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Abstract
This article assesses the German party system and its development over time. Offering a systematic examination of elections at the national and sub-national levels and using a variety of qualitative and quantitative indicators, this article shows that unification has had a significant impact on party system development. While partisan dealignment among the western electorate and a lack of significant party alignment among eastern voters has led to converging behavioural patterns, there are still notable differences between the party systems in the two regions. The two parties that have dominated government formation at the federal level, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, still do better in the West, while the PDS/Die Linke continues to secure higher vote shares in the East. The FDP and the Greens consistently score higher results in the older states while the parties linked to the populist, radical, and/or extreme right have recently proven more successful in the younger ones. These differences are rooted in the distinctive voter bases of the respective parties and special characteristics attributed to the East German electorate.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2015 German Studies Association workshop German Unification as a Catalyst for Change. The author would like to thank the convenors and participants at that workshop, especially Joyce Mushaben and Frank Wendler, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and feedback. The usual disclaimers apply.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amir Abedi is a professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Western Washington University. His research interests include political parties and party systems in advanced industrial democracies and western European politics. He is the author of Anti-Political Establishment Parties: A comparative analysis (Routledge, 2004) and has published his research in, among others, the European Journal of Political Research, German Politics, and Parliamentary Affairs.
Notes
1 David P. Conradt and Eric Langenbacher, The German Polity, 11th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), p.138.
2 Dan Hough, ‘Small but Perfectly Formed? The Rise and Rise of Germany’s Smaller Parties’, German Politics 20/1 (2011), p.195; and Oskar Niedermayer, ‘Parteimitglieder in Deutschland: Version 2013’, available from http://edocs.fu-berlin.de/docs/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDOCS_derivate_000000002602/ahosz20.pdf?hosts=local (accessed 15 Apr. 2016), p.2.
3 Margret Hornsteiner and Thomas Saalfeld, ‘Parties and the Party System’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp.79–80; Oskar Niedermayer, ‘Die Entwicklung des bundesdeutschen Parteiensystems’, in F. Decker and V. Neu (eds), Handbuch der deutschen Parteien, 2nd ed. (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2013), pp.124–25; and Thomas Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system: The vanishing hold of the catch-all parties in Germany’, Party Politics 20/6 (2014), pp.959–60.
4 Niedermayer, ‘Die Entwicklung des bundesdeutschen Parteiensystems’, pp.124–25.
5 Margret Hornsteiner and Thomas Saalfeld, ‘Parties and the Party System’, in Padgett, Paterson, and Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.101; and Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, pp.959–61.
6 See for example, Russell J. Dalton, ‘Apartisans and the changing German electorate’, Electoral Studies 31 (2012), pp.35–45; Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds), Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Joseph S. Nye, Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King (eds), Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
7 Peter Mair, Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.181.
8 Mair, Party System Change, p.182.
9 Dalton, ‘Apartisans and the changing German electorate’, p.36; and Russell J. Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp.63–4.
10 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p. 64; and Ruth Dassonneville, Marc Hooghe, and Bram Vanhoutte, ‘Age, Period and Cohort Effects in the Decline of Party Identification in Germany: An Analysis of a Two Decade Panel Study in Germany (1992–2009)’, German Politics 21/2 (2012), p.212.
11 Daniele Caramani, The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
12 See for example, Dan Hough and Michael Koβ, ‘Territory and Electoral Politics in Germany’, Sussex European Institute Working Paper 95 (2007), pp.25–6; and Robert Rohrschneider, ‘Is there a Regional Cleavage in Germany’s Party System? Unequal Representation and Ideological Congruence in Germany 1980–2013’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), p.355.
13 Russell J. Dalton and Willy Jou, ‘Is there a single German Party System?’, German Politics and Society 95/28 (2010), pp.34–52; and Jeffrey Kopstein and Daniel Ziblatt, ‘Honecker’s Revenge: The Enduring Legacy of German Unification in the 2005 Election’, German Politics and Society 78/24 (2006), pp.134–47.
