The 1990 German federal election and the national unification: A watershed in German electoral history?

The December 1990 German election resulted in a dramatic weakening of the Social Democratic and Green opposition parties, a moderate strengthening of the government coalition, and a unprecedented low voter turnout. This article explains the electoral outcome in terms of the interpretive frames each party employed to address the issue of unification in the election campaign in light of their past voter appeals and stances on the German question. Within the Social Democratic and the Green left‐libertarian discourse, it was particularly difficult to assign a meaningful role to the concept of the nation and national unification.     

Constructions of the opposition to ‘structural adjustment reforms’ in the German mass-media

This article analyses Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly journal, and its discursive constructions of the oppositional voices against the so-called structural reforms imposed on Greece in the context of the Eurozone crisis. The analysis is focused on relevant articles published by Der Spiegel between late 2009 and early 2015, during important, crisis-related socio-political events. Drawing on discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, the article concludes that Der Spiegel (along with other mainstream media in Germany and elsewhere) publicly legitimizes the elites’ hegemonic crisis-narratives and -policies, while discrediting oppositional voices. The study further foregrounds the ways Der Spiegel and other German mainstream-media reproduce a nationalistic ‘victimization’ of Germany, which advances Germany’s own national branding-strategy of positive self-representation in the EU and in the world.     

The Effects of détente on the two German states

In non-presidential systems the head of state is either a monarch or a president elected directly by the voters or by an assembly. The political powers of heads of state in non-presidential systems vary from being powerful to being just a symbolic figure of representation and integration. In response to the disastrous experience of the Weimar Republic, in the Federal Republic the choice fell on the latter with the result that the political powers of the President were significantly reduced. Hence, his role is usually described as largely ceremonial and representative and he is expected to be a figure of integration rather than divisiveness. However, the role of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany seems to have changed significantly under the Presidency of Horst Köhler who appears to have made considerable use of his powers and decisively exercised his role as one of the veto players of the German political system. This article examines to what extent the German Presidency has indeed undergone an increased politicisation under Horst Köhler since 2004.     

German gays go green? Voting behaviour of lesbians,gays, and bisexuals in the 2021 German federal election

Previous analyses have shown the existence of a sexuality gap in voting behaviour between those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), and those who identify as heterosexual (Hertzog 1996). On the basis of these findings, it is generally assumed that LGBs vote primarily for liberal and left-wing parties because they are most likely to represent the group's interests in the political space. Using the 2021 German federal election as a case study, this article provides substantial findings, showing that, when controlled for the ideological proximity between voters and parties, sexuality affects in several ways how LGBs identify with and vote for parties in Germany. Positive effects can be demonstrated for the Greens, the Left, and – in contrast to previous assumptions – the far-right AfD. This is the first study to examine systematically the voting behaviour of LGBs and heterosexuals in Germany.     

German neo‐Nazis

Stephen Miller feared persecution in his own country, South Africa, but because he could go to Israel, he was denied asylum in the UK.     

Who gets what and why? Committee assignments in the German Bundestag

Although committee assignments have been researched in various parliaments, findings are inconclusive. This article contributes to the debate by analysing the allocations to specialised committees in the Bundestag, a legislature that establishes strong committees despite having strong parliamentary party groups. Studying assignments in this legislature can, therefore, help us to solve the present disjunction between ‘European’ and ‘American’ experiences regarding committee research. The study uses the congressional theories of legislative organisation as heuristic devices but explicitly highlights the strong involvement of parliamentary party groups. The hypotheses are tested with a multiple membership multilevel model across several legislative periods (1990?2013) and backed up with evidence from 51 interviews with German legislators. The results show that next to constituency demands and the influence of regional factions, there is strong evidence for a reassignment pattern and that a legislator’s occupational background and connections to interest groups matter in the assignment process.     

