1. Chapter 4: Germany
Fabrizio Bensch/Corbis
Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, Culture 12/e
By Michael G. Roskin
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2. Why Germany Matters
Germany is likely to be the European country that offers the most lessons to political scientists.
German history includes important lessons about the following:
Artificial borders
Construction and stabilization of a new country
Sound economic policy
Hybrid voting systems and other institutional features
Combining different political systems.
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3. Germany’s Geography
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4. Impact of the Past
Germany has natural borders only on its north and south sides.
Germany has expanded and contracted over time.
Germany’s location in Europe has made for two unhappy options for the country:
When Germany was divided and militarily weak, it was Europe’s battleground.
When Germany was united and strong, it was capable of taking on Europe one country at a time.
Contrary to Nazi race theory, Germans are a mixed people.
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5. The Changing Shape of Germany
800: Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire
1648: After Westphalia
1815: The German Confederation
1871: The Second Reich
1919: The Weimar Republic
1939: Hitler’s Third Reich
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6. The Changing Shape of Germany
1945: Occupied Germany (Four Zones)
1949: Two Germanies
1990: A Reunited Germany
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7. Impact of the Past: Fragmented Germany
Germanic tribes helped destroy the overextended Roman empire..
Under Charlemagne, what is now Germany fell under the control of the Holy Roman Empire.
Although the Holy Roman Empire fell apart, the German wing continued under that name until Napoleon arrived in 1806.
In terms of the relationship between the crown and nobles, Germany was different from England and France.
In England, there was balance.
France turned to absolutism.
In Germany, nobles gained power, and by the 13th centur,y the emperor was a figurehead and Germany was hundreds of principalities.
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8. Impact of the Past: Fragmented Germany
The split between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants was huge.
Northern Germany had no appreciation for Rome, and used the new Lutheranism to stop paying taxes to Rome.
The south and the Rhineland was mostly Catholic, and still is today.
The north and east remain Protestant.
The religious question caused two major wars in German history:
Schmalkaldic War from saw the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V almost crush Lutheranism.
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9. Impact of the Past: Fragmented Germany
The religious Peace of Augsburg provided a temporary solution to the religious question in that “whoever reigns, his religion.”
This was not enough to prevent another war.
The Thirty Years War was another Hapsburg-led war.
The war ended with the Treaty at Westphalia in 1648.
This treaty left Germany as 360 separate political units.
Germany had a different experience with religion than either Britain or France.
Britain broke from Rome, the French state stayed loyal to the church, and Germany split into Protestant vs. Catholic.
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10. Impact of the Past: The Rise of Prussia
Prussia, a north German state, came to dominate much of the eastern Baltic coast, Silesia, and parts of the Rhineland.
The Prussian nobility, known as Junkers, developed in the eastern Baltic.
The junkers were a state nobility and controlled civil and military service.
The junkers contributed to a modern Germany.
With potential enemies on all sides, Prussian kings obsessed over military power.
Frederick the Great ( ), the enlightened despot, kept the military in a high state of readiness.
Frederick presided over military triumphs and territorial expansion and served as a model for Nazi expansion.
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11. Impact of the Past: German Nationalism
At the time of the French Revolution, Germany was still over 300 states with Prussia and Austria the strongest.
When Napoleon arrived in Germany, liberals welcomed him as a liberator and modernizer.
Napoleon consolidated Germany in the 30-state Confederation of the the Rhine, but did not include Prussia or Austria.
Napoleon liberalized the economy and society.
Napoleon also brought nationalism.
This led to three invasions of France in 1870, 1914, and
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12. Impact of the Past: German Nationalism
Nationalism took off in Germany.
German nationalism became angry, romantic, racist.
German nationalism celebrated a Volksgeist.
This implied a superior Germanic racial spirit, and a belief that Germany was entitled to more territory, or lebensraum.
After Napoleon, Austrian prince Metternich helped create a German confederation of 39 states.
In 1848, discontented liberals wanted to overthrow the Metternichian system.
