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The Changing West German Party System: Consequences of the 1987 Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2017

Gordon Smith
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Extract

Dramatic Change is Hardly a Feature of West German politics. The signals are usually visible well in advance — but gradual change also means that the wider significance of particular developments may be overlooked. A cursory examination of the political scene in the wake of the election held in January 1987 may fail to reveal much that is new since the success of the Christian Democrats in 1983. Thus, despite the sharp fall in the CDU vote, the coalition with the Free Democrats was comfortably confirmed in office. At the same time, the haemorrhage of SPD support — although partially staunched — still continued, with the inability to .make a recovery in the intervening years the haunting question for the party.’ Chiefly at the expense of the SPD, the Greens have now anchored themselves in the party system. Their presence on the federal stage since 1983, and earlier in the Länder, has gingered up political debate and forced issues on to the agenda that otherwise would have been neglected. There are signs of change, but how are they to be interpreted?

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1987 , pp. 131 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1987

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References

1 For analyses of the SPD and its problems, see Paterson, W., ‘The German Social Democratic Party’ in Paterson, W. and Thomas, A. (eds), The future of Social Democracy, Oxford University Press, 1986 Google Scholar; also, Padgett, S., ‘The West German Social Democrats in Opposition, 1982—86’, West European Politics, July 1987, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

2 Preliminary estimates of net losses of the SPD to the Greens (on second votes) in 1987 were around 300,000, considerably less than in 1983. In contrast, the CDU/CSU had a net loss in 1987 to the FDP of as much as 800,000. The exchanges between the two large parties just about balanced. Taking 1983 and 1987 together, the SPD forfeited support to the Greens primarily in the under-35 age groups.

3 For a theory of ‘centrality’ as opposed to a consensus based on a centripetal movement, see Smith, G., ‘The German Volkspartei and the Career of the Catch-All Concept’ in Döring, H. and Smith, G. (eds). Party Government and Political Culture in Western Germany, London, Macmillan, 1982 Google Scholar.

4 The description of’worst’ has to be qualified. In fact, the CDU/CSU share in 1987 was only fractionally lower than in 1980, although then, admittedly, with Strauss as chancellor candidate, that had been seen as a serious reverse for the party.

5 Strauss has also argued for a tougher foreign policy line against the Soviet Union (and uses this to attack Genscher and the FDP). Also relevant is Strauss’s view that Germany should now move out of the shadow of the Third Reich. Besides the general plea, widely applauded, there is also the interpretation of rehabilitating right-wing values by freeing them from undesirable associations.

6 There is, however, the fairly rare case of a party being awarded one or more ‘excess seats’ if the number of constituency seats it wins within the Land is greater than its entitlement on the proportional (party hst) allocation.

7 Estimates vary about the extent of electoral confusion over the relative value of the two votes, and there are substantial variations among supporters of the différent parries. CDU voters appear to be the least knowledgeable — more than a half being in a muddle, although as an election approaches there is a temporary ‘educative effect’. See ‘Wollen noch Wähler wechseln?’, Der Spiegel, No. 4, 1987.

8 On the internal structure of the SPD, see Padgett, S. and Burkett, T., Political Patties and Elections in West Germany, New York, C. Hurst, 1986 Google Scholar; more generally, Paterson, W., ‘West German Parties — Between Apparatus and Basis Democracy’ in Ware, A. (ed.), Political Parties Towards the 1990s, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986 Google Scholar.

9 Since the early 1980s the ramifications of the ‘Flick affair’ had troubled Kohl and his party as well as the FDP. But the scandal of corruption in higher reaches of the parties gradually lost its force by the latter part of 1986.

10 The ‘clientele’ of the SPD can best be located by reference to trade union membership as an indicator of party support; for the Greens this is unimportant. German trade unions are not politically affiliated, but the SPD has to ensure that it keeps in step with their interests.

11 On the Greens, see Kolinsky, E., Parties, Opposition and Society in West Germany, London, Croom Helm, 1985 Google Scholar, and Bürklin, W., Grüne Politik, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 The ‘participatory’ nature of the Greens also involves extra-parliamentary/direct action, with the aim of popular mobilization and confrontation with the authorities. This aspect makes it hard for the SPD to countenance co-operation at the federal level.

13 Of the 42 Greens elected to the Bundestag in 1987, only 9 were previously members; of the new parliamentary group 25 are women.

14 In practice it is difficult to draw a hard distinction between the so-called ‘Realos’ and ‘Fundís’; the former frequently originated from a variety of left-wing splinter organizations. For enlightening biographical details — although part of an election smear campaign — see, Seiters, R. and Bötsch, W. (eds), Die Kader der Grünen, Bonn, CDU/CSU-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag, May 1986 Google Scholar.

15 See, for instance, the views of Peter Glotz, Bundesgeschäftsŕuhrer of the SPD, immediately after the election: ‘Glotz will Ende der Rot-Grün-Diskussion’, Frankfurter Aliegemeine Zeitung, 3 February 1987. Four Land elections are due to be held during 1987.

16 Sartori, G., Parties and Party Systems, Cambridge University Press, 1976 Google Scholar.

17 A phrase which is, of course, direct from Max Weber.