multi-party systems. Moreover data from 1998–2001 also show that support for democracy in general and satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in the own country is higher in East Germany than in other eastern countries but lower than in West Germany. See Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller, ‘Learned Democracy? Support of Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe’, International Journal of Sociology 36/3 (2006), pp.70–96. The same argument concerning the role of mass media has been made by the author of this article and similarly by Dalton much earlier in 1994. It has been used in order to explain East Germans' relatively far-reaching knowledge on elements of democracy and West German political parties in the early 1990s. Because, as Lepsius had pointed out as early as 1977, West Germany was the most important ‘positive Vergleichsgesellschaft' (positive society of comparison) for many East Germans; they were always eager to follow reports from West Germany visiting their relatives in the GDR and West German media. Thus, watching West German TV was increasingly widespread in the late GDR. Due to these possibilities of social and political information through media, it has been said that the East Germans had a ‘virtual' western political socialisation or ‘distance learning’, encompassing all benefits, but ignoring deficits, that come from only being able to see the published side of western society, and not being aware of the real day-to-day life challenges. See Bettina Westle, ‘Demokratie und Sozialismus – Politische Ordnungsvorstellungen im vereinten Deutschland zwischen Ideologie, Protest und Nostalgie’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 46/4 (1994), pp.571–96; Russel J. Dalton, ‘Communists and Democrats: Democratic Attitudes in the Two Germanies’, British Journal of Political Science 24/4 (1994), pp.469–93; Wilhelm P. Bürklin, ‘Die politische Kultur in Ost- und Westdeutschland: Eine Zwischenbilanz’, in G. Lehmbruch (ed.), Einigung und Zerfall: Deutschland und Europa nach dem Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts (Opladen: Leske + Budrich), pp.11–24. Thus, similar to views on consumption and standards of living, partly false, exaggerated or idealised ideas of how democracy works in the west, might have developed in East Germany. See Westle, ‘Demokratie und Sozialismus’, Dalton, ‘Communists and Democrats' and Rainer M. Lepsius, contribution without title in a parliamentary discussion, printed as ‘Deutschlandpolitik, Öffentliche Anhörung des Ausschusses für innerdeutsche Beziehungen', Zur Sache 8 (1977), pp.233–9.

23. Other recent analyses based on different data-sets come to a similar conclusion: that there is still no inner unity regarding support for democracy, for example, Oskar Niedermayer, ‘Bevölkerungseinstellungen zur Demokratie: Kein Grundkonsens zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschen’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 40/2 (2009), pp.383–97, Russel J. Dalton and Steven Weldon, ‘Germans Divided? Political Culture in a United Germany’, German Politics 19/1 (2010), pp.9–23 and Roller, ‘Einstellungen zur Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland' with data from the Allensbach Institute for Demoskopie.

24. Explanations for the lower levels of support for democracy in East compared to West Germany have evolved around three hypotheses (and variants within these): the thesis of undemocratic socialisation, which centres around socialist value orientations; the thesis of a bad situation, which focuses on the worse economic situation (meaning worse in comparison to own expectations and to the west, the latter resulting in feelings of relative deprivation); and the thesis of a newly developed eastern identity, representing a counter reaction towards the missing endorsement by the West Germans. Yet, various analyses which differ in many regards (time span, data, methods) come to quite different conclusions – presumably in each of these approaches a kernel of truth can be found. However, since this is not the topic of this article, it will not be discussed further.

25. The Allensbach Institut for Demoskopie has published some data on these topics. In the years 1991, 1993, 2000 and 2009 it shows that East Germans clearly support liberal rights (like freedom of opinion, freedom of moving and free choice of the occupation) to a smaller extent than West Germans. Additionally a multi-party system, free and equal elections, as well as the legitimacy of an opposition, and independent courts, are still regarded to be less important by people in the east than in the west. In contrast, East Germans favour direct political participation and social equality more than West Germans. The differences between the groups show neither a shrinking nor a rising trend, but merely unsystematic fluctuations. Yet the Allensbach Institute does not differentiate its data according to the typology of democratic attitudes; and it does not deliver its data to the scientific community for own analyses. See Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and Renate Köcher (eds), Allensbacher Jahrbuch der Demoskopie, Band 9: 558, 10: 658, 11: 597, 12: 119. Also a study in 2008 for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung comprises items on democratic principles. According to a publication of these data by Embacher, Germans show strong mistrust in politics and in the practice of the democratic institutions. See Serge Embacher, ‘Demokratie! Nein danke?’: Demokratieverdruss in Deutschland (Bonn: Dietz, 2009). Embacher's main assumption is that the underlying reason is an increasing social cleavage, between the poor and the rich, resulting from cutbacks of welfare services in the course of neoliberal reforms. Regarding single democratic values and rights, he observes a rather widespread support, but at the same time a strong perception that they are not fully implemented – in particular: equality before the law receives strong support from 74 per cent of respondents, but is only seen to be fully guaranteed by 19 per cent, for social justice values are at 65 per cent and 12 per cent, for equality of chances they are at 54 per cent and 9 per cent, for responsivity of politicians at 53 per cent and 7 per cent and for good political information at 46 per cent and 9 per cent respectively (for more see Embacher, ‘‘Demokratie!’’, p.79). In his analysis Embacher neither differentiates between west and east, nor distinguishes according to the types of attitudes towards democracy, and, unfortunately, it was impossible to retrieve the data for own analyses.

26. Recently dramatic declines in ‘satisfaction with the way democracy works in own country' and ‘trust in parliament' have been observed in many European countries, which each show strong links to the evaluation of the particular national economy. The authors of the analysis attribute this development to the citizens perceiving their national governments as ineffective and powerless throughout the financial crisis. Additionally seeing that inter- and supranational financial and economic institutions circumvented national decision making, contributed to eroding national democracy: the average satisfaction with democracy receded by 7 percentage points between autumn 2007 and 2011 (the strongest in Greece with 45.5 and Spain with 32.1), but there were also countries with a rise in satisfaction, among them Germany with 3.1 (strongest in Luxemburg with 15.1 and Poland with 11.7). See Klaus Armingeon and Kai Guthmann, ‘Democracy in Crisis? The Declining Support for National Democracy in European Countries, 2007–2011', European Journal of Political Research 53/3 (2014), pp.423–42.

27. Roller also fails to find significant differences in support for democracy between three age cohorts of the East Germans; and therefore speaks of an unsuccessful institutional socialisation since unification, caused by negative experiences of the younger population; Edeltraud Roller, ‘Einstellungen zur Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland’. Yet, one also has to take into account that the younger generation's political socialisation usually does not take place as a direct confrontation with politics, but is moderated by the adults’ interpretations of politics (parents, teachers, journalists), who themselves have been socialised in the former GDR.

28. Voting behaviour still shows clear differences between east and west. Especially, when dissatisfied with the incumbent government, westerners tend to switch to another party, whereas easterners often tend to stay absent from the ballot. And dissatisfaction with the way democracy works leads to stronger absence from the elections in the east than in the west, whereas a preference for socialist values drives voices for Die Linke only in the east. See Robert Rohrschneider, Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Franziska Jung, ‘Vereint, doch immer noch verschieden: ost- und westdeutsche Wähler bei der Bundestagswahl 2009 im Vergleich', in Bernhard Weßels, Harald Schoen and Oscar W. Gabriel (eds), Wahlen und Wähler – Analysen aus Anlass der Bundestagswahl 2009 (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013), pp.360–79.