14 Kopstein and Ziblatt, ‘Honecker’s Revenge’, p.135.
15 Dalton and Jou, ‘Is there a single German Party System?’ pp.34 and 49.
16 Kopstein and Ziblatt, ‘Honecker’s Revenge’, p.135.
17 David P. Conradt, ‘The Civic Culture and Unified Germany: An Overview’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), pp.254.
18 Patricia Hogwood, ‘After the GDR: Reconstructing identity in post-communist Germany’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16/4 (2000), p.50.
19 Ibid., p.54.
20 Joyce Marie Mushaben, ‘Rethinking Citizenship and Identity: “What it Means to be German” since the Fall of the Wall’, German Politics 19/1 (2010), p.78.
21 Ulrich Wagner, Rolf van Dick, Thomas Pettigrew, and Oliver Christ, ‘Ethnic Prejudice in East and West Germany: The Explanatory Power of Intergroup Contact’, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 6/1 (2003), p.23.
22 Peter Lösche, ‘Parteiensystem der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, Informationen zur politischen Bildung 292 (2013), p.25.
23 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.63; and Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Vanhoutte, ‘Age, Period and Cohort Effects in the Decline of Party Identification in Germany’, p.213.
24 Conradt and Langenbacher, The German Polity, 11th ed., pp.160–63; Green, Hough, and Miskimmon, The Politics of the New Germany, 2nd ed., p.100; Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, p.951; and Gordon Smith, ‘The ‘New Model’ Party System’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and G. Smith (eds), Developments in German Politics 3 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), p.84.
25 Hornsteiner and Saalfeld, ‘Parties and the Party System’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, pp.79–80; and Niedermayer, ‘Die Entwicklung des bundesdeutschen Parteiensystems’, in F. Decker and V. Neu (eds), Handbuch der deutschen Parteien, 2nd ed., pp.115–20.
26 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, pp.61–3.
27 See: Markku Laakso and Rein Taagepera, ‘“Effective” Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 12/1 (1979), pp.3–27.
28 Simon Green, Dan Hough, and Alister Miskimmon, The Politics of the New Germany, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2012), p.100.
29 Hornsteiner and Saalfeld, ‘Parties and the Party System’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, pp.80–8; and Niedermayer, ‘Die Entwicklung des bundesdeutschen Parteiensystems’, pp.120–6.
30 See also Hough, ‘Small but Perfectly Formed?’, pp.187–8; and Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, pp.955–6.
31 Poguntke argues that in terms of party system change ‘the impact of German unification was fairly modest’, see Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, pp.959–60.
32 See for example: Amir Abedi and Alan Siaroff, ‘The Mirror Has Broken: Increasing Divergence between National and Land Elections in Austria,’ German Politics 8/1, pp.207–27; Dan Hough and Charlie Jeffery, ‘Germany: an erosion of federal-Länder linkages?’, in D. Hough and C. Jeffery (eds), Devolution and electoral politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), pp.119–39; and Richard Johnston, ‘Federal and Provincial Voting: Contemporary Patterns and Historical Evolution,’ in D. J. Elkins and R. Simeon (eds), Small Worlds: Provinces and Parties in Canadian Political Life (Agincourt, ON: Methuen, 1980), pp.131–78.
33 Hough and Jeffery, ‘Germany’, in D. Hough and C. Jeffery (eds), Devolution and electoral politics, p.136.
34 Parties in included in the calculation of the combined vote share of the populist, radical and/or extreme right are the AfD, BfB, BIW, DVU, FP Deutschlands, HLA, NPD, Offensive D, PRO, pro Deutschland, Pro DM, pro NRW, REP, Schill.
35 Gabriele B. Clemens, ‘Saarland – vom deutschen Sonderweg zur bundesrepublikanischen Normalität’, in A. Kost, W. Rellecke, and R. Weber (eds), Parteien in den Deutschen Ländern: Geschichte und Gegenwart (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2010), pp.322–39.