German liberals met in Frankfurt to set up a democratic and unified Germany.
The Prussian king was offered a constitutional monarchy, but declined.
Instead the king cleared out the GermanNnational Assembly, took control of Germany, and tossed out liberalism in favor of nationalism.
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13. Impact of the Past: The Second Reich
German unification came from above.
Unification was the work of the conservative Prussian, Otto von Bismark.
Bismark, a Junker, became PM in 1862.
Bismark’s was not a German nationalist, but wanted to preserve Germany for Prussia.
Armies and warfare were the preferred tools of Bismark, who ruled over the parliament by decree.
By 1870, Bismark had consolidated the German state without Austria.
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14. Impact of the Past: The Second Reich
The second German empire, or Reich, was proclaimed in 1871 in Versailles.
The Second Reich lasted until 1918.
The Reichstag had very limited powers.
The Chancellor (PM) was not responsible to parliament.
The German Kaiser set policy.
German industry surged ahead, especially steel and iron.
This lead to the formation of the General German Workers Association, which became the Party of Democratic Socialism (SPD) in 1875.
The SPD is the oldest, and one of the most successful, social democrat parties in the world today.
Bismark disliked the SPD, and tried to offer the same welfare measures it was advocating.
This led to Germany being an original welfare state.
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15. Impact of the Past: The Catastrophe, World War I
Parties grew in the late 19th century and the Second Reich neared democracy.
Bismark retired in 1890, and Socialists became more moderate and revisionist, supporting radical change less and less.
At the same time, Germany’s foreign policy became expansionist under Kaiser Wilhelm II,.
Germany soon found itself surrounded by enemies.
After the war, some right-wing Germans promoted dolchstoss.
The Versailles Treaty ended the war, blamed Germany, and demanded 33 billion in reparations.
This left Germany angry and hungry for revenge.
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16. Impact of the Past: Republic without Democrats
The Weimar Republic started with three strikes.
Germans had no experience with a republic or democracy.
Weimar lacked legitimacy because it had been imposed.
The Versailles Treaty humiliated and bankrupt Germany.
By 1923, hyperinflation had spread throughout Germany.
By the mid 1920s, the economy began to stabilize.
Politics remained unstable.
In 1929, the Great Depression changed everything.
The Nazi party grew in popularity..
In 1933, Hitler was named Chancellor.
This was an example of polarized pluralism.
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17. Democracy: Polarized Pluralism
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18. Impact of the Past: The Third Reich
The Nazis were the National Socialist German Workers Party.
However, the Nazis were not socialists and did not own industry.
Industries were placed under Nazi supervision.
The restoration of prosperity made the Nazis popular at home. There were also opportunists.
However, Hitler’s chief aims were war and dominance.
Hitler’s Nazi party was expansionist minded, and racially motivated as evidenced by the final solution.
Hitler’s final solution constituted genocide.
Before attacking Poland, Hitler completed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and Stalin.
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19. Geography: Another Tale of Two Flags
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20. Impact of the Past: The Occupation
After WWII, there was no dolchstoss myth.
The 1945 Yalta conference divided Germany into four time zones.
The Marshall Plan flooded billions into the West German economy and introduced a new currency, deutsche Mark, as a part of recovery.
The Russians blockaded Berlin, which was supplied by the American-British Berlin Airlift for nearly one year.
By 1949, Wester allies returned sovereignty to West Germany, while the Soviets set up East Germany.
Both sides were a product of the Cold War, and when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the West absorbed the East.
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21. Germany’s Political Eras
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22. The Key Institutions
In 1949, the founders of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) took some elements from the and 1919 Weimar Constitutions in drafting the Grundgesetz (Basic Law).
Bonn was named the temporary capital, and German federalism was revived.
Germany’s Lander have more autonomy that U.S. States.
East Germany continued with strong centralization.
Upon unification in 1990, five Lander were re-created in East Germany and added to the 10 that existed in West Germany. Greater Berlin counted as the 16th Land.
