Party Politics in Germany: A Comparative Politics Approach

284 Pages·2005·0.964 MB·English

by  Charles Lees (auth.)

Party Politics in Germany
A Comparative Politics Approach
Charles Lees
New Perspectives in German Studies
General Editors: Professor Michael Butler, Head of the Department of German
Studies, University of Birmingham and Professor William Paterson, Director of the
Institute of German Studies, University of Birmingham.
Over the last twenty years the concept of German studies has undergone major
transformation. The traditional mixture of language and literary studies, related very
closely to the discipline as practised in German universities, has expanded to embrace
history, politics, economics and cultural studies. The conventional boundaries
between all these disciplines have become increasingly blurred, a process which has
been accelerated markedly since German unification in 1989/90.
New Perspectives in German Studies,developed in conjunction with the Institute
for German Studies at the University of Birmingham, has been designed to respond
precisely to this trend of the interdisciplinary approach to the study of German
and to cater for the growing interest in Germany in the context of European
integration. The books in this series will focus on the modern period, from 1750 to
the present day.
Titles include:
Peter Bleses and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser
THE DUAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE GERMAN WELFARE STATE
Michael Butler and Robert Evans (editors)
THE CHALLENGE OF GERMAN CULTURE
Essays Presented to Wilfried van der Will
Michael Butler, Malcolm Pender and Joy Charnley(editors)
THE MAKING OF MODERN SWITZERLAND 1848–1998
Paul Cooke and Andrew Plowman(editors)
GERMAN WRITERS AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE
Dealing with the Stasi
Wolf-Dieter Eberwein and Karl Kaiser (editors)
GERMANY’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY
Decision-Making in an Interdependent World
Jonathan Grix
THE ROLE OF THE MASSES IN THE COLLAPSE OF THE GDR
Margarete Kohlenbach
WALTER BENJAMIN
Self-Reference and Religiosity
Charles Lees
PARTY POLITICS IN GERMANY
A Comparative Politics Approach
James Sloam
THE EUROPEAN POLICY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
Interpreting a Changing World
Ronald Speirs and John Breuilly (editors)
GERMANY’S TWO UNIFICATIONS
Anticipations, Experiences, Responses
Henning Tewes
GERMANY, CIVILIAN POWER AND THE NEW EUROPE
Enlarging Nato and the European Union
Maiken Umbach
GERMAN FEDERALISM
Past, Present, Future
New Perspectives in German Studies
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-92430-3 hardcover
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-92434-1 paperback
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Party Politics in Germany
A Comparative Politics Approach
Charles Lees
Lecturer in Politics, University of Sheffield
© Charles Lees 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-9742-5
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90
Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2005 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-54626-8 ISBN 978-0-230-51147-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230511477
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lees,Charles.
Party politics in Germany :a comparative politics approach / Charles Lees.
p.cm.– (New perspectives in German studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Political parties–Germany.2.Political parties.I.Title.II.New
perspectives in German studies (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))
JN3971.A979L44 2005
320.943(cid:2)09(cid:2)04—dc22 2005045254
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
For Kirsten
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Tables x
List of Figures xiii
Foreword xiv
1 Germany in Comparative Context 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Why compare? 2
1.3 Rationale of the study 3
1.4 Book structure 13
2 The Development of Social and Political
Cleavages in Germany before 1945 16
2.1 Introduction 16
2.2 Cleavage theory 17
2.3 The Lipset–Rokkan model 21
2.4 Germany in comparative perspective 23
2.5 Summary 33
3 Social and Political Cleavages in the Second
Reich and Weimar Republic 35
3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Development of political cleavages in the
Second Reich 35
3.3 The Weimar Republic 42
3.4 Summary 46
4 Social and Political Cleavages in the
Federal Republic, 1945–2002 49
4.1 Introduction 49
4.2 The re-emergence of political cleavages: 1945–49 50
4.3 The Federal Republic: 1949–69 53
4.4 De-alignment and electoral instability: 1969–90 54
4.5 Post-unification Germany, 1990–2002 59
4.6 The 2002-Bundestag elections 67
4.7 Summary 71
vii
viii Contents
5 Partisan Identification, Value-Orientation and
Economic Voting 73
5.1 Introduction 73
5.2 Partisan identification 75
5.3 Value-orientation 91
5.4 Economic voting 104
5.5 Summary 111
6 State Structures, Electoral Systems and Party Systems 113
6.1 Introduction 113
6.2 State and administrative structures 116
6.3 Electoral systems 124
6.4 Party systems 128
6.5 Summary 137
7 Political Parties 139
7.1 Introduction 139
7.2 Problems of establishing a single classificatory scheme 141
7.3 Fifteen ‘species’ of political parties: German parties
in comparative context 145
7.4 Genus 1: Elite-based parties 147
7.5 Genus 2: Mass-based parties 148
7.6 Genus 3: Ethnicity-based parties 155
7.7 Genus 4: Electoralist parties 156
7.8 Genus 5: Movement parties 169
7.9 Summary 174
8 Competition and Co-operation 178
8.1 Introduction 178
8.2 Political competition 178
8.3 Political co-operation 196
8.4 Summary 224
9 Conclusion 227
9.1 Introduction 227
9.2 Combining the German politics and comparative
politics literature 228
9.3 Applying key comparative politics concepts,
models and approaches 228
9.4 Problematising the trade-off between depth
and breadth, micro- and macro-level explanation 233
9.5 The balance between the singularities of the German
Sonderwegand the commonality of characteristics
shared by Germany and other nations 234
Contents ix
9.6 Finding a consistent theoretical framework:
assessing the ‘political marketplace’ metaphor 243
9.7 Final remarks 246
Notes 248
Bibliography 250
Index 266