36 See: http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/dimap/ost.htm and http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/dimap/west.htm (accessed 12 Mar. 2017).
37 See: www.ifd-allensbach.de/uploads/tx_reportsndocs/FAZ_Oktober_2016.pdf, page 30 (accessed 12 Mar. 2017).
38 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.62; and Thomas Saalfeld, ‘Political Parties’, in S. Green and W. E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.73–4.
39 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, pp.59–64; Green, Hough and Miskimmon, The Politics of the New Germany, 2nd ed., pp.106–7; and Saalfeld, ‘Political Parties’, in S. Green and W. E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Germany, pp.74–5.
40 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.64.
41 Russell J. Dalton, ‘Interpreting Partisan Dealignment in Germany’, German Politics 23/1-2 (2014), p.136.
42 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.64.
43 Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Vanhoutte, ‘Age, Period and Cohort Effects in the Decline of Party Identification in Germany’, p.222.
44 Mushaben, ‘Rethinking Citizenship and Identity’, p.76.
45 Conradt and Langenbacher, The German Polity, 11th ed., pp.98–101; and Green, Hough and Miskimmon, The Politics of the New Germany, 2nd ed., pp.63–68.
46 Conradt and Langenbacher, The German Polity, 11th ed., p.61.
47 Hogwood, ‘After the GDR’, p.47, 50; and Stefan Svallfors, ‘Policy feedback, generational replacement, and attitudes to state intervention: Eastern and Western Germany, 1990–2006’, European Political Science Review 2/1 (2010), p.122.
48 Conradt and Langenbacher, The German Polity, 11th ed., p.61.
49 Ross Campbell, ‘Political Culture and the Legacy of Socialism in Unified Germany’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), pp.271–91; Dieter Fuchs, ‘The Democratic Culture of Unified Germany’, in Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens. Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.143; and Jonathan Grix, ‘East German political attitudes: Socialist legacies v. situational factors a false antithesis’, German Politics 9/2 (2000), pp.119–20.
50 Stefan Bauernschuster and Helmut Rainer, ‘Political regimes and the family: how sex-role attitudes continue to differ in reunified Germany’, Journal of Population Economics 25/1 (2012), pp.5–27; Campbell, ‘Political Culture and the Legacy of Socialism in Unified Germany’, p.282; and Mushaben, ‘Rethinking Citizenship and Identity’, p.78.
51 Hogwood, ‘After the GDR’, p.47.
52 See: http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/datenreport-2013/demokratie-und-politische-partizipation/174077/zufriedenheit-mit-der-demokratie (accessed 28 Feb. 2016).
53 Conradt, ‘The Civic Culture and Unified Germany’, p.254; Fuchs, ‘The Democratic Culture of Unified Germany’, p.13; Green, Hough and Miskimmon, The Politics of the New Germany, 2nd ed., pp.65–6, 112–3; Grix, ‘East German political attitudes’, p.114; and Gerd Pickel, ‘Jugend und Politikverdrossenheit im Deutschland nach der Vereinigung?’, in G. Heinrich (ed.), Jugend und Politik – Verdrossenheit? (Rostock: Universität Rostock, Institut für Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaften, 2004), p.20.
54 Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, pp. 957–9; and Saalfeld, ‘Political Parties’, in S. Green and W. E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Germany, p.74.
55 Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, pp.956–9; and Saalfeld, ‘Political Parties’, in S. Green and W. E. Paterson (eds), Governance in Germany, pp.74–5.
56 Poguntke, ‘Towards a new party system’, p.957.
57 Dan Hough, Michael Koβ, and Jonathan Olsen, The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp.153–4; and David F. Patton, Out of the East: From PDS to Left Party in Unified Germany (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2011), pp. 29–88.
