The cabinet Merkel III constituted the third so-called ‘Grand Coalition’ of Christian Democrats (CDU and CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) in the Federal Republic’s history and the second Grand Coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel at its helm.Footnote1 This cabinet lasted its entire constitutional term of four years and was formed under a mix of favourable and unfavourable conditions. The macroeconomic situation remained benign throughout the legislative period (the 18th Bundestag, 2013-17): the economy was growing, employment reached unprecedented levels while unemployment declined further. The extent to which the third Merkel government could claim credit for these developments is subject to discussion as the Grand Coalition undoubtedly benefitted from low interest rates, a low Euro exchange rate, a low oil price and successful reforms of predecessor governments (Zohlnhöfer Citation2019, 647–8). Nevertheless, these developments made governing easier, not least because public finances were strong at the federal level (although these conditions masked difficulties especially in many urban local authorities). Public coffers at the federal level were in a better shape than they had been for many years in the recent past and afforded the three governing parties with opportunities to deliver benefits to their core constituencies without having to make hard choices based on a fixed-sum scenario.
However, the electoral environment became increasingly volatile, especially in the second half of the legislative term with a spectacular rise of the populist right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the polls and in regional elections since 2015 (Schoen and Gavras Citation2019, see also Fabian Engler, Svenja Bauer-Blaschkowski and Reimut Zohlnhöfer’s contribution to this special issue). Moreover, the government found it difficult to respond to, and communicate a coherent position in, the refugee crisis engulfing the country in the second half of 2015 (Kepplinger Citation2019; see also Barbara Laubenthal’s contribution to this special issue). Not least, it rolled back some of the economic and welfare reforms carried out during the SPD-Green coalition cabinets under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder between 1998 and 2005 that were seen to have been successful but harsh (Zohlnhöfer Citation2019).
The election preceding a parliamentary term determines the strategic situation of the parties inside and outside the legislature. The gains and losses of governing parties constitute a signal regarding the ‘cost of governing’. This signal will generally affect the parties’ assessment of potential future electoral costs of joining a government and the payoffs they demand in terms of policies and government offices (Martin Citation2018; Mershon Citation1996). This was very visible after the Bundestag election of 2013. For example, the losses the Social Democrats (SPD) and Free Democrats (FDP) suffered subsequent to their cabinet membership in 2005–2009 and 2009–2013 respectively affected the Greens’ and SPD’s cost–benefit analysis for the coalition negotiations following the Bundestag election of 22 September 2013. The Greens withdrew from preliminary talks, and the SPD’s participation came at a high price for the Christian Democrats, CDU and CSU.
The Bundestag election of 2013 ended with a mixed result for the governing parties of the 2009–2013 legislative period, the Christian Democrats and the liberal FDP. Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) increased their share of the popular vote (the so-called ‘second vote’) by more than seven per cent to 41.5 per cent (). The CDU and CSU achieved the highest combined share of the vote and the highest number of Bundestag seats since 1994. The FDP, by contrast, dropped dramatically from 14.6 per cent in 2009–4.8 in 2013. The party was penalised harshly for its perceived performance in the 2009–2013 government and narrowly failed to clear the five-percent threshold of Germany’s electoral law. For the first time since 1949, the Liberals had no deputies in the Bundestag. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded just over half a year before the election, attracted 4.7 per cent of the national vote and missed representation in the Bundestag almost equally narrowly. In the election to the European Parliament (2014) and subsequent state-level elections, it increased its share of the vote dramatically, especially in the Eastern and Southern states of the Federal Republic (see Engler, Bauer-Blaschkowski and Zohlnhöfer’s contribution to this special issue). Its rise at the polls was to become a defining contextual factor for the Merkel III government.
TABLE 1 THE STRATEGIC STARTING POINT OF THE 2013–2017 GOVERNMENT: RESULT OF THE 2013 BUNDESTAG ELECTION (COMPARED TO 2009).
The 2013 result had substantial consequences which complicated coalition formation: The CDU/CSU had narrowly failed to win an overall majority of the seats in the Bundestag, which would have made a coalition redundant. At the same time, the continuation of a ‘bourgeois coalition’ of CDU/CSU and FDP was no longer an option due to the (temporary) demise of the FDP. At the same time, the SPD and the Greens, parties that had formed a government coalition in 1998 and 2002, were also short of a majority in the Bundestag. Moreover, the Social Democrats had ruled out a coalition including the left-wing Die Linke before the election of 2013. Therefore, any government formed in 2013 would have had to straddle the boundaries of the traditional German centre-right and centre-left ‘camps’ (Lager) and – given the disagreement of the parties in key policy areas – would, therefore, be potentially costly in policy terms.
