'Chief Executives' and their Parties: The Case of Germany

Based on a combination of two analytical perspectives on the relationship between chief executives and their parties, this article offers a historical assessment of chancellor/party relations in Germany since 1949. The case study provides only modest support for the popular assumption that the leaders of left-wing governments are generally more constrained by their parties than their 'bourgeois' counterparts. There is also little evidence supporting the view that the formal combination of party chairman and head of government per se determines much of the relationship between chief executives and their parties. Rather, both with regard to the durability of coalitions and the policy-making capacities of German chancellors, it is the relationship between the former and the Fraktion leaders of the coalition parties in the Bundestag that seems to constitute a key variable.