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23. The Key Institutions
Berlin was located 110 miles inside of the East German zone.
In 1949, the Soviet Union made Berlin the capital of East Germany.
West Berlin was not officially a part of the FRG, but in practice it was.
This was resolved in 1990, when Greater Berlin became a Land and the fall of the Berlin Wall allowed Berlin to become the official capital of the united FRG.
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24. The Key Institutions: The President
The president is a “head of state” rather than “chief of government.”
Dignified rather than efficient.
The president has the following political duties:
Receives foreign ambassadors
Proclaims laws after passed by parliament
Dissolves the Bundestag at the request of the chancellor
Appoints and dismisses the chancellor at the request of the largest party in parliament
The President is elected by a special Federal Assembly composed of Bundestag members and an equal number of state legislators.
The president serves a five-year term and can be elected once.
The position is usually reserved for a distinguished public figures.
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25. The Key Institutions: The Chancellor
The Chancellor is strong with much power.
The FRG chancellorship has been stable and durable, in part because the Basic Law requires that if the Bundestag votes out a chancellor, they must simultaneously vote in a new chancellor.
Constructive-no-confidence has happened only once since 1982.
Constructive-no-confidence makes ousting a chancellor between elections rare.
The strong leadership of Konrad Adenauer, Germany’s first chancellor, cemented the positions as one of strength.
Adenauer formed the CDU, consolidated the “two-plus” party system, led Germany into NATO and the EU, and established better relations with France.
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26. Who Was When: Germany’s Chancellors
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27. Personalities: Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel made for an unusual choice as German chancellor.
Merkel is Germany’s first women chancellor.
Merkel is the first East German chancellor.
Merkel is a Protestant that heads the Catholic heavy CDU.
Merkel supports free-market economics more than most in her party.
Merkel emerged as Chancellor at a time of a grand coalition.
In 2009, the popularity of Merkel propelled the CDU to victory and the grand coalition with the SPD ended.
Support for Merkel has declined in second term.
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28. The Key Institutions: The Cabinet
The typical German cabinet is smaller than its British counterpart.
The cabinet does not have a fixed number of ministries.
Because of coalitions, more than one party is represented in the cabinet.
Almost all cabinet members are working politicians with seats in the Bundestag.
Like in Britain, ministers are rarely specialists.
The chief job of the interior minister is to protect the constitution, including monitoring extremist parties and movements.
A parliamentary state secretary is assigned to a minister.
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29. The Key Institutions: The Bundestag
Germany is without a strong parliamentary tradition.
Since 1949, the Bundestag has been trying to establish itself as a pillar of democracy.
The Bundestag has at least 598 deputies, but usually gets additional members.
Today, the Bundestag has 622 deputies.
One-third of the Bundestag’s members are women.
Deputies are elected to four-year terms, but elections can happen early.
Because it is a parliamentary system, the Bundestag is not the strongest critic of the executive.
In comparison, the Bundestag is less powerful than the American Congress, but more powerful than the French National Assembly and maybe the British Commons.
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30. The Key Institutions: The Bundestag
The Bundestag makes strong use of committee work.
Deputies make their voice heard in important and specialized committees.
Party discipline is not as strong as in Britain, so there is greater criticism of legislation in committee.
All legislation that enters committee must come out, and once it arrives on the Bundestag floor, party discipline tightens up.
Bundestag standing committees correspond to ministries.
With ministers also being members of the Bundestag, there is important personal interactions between committees and ministers.
Bundestag membership is heavy with civil servants, and members of business associations and unions comprise much of the Bundestag membership.
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31. Geography: Federations
The term Bundes announced Germany as a federal system.
In these systems units have higher degrees of autonomy.
There are advantages to federal systems.
Flexible and accommodating to regional particularism.
Units are laboratories for democracy.
Politicians gain experience at the unit level.
Federalism can create a balance that breeds politically supportive psychology among citizens.
There are also disadvantages to federalism.