Arithmetically, there were six options left: (a) a minority government of CDU and CSU; (b) a ‘Grand Coalition’ of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats; (c) a coalition of CDU/CSU and Greens; (d) a coalition of CDU/CSU and Die Linke; (e) a coalition of the SPD, the Greens and Die Linke or (f) new elections. A coalition of the Christian Democrats and Die Linke was politically not feasible, and the SPD had made a very explicit pre-electoral pledge to rule out any formal or informal coalition with that party, too. This left only four options: In contrast to Scandinavian countries, minority governments have been tried rarely in the German context, and such an option was not seriously considered in 2013 either. Similarly, new elections were at best a fall-back option if coalition negotiations failed, particularly as the Bundestag cannot dissolve itself without the consent of the Federal President. Thus, politically, two government coalitions were conceivable: A coalition of the Christian Democrats with either the SPD or the Greens.
Given the apparent electoral costs of coalition governments with the Christian Democrats under Merkel (reinforced by the CDU/CSU’s lack of support for the FDP as a potential future coalition partner in the 2013 electoral campaign), the risk of bargaining failure for coalition negotiations between CDU/CSU on the one hand and SPD and Greens on the other was considerable. The price both SPD and Greens would demand in terms of portfolios and/or policies was likely to be high.
This runs against the impression of a numerically strong bargaining position that the CDU/CSU seemed to be in. The Banzhaf power index presented in expresses the share of possible coalitions each party can turn into a winning coalition. When computing this power index, all (logically) possible winning coalitions are listed in a first step. In a second step, the ‘critical voters’ (or parties) are counted. A ‘critical voter’ is one whose withdrawal would turn a winning coalition into a minority. Note that each party is treated as a single ‘voter’ with a particular ‘bargaining weight’ determined by the number of seats it controls in the legislature. A party’s power is then calculated as the fraction of all critical ‘swing votes’ it could cast over the total number of ‘swing votes’ (for an explanation see Straffin Citation1996). In purely mathematical terms (i.e. without accounting for political feasibility), the CDU/CSU’s bargaining power in 2013 was as high as after the election of 2009: the Christian Democrats were the ‘decisive voter’ (or, rather, party) in three out of four possible cases (0.75). The other parties’ bargaining power, by contrast, was one-third of that of the CDU/CSU (0.25). In 2013, this was recognised by both the Social Democrats and the Greens. The latter pulled out of preliminary coalition talks with the Christian Democrats very quickly. This left the Christian Democrats with only one remaining feasible option, a Grand Coalition with the SPD. The failure of the preliminary talks with the Greens and the political impossibility of a coalition with Die Linke diminished the seemingly strong position of the Christian Democrats to one where there was only one option left on the table. The Social Democrats, by contrast, could point to the high electoral losses they had incurred after their coalition with the CDU/CSU 2005–2009 and were able further to increase their bargaining power by announcing that any coalition agreement would have to be ratified by a vote of the entire party membership. As a result, the ‘red lines’ drawn by the SPD leadership in the negotiations had a high level of credibility and turned the Christian Democrats’ initial strategic advantage (for a description of the bargaining process see Sturm 2014) into factual parity. This may explain to an extent why the SPD came out of the 2013 coalition negotiations with a relatively good ‘deal’ (Saalfeld Citation2015).
This special issue deals with the politics and policies of the Grand Coalition 2013–2017. The partisan and strategic context of policy-making under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s third cabinet will be covered in the first four contributions. In the first article of this part, Fabian Engler, Svenja Bauer-Blaschkowski and Reimut Zohlnhöfer seek to address the question how electoral competition affected policy-making. By examining opinion polls, the outcomes of state elections and the opposition parties’ programmatic stances, they analyse both voter responses and the oppositional parties’ attempts to challenge the government. In the second half of their contribution, they turn their attention to party competition and voter responses in the most salient policy areas of this legislative term, the Euro crisis and the refugee crisis. They find that the Grand Coalition partially rolled back its initially liberal migration policy as the AfD gained in strength. The government’s policies regarding the Euro, by contrast, were largely unaffected by party competition because the issue was less salient at the time and the CDU/CSU was regarded as the most credible party in this respect.
Simon Franzmann subsequently analyses the weakness of the parliamentary opposition in Berlin and the growing visibility of an extra-parliamentary opposition in the country. Focusing on the liberal FDP, which turned from a government party into a force of extra-parliamentary opposition at least at the national level, and the emerging AfD, he analyses both parties’ successful electoral strategies. Using data generated from election manifestos, he demonstrates a transformation of the German policy space and the growing salience of a new cultural divide. He claims that the AfD contributed to establishing this new cleavage by applying populist rhetoric; the FDP, by contrast, is found to have been successful by an exercise of re-branding and of re-framing economic issues as being shaped by digitalisation in an epochal change of economic competition.
Ludger Helms, Femke van Esch and Beverly Crawford focus on Chancellor Merkel’s leadership style and argue that for most of her political career she had been perceived as a pragmatic political leader, avoiding tough and divisive decisions. They argue that this perception changed in the middle of her third term and corroborate this point by drawing on evidence from the Euro crisis of the summer of 2015 and the refugee crisis shooting up the political agenda in Germany and other European countries from the summer and autumn of 2015. They assess Merkel’s leadership performance during her third term through the lens of the concept of ‘conviction leadership’, and inquire if, or to what extent, Merkel can be meaningfully considered a ‘conviction leader’.