Institutional Design and the Use of Direct Democracy: Evidence from the German Länder

Despite growing interest in direct democratic institutions, the empirical evidence on the relationship between institutional design and the actual use of popular rights remains rather sparse. The authors use a novel data set on institutional openness and test its link to the number of popular initiatives in the German Länder for the period of 1997–2005. Their empirical analysis reveals a strong and robust negative effect of higher institutional requirements on the number of popular initiatives in the 16 German Länder; whereas other factors appear to be of minor importance. They thus come to the conclusion that the comparatively high institutional hurdles in the Länder impose costs of initiation, thereby limiting the number of popular initiatives.     

It’s no longer the economy,stupid! Issue yield at the 2017 German federal election

Abstract

This article demonstrates that the issue-yield concept is able to predict the electoral strategies of mainstream and challenger parties at the 2017 German federal election. While the electorate of mainstream parties favour valence issues, the Greens and the AfD can gain more by concentrating on socio-cultural positional issues. Relying on a unique survey covering 17 positional issues and 10 valence issues as well as an analysis of Twitter accounts, the article shows that contemporary Germany is characterised by a centrifugal competition on the socio-cultural dimension. At the same time, an asymmetric ideological confrontation persists on the socio-economic dimension, because the Left and the SPD still refer to their traditional welfare issues while the bourgeois parties no longer counter this with a contrasting free-market ideology. Thus, the economy is currently not the decisive issue in German politics. Migration, integration, and other socio-cultural issues are rather driving electoral competition.     

Intelligence and the ‘Mindset’: The German invasion of Norway in 1940

‘Weserübung’, the German invasion of Norway and Denmark on 9 April 1940, was a brilliantly successful surprise attack, both strategically and tactically. Strategic surprise was obtained because the idea that Germany was about to launch a major invasion of Norway was remote from any of the preconceived scenarios about Germany's next move. Germany's achievement of tactical surprise was also aided by bad weather in the North Sea. The main reason for the failure of both Norwegian and British policy-makers to comprehend what the Germans were up to lies in the importance of the ‘mindset’. On both sides of the North Sea the conventional wisdom was that Germany would not attempt an invasion of Norway against the supremacy of British sea power. Hence all incoming information was interpreted in Oslo in the light of the next mindset, namely that only a determined British attempt to take control of the Norwegian coast could trigger an armed German retaliation. In London, incoming intelligence was interpreted so as to conform to the Admiralty's preconceived scenario of a German naval breakout into the North Atlantic.     

The German question: Anglo‐American,French and west German perspectives

Geteiltes Land ‐ halbes Land? Essays über Deutschland, eingeleitet von Richard Löwenthal. By David P. Calleo, Roger Morgan, Raymond Poidevin and Michael Voslensky. Frankfurt/Berlin: Ullstein, 1986. Pp.240. DM 38.00.

Die deutsche Frage aus der heutigen Sicht des Auslandes. Edited by Han‐nelore Horn and Siegfried Mampel. Berlin: Duncker &; Humblot, 1987. Pp.135. DM 28.00.

Germany between East and West. Edited by Edwina Moreton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.185. DM 22.50.

Deutsche Frage und Westbindung. Edited by Klaus Weigelt. Melle: Knoth Verlag, 1986. Pp.151. DM 14.80.

Die offene deutsche Frage. Gesprdche mit unseren Nachbarn. Edited by Jean‐Paul Picaper and Günter Oeltze von Lobenthal. Berlin: Colloquium, 1987. Pp.199. DM22.00.

Le vertige allemand. By Brigitte Sauzay. Paris: Editions Olivier Orban, 1986. Pp.280.

Welches Deutschland soll es sein? Frankreich und die deutsche Einheit seit 1945. By Ernst Weisenfeld. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1986. Pp.203. DM 29.80.

Confronting the German Question. Germans on the East‐West Divide. By Renata Fritsch‐Bournatzel. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1988. Pp.150. £16.50.

Das ganze Deutschland. Perspektiven der Wiedervereinigung. By Wolfgang Seiffert. Munich: Piper, 1986. Pp.377. DM 19.80.

Einheit statt Raketen. Thesen zur Wiedervereinigung als Sicherheitskonzept. By Bernhard Friedmann. Herford: Busse/Seewald, 1987. Pp.180. DM 38.00

Deutsche Fragen oder die Suche nach der Staatsräson. Historisch‐politische Kolumnen. By Micheal Stürmer. Munich: Piper, 1988. Pp.211. DM16.80.     