Inconsistent and incoherent administration among units.
An absence of nationwide standards.
This can lead to the center gaining more power relative to the units.
Both unitary and federal systems tend to pull in the opposite direction.
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32. The Key Institutions: The Constitutional Court
The Federal Constitutional Court is very strong, equal in power to the executive and legislature.
The Court was set up in 1951and based on the U.S. model.
The Court has 16 judges, eight elected by each house of parliament to twelve-year terms.
The Court operates as two “senates” with eight judges each.
The Court decides cases between Lander, protects civil liberties and outlaws dangerous political parties, and makes sure that statues conform to the Basic Law.
The Court makes important decisions, but within a rigid code law system that prevents the court from having the same impact as the Supreme Court of the United States.
This means decisions do not equate to precedent.
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33. The Key Institutions: From “Two-Plus” to Multiparty System
The party system has evolved since 2005.
Weimer’s Reichstag suffered from extreme multipartism, which made stable coalitions hard to come by.
Through 2005 the FRG appeared to be “two-plus” because it consisted of one large party in coalition with one small party.
Because Germany has a proportional system it rarely produces a monocular government.
Recent elections have seen Germany move towards a multi- party system.
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34. The Key Institutions: From “Two-Plus” to Multiparty System
The first of Germany’s two large parties is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
The CDU’s Bavarian affiliate is the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Together they run as the CDU/CSU in federal elections.
This has been the largest party in every election except and 1998.
The CDU evolved from the old Catholic Center Party and never fully embraced free-market capitalism.
The CDU embraced what they called a “social market” economy.
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35. The Key Institutions: From “Two-Plus” to Multiparty System
The SPD is the grand old party of European socialism.
The SPD started out Marxist, but in 1959, dropped Marxism and moved toward the middle.
This move to the center-left has brought the SPD more electoral success.
The party does suffer from factions, with the leadership being in the middle and some other members moving out to the far left.
From 1998 to 2005, the SPD governed with the Greens, and formed a grand coalition with the CDU in
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36. The Key Institutions: From “Two-Plus” to Multiparty System
The small Free Democrats (FDP) are a classical liberal party, placed to the right of the CDU and similar to the American libertarians.
The FDP now governs with the CDU.
1983 saw the Greens arrived, and the once radical ecology-pacifist party is now able to form a government.
Surviving the arrival of West German parties in East Germany, the Party of Democratic socialism (PDS) was capable of winning seats.
In 2005, the PDS joined with disgruntled SPD members to form the Left Party.
Amidst a bad economy, the Left Party polled well in 2009.
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37. The Key Institutions: The Bundesrat
Because the German system is federal rather than unitary, it requires an upper house.
The Bundesrat represents Germany’s 16 Lander.
The Bundesrat has equal power with the Bundestag on taxes and finances and federal-state issues, and also has veto power.
The Bundesrat has 68 members with each Land getting at least three.
Members of the Bundesrat are appointed and usually come from the Landtag.
Although members of different parties are appointed to the Bundesrat, each delegation must vote as a bloc.
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38. The Key Institutions: The Split Electoral System
FPTP systems attach a representative to a district, but do not do two things:
Equate votes to seats.
Reflect votes for parties nationwide.
PR systems try to make a party’s percentage of seats proportional to its votes.
PR is said to be fairer, but have faults.
All too many small parties in parliament.
Allow undemocratic parties in parliament.
Make coalitions hard to form and unstable.
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39. The Key Institutions: The Split Electoral System
Germany combines both FPTP and PR.
This hybrid system is called mixed-member (MM).
Each voter gets two votes:
One vote for a single representative in one of 299 districts.
One vote for a party from a party list.
The party vote determines the number of seats a party gets in a given Land after the FPTP vote has been calculated.
Seats come from the FPTP vote and the party list vote.
There is a threshold clause of five percent.
With FPTP voting, personality also matters in German federal elections.
By American standards, German laws make German elections cheap.