58 Peter Doerschler, ‘Die Linke: Still an Eastern Cultural Icon?’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), p.396; Viola Neu, ‘Die Linke’, in F. Decker and V. Neu (eds), Handbuch der deutschen Parteien, 2nd ed. (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2013), pp.324–5; and Patton, Out of the East, pp.138–41.
59 Nicole Berbuir, Marcel Lewandowski, and Jasmin Siri, ‘The AfD and its Sympathisers: Finally a Right-Wing Populist Movement in Germany?’, German Politics 24/2 (2015), pp.154–78; Frank Decker, ‘Follow-up to the Grand Coalition: The German Party System before and after the 2013 Federal Election’, German Politics and Society 32/2 (2014), p.25; Robert Grimm, ‘The rise of the German Eurosceptic party Alternative für Deutschland, between ordoliberal critique and popular anxiety’, International Political Science Review 36/3 (2015), pp.264–78; Matthias Jung, Yvonne Schroth, and Andrea Wolf, ‘Angela Merkels Sieg in der Mitte’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 48–49 (2013), p.13; and David F. Patton, ‘Small Parties and the 2013 Bundestag Election: End of the Upward Trend?’ German Politics and Society 32/3 (2014), p.36.
60 Patton, Out of the East, p.147.
61 Mushaben, ‘Rethinking Citizenship and Identity’, p.79; and Wagner, van Dick, Pettigrew, and Christ, ‘Ethnic Prejudice in East and West Germany’, p.30.
62 Dalton, ‘Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice’, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.69 and 76.
63 Dalton and Jou, ‘Is there a single German Party System?’ p.36.
64 Dalton, “Partisan Dealignment and Voting Choice”, in S. Padgett, W. E. Paterson, and R. Zohlnhöfer (eds), Developments in German Politics 4, p.68; David F. Patton, ‘The Prospects of the FDP in Comparative Perspective: Rest in Peace or Totgesagte leben länger?’ German Politics 24/2 (2015), p.186; and Wolfgang Rüdig, ‘The perennial success of the German Greens’, Environmental Politics 21/1 (2012), p.122.
65 Dalton and Jou, ‘Is there a single German Party System?’ p.36.
66 Conradt, ‘The Civic Culture and Unified Germany’, pp.265–6; and Svallfors, ‘Policy feedback, generational replacement, and attitudes to state intervention’, pp.128–9.
67 Bettina Westle, ‘German Views of the Political System’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), p.348.
68 Grix, ‘East German political attitude’, p.115; Christian Lahusen and Lisa Bleckmann, ‘Beyond the Ballot Box: Changing Patterns of Political Protest Participation in Germany (1974–2008)’, German Politics 24/3 (2015), p.426.
69 See: http://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/umfragen/aktuell/deutliche-mehrheit-mit-fluechtlingspolitik-der-bundesregierung-unzufrieden/; and http://www.mdr.de/mdr-info/asylumfrage100.html (both accessed 29 Apr. 2016).
70 See, for example, Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam (eds), Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
71 Alessandro Chiaramonte and Vincenzo Emanuele, ‘Party system volatility, regeneration and de-institutionalization in Western Europe (1945–2015)’, Party Politics Advance online publication, doi:10.1177/1354068815601330.
72 Ibid. (the countries are: Austria, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, and the Netherlands).
73 Jan-Erik Lane and Svante Ersson, ‘Party System Instability in Europe: Persistent Differences in Volatility between West and East?’ Democratization 14/1 (2007), pp.92–110.
74 Fernando Casal Bértoa, ‘Post-Communist Politics: On the Divergence (and/or Convergence) of East and West’, Government and Opposition 48/3 (2013), pp.425–6.
75 Ibid., p.427.
76 Thorsten Faas, ‘The German Federal Election of 2013: Merkel’s Triumph, the Disappearance of the Liberal Party, and Yet Another Grand Coalition’, West European Politics 38/1 (2014), pp.238–47.