Merkel’s leadership did not remain unchallenged within the government. In their contribution to this special issue, Thomas Saalfeld, Matthias Bahr and Olaf Seifert provide an analysis of important patterns of coalition governance and conflict management between and within CDU, CSU and SPD. Based on the theoretical literature on delegation and coalition governance, they argue that strategic portfolio allocation and small informal arenas of conflict management played an important role in managing coalition conflicts. The relatively extensive coalition agreement, by contrast, was found to be a weak institution since it was especially detailed in policy areas with low potential for conflict.
The second section of the special issue covers selected and important policy areas. Thomas Rixen studies the government’s tax and fiscal policies and claims that it refrained from seizing the opportunity of exceptionally good economic conditions and low interest rates to implement important structural reforms and increase investment in the public infrastructure. He explains this policy by two factors, namely the diverging fiscal policy preferences between the two coalition partners and the uncertainty in the face of the continuing Euro crisis. His analysis demonstrates that the few far-reaching reforms – changes to inheritance tax, packages against tax evasion and avoidance and a reform of the federal equalisation payments system – were a response to external constraints, including decisions from the constitutional court, international cooperation, and legal action by Länder governments.
Barbara Laubenthal deals with the most salient exogenous shock experienced by the government between 2013 and 2017, the refugee crisis and, more broadly, immigration policy. Her core argument is that the Merkel government’s response to the refugee crisis was not as abrupt and surprising as many commentators suggest. Rather, in many other areas of migration policy, for example labour migration, Germany had already become more liberal and that these policies spilled over to refugee policies in 2015.
Linda Voigt discusses the social policies of the third Merkel cabinet. She shows that a number of expansionary reforms were adopted between 2013 and 2017, including the minimum wage, regulations to limit rent increases, improvements to long-term care and a number of comparatively generous pension reforms. These reforms were in part a response to favourable economic condition like low unemployment and surging revenues. At the same time, strong support for the welfare state on the part of both governing parties and the lack of a liberal opposition in the Bundestag facilitated expansion.
Subsequently, Nils C. Bandelow, Anja Hartmann and Johanna Hornung deal with the area of health policy, which constitutes one of the main longer-term challenges of all modern post-industrial societies. They analyse German health policy during the legislative period 2013–2017 and conclude that there were only marginal reforms without profound reorganisation of the system of health care. The government was able to avoid a root-and-branch reform because the finances of the health insurance systems were in a favourable financial situation. Consequently, the conflicting parties and interest groups were able to delay fundamental solutions to predictable problems in the future. After describing the government’s marginal reforms they argue that the current dominant policy equilibrium is not sustainable and necessary reforms are on the horizon.
Annette Henninger and Angelika von Wahl cover the area of family and gender equality policy, which provides an important lens on the reforming character of Chancellor Merkel as a Federal Chancellor. They analyse the extent to which the active modernisation trajectory in family and gender equality policy has continued during the legislative period 2013–2017. In addition to covering traditional gender-related policy developments for employment, care work and anti-discrimination in family and gender policy, they include broader themes such as anti-discrimination measures that decrease gendered inequality.
The third and final series of two essays deal with external constraints of German policy-making during the tenure of Merkel’s third cabinet. Kai Oppermann takes stock of German foreign policy during Angela Merkel’s third term in office. He argues the government was confronted with multiple European and international crises that worked as a magnifying glass for the growing international expectations for Germany to become more actively engaged on the international stage. In addition, the government saw a concerted effort of leading decision-makers to make the case for Germany to accept greater international responsibilities. This emerging consensus among foreign policy elites expresses a changed self-conception of German foreign policy which, however, continues to be viewed with skepticism in the broader public. Based on these observations, he explores the record of the Grand Coalition in the main international crises it had to engage with.
Frank Wendler studies the European dimension of German policy making. Contrasting insights from responses to the Eurozone and refugee crises as well as the Brexit, he investigates more than 30 parliamentary debates in the Bundestag. He finds increasing partisan differences in the German parliamentary debates on European integration both regarding the future shape of European integration and more concrete policy questions. Interestingly, the partners of the Grand coalition often took up decidedly different positions on these issues.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Thomas Saalfeld is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bamberg and Director of the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS). His research interests include the study of legislatures, representation and coalitions. He has published extensively in these areas and is one of the editors of the Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies.
Reimut Zohlnhöfer is Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University, Germany. His research interests include German politics, political economy, comparative public policy, and policy process theory. He has published in journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Policy Studies Journal, Political Behavior, Socio-Economic Review, and West European Politics.
Notes
1 The first Grand Coalition was formed in 1966 under Chancellor Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, the second was formed in 2005 under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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