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40. Democracy: 2009, A Split Electoral System in Action
With a voter turnout of 71 percent, the Bundestag election had the lowest turnout in FRG history.
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41. Democracy: 2009, A Split Electoral System in Action
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42. German Political Culture
Democracy was implanted in Germany by outsiders.
Today, German institutions are stable and the Basic Law a model constitution.
However, as was witnessed with Weimar, people must support democratic institutions.
Historically, German democracy has been suppressed.
East Germany developed a “people’s democracy” as opposed to a liberal democracy.
East Germany was skeptical of West Germany democracy.
The key question is, are democratic institutions in Germany strong enough to handle hard times?
In the past, this has not always been the case in Germany.
East Germany illustrated the connection between legitimacy, authority, and sovereignty.
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43. German Political Culture: The Moral Vacuum
Liberal democracy requires moral foundations.
Representatives must act in a morally acceptable manner.
Without these moral foundations and behavior, the system loses legitimacy.
Nazi Germany left a moral vacuum in Germany.
Incomplete denazification left younger people questioning the moral legitimacy of the new German democracy.
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44. German Political Culture: The Remembrance of Things Past
Can society experience a collective guilt?
For some time, there was a push to just forget the past and the Holocaust in West Germany.
For the most part, West Germany through itself into productivity and material prosperity after WWII.
This created tension among young Germans, who wanted to deal with the past and resented the commitment to material prosperity.
Young Germans participated in radical and violent politics in the 1970s and 1980s, some even turned to homegrown terrorist organizations like the Baader- Meinhof gang.
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45. German Political Culture: The Remembrance of Things Past
A 1979 American-made TV series brought the memories of WWII to life, but at the same time, Germans were rejecting multiculturalism
Some believed enough reparations had been paid.
In East Germany, young people were taught that they were not Nazis; the Nazis were over in West Germany.
East Germany avoided moral responsibility through denial.
Markus Schreiber/AP Photo
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46. German Political Culture: The Generation Gap
German politics has experienced rapid generational changes.
Compared to their more authoritarian elders, German youth tend to be more fee-spirited, open, and both democratic and European.
The generational divide is about output affect and system affect.
Some appreciate what a system produces, such as jobs, security, material goods.
Others appreciate the system because it is perceived as being good.
Most argue that Germany is now a “normal” country with no special guilt.
The younger generation has a new set of concerns.
The main parties have had difficulty connecting with young Germans.
Some young Germans have went away from the U.S., and have wanted to reconnect with Europe.
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47. Political Culture: Political Generations in Germany
German sociologist Karl Manheim coined the term political generations to describe how major events put a lasting imprint on young people.
Today’s young Germans were impacted by the fall of the Berlin Wall.
They are known as 89ers.
The 89ers stand in contrast to the post-war 45ers and anti- materialist 68ers.
The 89ers exemplify post-materialism.
Born in affluence, 89ers tend to reject the values of previous generations
They tend to be more tolerant and fun loving, and not attracted to traditional political parties or religions.
They are also less attracted to marriage and family.
Among some people has been a return to the values of the 45ers.
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48. German Political Culture: Schooling for Elites
German schooling is similar to that of France and Britain.
Take the best and leave the rest.
Germany has a three tier system:
At age 10, students take exams to determine who goes to Gymnasium, which awards an Abitur (similar to the French bac).
Some are sent to Realschule (prepped for white-color jobs) and weaker performers to Haupschule (blue-color jobs).
This is a fixed system that follows you for life.
Germany has no equivalent of Oxbridge or the great schools in France.
Many study law, which serves both the legal and political systems well.
Another important area of study is economics.
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49. German Political Culture: The German Split Personality
The German personality is split between romanticism and realism.
Most Germans are pragmatic realists who work hard, save money, are clean and orderly, and are also cooperative and family oriented.
However, there is a romantic streak where German society longs for an ideal and perfect future that stretches the boundaries of reality.
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50. Patterns of Interaction
With unification, German politics became a little less stable and more complex.