Bread and the attrition of power: Economic events and German election results

Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income. Each percentage point of per capita real disposable income growth sustained over the legislative term yielded approximately two percentage points of votes in Germany. No other economic variables add value or significantly perturb the coefficients of our model. However, attrition of power reduced the vote share in election years 1961, 1994 and 1998.     

To the Advantage of the Big Parties but They Seem to Lose Interest—TV Advertising During the 2002 German National Election Campaign

Abstract

Since the introduction of commercial broadcasting in Germany during the 1980s, parties are allowed to purchase airtime in addition to the free airtime they receive on public channels. This has led to an increasing disadvantage for the smaller parties. In addition to the fact that a graded system of allocation of airtime is applied for ads on public TV and small parties receive fewer slots than their big competitors, they cannot afford to buy extra airtime. Comparisons of style and content of the party ads further show that the bigger parties produce highly professional ads while the broadcasts of smaller parties are often unprofessional and almost home-style. While the spots allow unknown parties to receive the attention of the audience, their unprofessional offerings might work to their disadvantage. While the ads of the 2002 electoral campaign have confirmed these developments, analyses of the ads of the big parties at the same time hint at a growing disenchantment with the ads as a campaign channel. Even the big parties tend to invest less money in their TV campaign than in former campaigns, which at least partly seems to be due to unfavorable conditions for electoral advertising on TV. This paper presents findings from analyses of the party ads in 2002 which are compared with findings from a long-term analysis which covers the elections since 1957, the first year in which party ads were shown on German TV.     

Disentangling the Value of a Ministry: Party Leaders’ Evaluations of German State Ministries

While the role played by ministries in the process of coalition government has been investigated from multiple angles, there is a clear lack of knowledge about which specific ministry features party leaders actually value as they assess different government posts. This paper aims at discovering whether, next to office considerations, the policy influence resting with a ministry does affect its value. A new survey of party leaders in the German states enables us to estimate the relative importance of specific office (e.g. public standing) and policy considerations (e.g. influence via legislation) for ministries’ values as well as to directly investigate differences between parties. The results show that both office and policy considerations matter for ministry evaluation generally, but also that different aspects have different weights. Furthermore, while all parties value the policy influence of a ministry, there is variation as to which type of policy influence (cross-sectional vs. within-jurisdictional) parties emphasise.     

The dark side of the German ‘welcome culture’: investigating the causes behind attacks on refugees in 2015

In 2015, Germany experienced a record high influx of refugees – and received international praise for its ‘welcome culture’. At the same time, however, attacks on refugees rose to an alarming level. This article describes the distribution of these attacks and probes their causes, using detailed socioeconomic and political data while modelling a hierarchical data structure. Controlling for further relevant factors taken from the extant literature, the analysis first tests whether the strength of extreme right political parties plays a role and, second, it models a contagion effect, taking into account spatial as well as temporal proximity. The findings suggest that the strength of right-wing parties in a district considerably boosts the probability of attacks on refugees in that area. They also corroborate the idea of behavioural contagion. The set of social-structural variables employed as controls yielded only limited explanatory power.     

Game Changing – Tracing the Positions,Strategies and Interaction Modes of the German Länder towards the (Ever Expanding?) European Union

This article investigates how the positions, strategies and modes of interaction of the German Länder have changed over time in response to the process of Europeanization. By applying the method of process tracing within a theoretical framework of rational choice institutionalism, the article concentrates on the Länder's responses to (1) the transfer of policy competences to the European level and (2) the enlargement of the European polity. Thereby, the article sheds new light on the Europeanization of the German federal system. It is shown that the transfer of policy competences to the European level have had the greatest impact on the Länder, which have reacted increasingly strategically by successfully demanding more power in the national coordination mechanism. However, the European Union enlargements have also had an effect as together with the transfer of policy competences they have resulted in a more sceptical attitude of the Länder towards (the perceived ever expanding) European Union.