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Abstract
The Free Democratic Party's 2017 federal election campaign ended in triumph, just four years after the party's comprehensive defeat in the last election. This article examines the FDP's goals, strategic choices and performance in the Bundestag election and considers where the party goes from here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David F. Patton is Joanne Toor Cummings ’50 Professor of Government and International Relations at Connecticut College in New London, CT. He teaches classes on European politics and in his research focuses on party politics and foreign policy in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Notes
1 The West German Greens exited the Bundestag after 1990, but kept a toehold in parliament on the basis of their mergers with the eastern Greens and Alliance ’90. Even though the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) fell short of 5 per cent in 2002, it retained two mandates because two of its candidates had won their district.
2 Author's interview with Marco Buschmann, FDP federal business manager, Berlin, 31 July 2014.