The size of the German party system expanded.
Coalition formation became more difficult.
Today, a coalition may require three partners and there is up to nine combinations.
However, this does not signal a return to Weimar’s polarized pluralism.
Voters choose from among three moderate parties that combine to form specific coalitions.
This helps stabilize the political system.
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51. Patterns of Interaction: Parties and the Electorate
Political scientists find that in most modern democracies, political opinion
resembles a bell curve.
This unimodal distribution is
common in West Europe.
Bimodal distributions represent extreme divisions.
Political parties have to modify their images to fit these distributions.
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52. Patterns of Interaction: The Chancellor and the Electorate
Two factors contributed to SPD setbacks in the 1990s:
The SPD did not embrace rapid unification like that of the CDU.
SPD candidates seemed too radical for most German voters.
In 1998, the SPD took a play from Tony Blair and the Labour Party in Britain.
The SPD moved towards the center, emphasizing that the CDU had been in power too long, and offered a younger personality, Gerhard Schroeder, for chancellor.
In 2002, the SPD and Schroeder went left to capture leftists who did not support American foreign policy abroad.
This saw the SPD capture a narrow victory.
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53. Patterns of Interaction: The Chancellor and the Electorate
With the rise of catchcall parties in Europe, personality has come to be more important that ideology in elections.
There has been a decline of Weltanschauung parties.
Although voting might be on the basis of a party list, voters know that they are choosing a PM as well.
In Germany this is the case, as the leading figures of each party are clearly identified ahead of election day.
Germans look for strong and levelheaded chancellors, as well as chancellors familiar with economics.
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54. Patterns of Interaction: German Dealignment?
There is concern that German voters are losing identification with any party.
There is concern that electoral dealignment is a reality in West Europe.
In Germany, there have been three primary areas of concern:
Voters losing confidence in either of the big parties.
Decreasing voter turnout.
Voters scattering their votes across the spectrum.
There are multiple factors contributing to potential dealignment:
The rise of catchall parties.
Issue specific problems that catchall parties do not adequately address.
The loss of the Soviet Union and the Cold War was the loss of the glue that helped to hold society together.
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55. Patterns of Interaction: The Bundestag and the Citizen
Given the clear identity of party leaders, German elections have become like direct presidential elections.
Contributing to this is the murky status of the Bundestag in the minds of voters.
This is in part because of the Rechtsstaat tradition, which helps make the institution a law factory staffed by many lawyers and civil servants.
In terms of demographics, the Bundestag does not do a good job of representing the average German, does not effectively legislate, or serve as a teacher of democracy.
Germany requires politicians to work their way up, and candidates cannot “come out of nowhere.”
Because of this, representatives are out of touch with their constituents.
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56. Democracy: Germany’s Coalitions
Two-party coalitions have been the norm for Germany, with one large and one small party.
When either of the two large parties gets around 40 percent of he vote, it forms a coalition with a smaller party with around 10 percent of the vote.
This yields a bare majority.
To date, we have seen the following coalitions:
Christian-Liberal Coalition (CDU/CSU + FDP)
Social-Liberal Coalition (SPD + FDP)
Grand Coalition (CDU/CSU + SPD)
Red-Green Coalition (SPD + Greens)
Five other coalitions are possible, but would be difficult to put together.
“Traffic Light” Coalition
“Jamaica” Coalition
SPD-Left Coalition
All-left Coalition
Government of national unity
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57. Patterns of Interaction: The Union Party Linkup
Unions are not as strong as they once were in Germany.
Nonetheless, in Germany and elsewhere in Northern Europe, unions are large and well organized and share a close relationship with social democratic parties.
Many times, unions form single, large labor federations.
These federations support social democratic parties with money, manpower, and votes, and sometimes become constituent members of the party.
20 percent of the German workforce in unionized.
The largest federation is the Deutscher Gewerkscaftsbund (DGB), which represents 6.6 million members from various industrial unions.
Membership in DGB is down from 11.8 million in 1990.
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58. Patterns of Interaction: The Union Party Linkup
Although declining, the DGB still has influence inside the SPD.
However, the DGB has competition with Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (Verdi).
Verdi is a three million member service union federation.
Verdi has different needs than DGB, and wishes to see public policy go in a different direction.
The catchall nature of the SPD prevents any one group from dominating.
The more the SPD moves towards the center, the less cooperation it has with unions.
On the other side, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) has connections with the CDU.
However, BDI connections with the CDU are not as close as the ties between the DGB and SPD.
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59. Patterns of Interaction: The Lander and Berlin
Britain and France are unitary systems that have experienced devolution and decentralization.
Germany is a federal state that seeks more centralization.
German federalism can be uncoordinated, powerless, and deadlocked.
This encourages federal-state squabbles.
Germany is likely more federal than the United States.
There are drawbacks to German federalism.
There is no true nationwide police.
Coordination problems make solving collective problems difficult.
Increased centralization is resisted by the Lander.
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60. Patterns of Interaction: German Voting Patterns
West Germany had structured voting patters between class, region, and religion.
After unification with East Germany, the structure became less clear.
Dealignment has also impacted German voting habits.
In Germany, religion means either Catholic or Protestant.
German Catholics tend to favor the CDU.
The CDU has Bavaria locked up with the CSU.
The SDP tends to do better with Protestants.
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61. Patterns of Interaction: German Voting Patterns
The SPD does better in urban areas, whereas rural areas tend to go to the CDU.
German workers, especially those in a union, tend to vote for the SPD.
German union workers are more loyal to the SPD than working class Britons are to the Labour Party.
Ideal-typical voters in Germany would take on the following traits:
A SPD voter would be a Protestant worker in a large northern city.
A CDU voter would be a middle-class Catholic in a small southern town.
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62. Patterns of Interaction: German Voting Patterns
As for other parties:
The FDP appeals to the Protestant middle class.
The Greens attract young voters.
The Left Party appeals to East Germans and those less prosperous.
However, East German voting patters have varied at times.
In 1990 elections, East Germany went primarily to the CDU.
In the years following, East German voters have reverted back to supporting the SPD and left parties.
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63. Elections and Maps
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64. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
A great debate in Germany centers on the welfare state.
One-third of German spending goes to social services, which creates a heavy tax burden.
Germany’s welfare state is Europe’s oldest, and is widely accepted.
The key question is whether or not welfare state policies harm Germany’s competitiveness.
Corbis
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65. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
The German welfare state grew after WWII when going to work was the only thing to do.
Rapid economic growth comes from wages that lag behind productivity.
After the war, German workers were still skillful and some infrastructure was intact.
Unions practiced wage restraint through the 1970s.
Following WWII, Germany also benefited from certain psychological conditions.
Everybody was poor and survival was difficult.
Because of this, there was greater material equality among Germans.
All Germans started from the same point.
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66. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
Under the CDU, West German growth was so rapid it was called Wirtschaftswunder.
After the war, Germany turned to laissez-faire economic policies and market forces.
The government supervised the macroeconomy and left the microeconomy private.
The CDU’s soziale Marktwirtschaft was a free-market with bank loans for social goals.
The welfare state was expanded at the same time.
Capitalism with a conscience.
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67. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
During the 1970s, the German economic model, Modell Deutschland, encouraged consensus among all social groups.
No views went ignored, and workers and unions had codetermination, or Mitbestimmung, in company policy.
Like most countries, Germany was hit hard in the recession.
However, German has since experienced growth.
Wages and welfare benefits climbed in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to increased taxation and lessened productivity of the economy.
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68. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
German business and industry also faced more regulations, which saw them flee abroad.
By the 1990s, German workers enjoyed several benefits.
Short work weeks (35 hours); long vacations (six-eight weeks); the world’s highest pay; lush unemployment benefits; early retirement; lush pensions.
These work-force rigidities caused firms to hire few new workers.
All of this helped lead to high unemployment, and the early 1990s saw the economic miracle come to an end.
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69. What Germans Quarrel About? The Political Economy of Germany
In 1996, the CDU-led government cut benefits and raised the retirement age.
The 1996 cuts helped the SPD form a government in 1998.
However, the SPD also had to make cuts in favor of productivity.
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70. Who Wins the Manufacturing Race?
Lower wages plus good productivity wins the manufacturing race.
Below are the important indicators of productivity in five countries.
Unit labor costs combine total labor costs with productivity.
Average hourly labor costs account for bonuses, social security, and other taxes.
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71. What Germans Quarrel About? Merging Two Economies
The merging of West and East Germany also created economic difficulties.
East Germany had a per capita GDP that was half
of West Germany’s per capita GDP.
Where West German products were in global demand, East German products were primarily sold to Soviet Bloc countries.
When the countries merged, West German goods anf currency flooded East Germany and the East German economy collapsed.
When state subsidies disappeared, East German productivity dived and unemployment skyrocketed.
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72. What Germans Quarrel About? Merging Two Economies
Saving the East German economy was not cheap, and the burden was mostly on West Germany.
This was the first major quarrel of a unified Germany.
Can the economic miracle work in East Germany?
The post-war work culture is not a reality in the East; West Germany benefited from the Marshall Plan; there is regional resentment.
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73. What Germans Quarrel About: Bailing out the Euro
Germans have been big supporters of the European project, but this has weakened to some degree.
Germans did not like giving up the DM in favor of the euro.
Germans did not like bailing out other members of the Eurozone.
At the insistence of Germany, the European Central Bank is supposed to enforce a rule that limits budget deficits to three percent.
Many states have cheated.
This meant Europe’s wealthiest states, and primarily Germany, had to bailout those countries in danger of defaulting.
The crisis has strengthened EU institutions, and Germany’s desire to have a stronger role in the EU.
Markus Schreiber/AP Photo
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74. What Germans Quarrel About: The Flood of Foreigners
There are about seven million foreigners in Germany, many from the Mediterranean.
Immigration to Germany got a boost beginning in 1955, when additional labor was needed during the economic miracle.
Many Italian and Spanish Gastarbeiter were invited to West Germany, and came eager to work.
Germans started leaving the dirty, dangerous, unskilled jobs to foreigners.
The guest workers, faced with poor economies back home, often stayed in Germany past their three-year limit.
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75. What Germans Quarrel About: The Flood of Foreigners
Today, Germany has about four million Muslims.
By the 1980s, Germany’s liberal asylum laws were well known and made it an attractive destination for the world’s poor.
Muslims in Germany tend to be poor and at odds with local culture.
Chanellor Merkel has said multiculturalism has failed in Germany.
Germany is not accustomed to waved of immigration, and policies have been tightened.
Throughout Western Europe, xenophobia is on the rise.
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76. What Germans Quarrel About? Is Berlin Weimar?
The FRG has been a political success, but some still wonder if the foundations of democracy have taken hold in Germany.
How will Germany function as a multi-party system rather than a two-plus system?
Survey data shows that Germans approve of, and support, democratic institutions.
At the same time, much has changed both at home and abroad:
Germany’s welfare state is costly and unemployment is high.
Germany faces competition from other countries in Europe with lower wages, fewer taxes, and less regulation.
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77. What Germans Quarrel About? Is Berlin Weimar?
The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War was a big moment for West Germany.
During the Cold War, West Germany was fully a part of NATO and the European Union.
East Germany was fully a part of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon.
Can the new Berlin Republic stay cemented in western ideals?
It is unlikely that Germany reverses course.
Today, the FRG even participates in peacekeeping missions around the world.
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78. Geography: Demography as Politics
Demography, or the study of population growth, has become an important political issue in many countries.
Countries have set out to adjust fertility rates and either boost or control their population.
The German fertility rate is 1.4, and below are the fertility rates of other countries studies in class.
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