German Parliamentary Elections Research Articles

Singing in Dark Times: Report from Berlin

Singing in Dark Times: Report from Berlin

Immigration and anti-immigrant voting in the 2017 German parliamentary election

Abstract We empirically examine the relationship between immigration and votes for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the 2017 German parliamentary election. We conduct a cross-sectional analysis, exploiting election results and socio-demographic as well as geographic features of the 401 German administrative districts. We find that immigration has a negative effect on AfD voting. A 1 percentage point increase in the share of foreigners is associated with a decrease in the AfD vote share of up to 0.37 percentage points. The result is robust to several estimation variations, such as addressing the potentially endogenous distribution of foreigners with an instrumental variable analysis.

Kandidatenaufstellung zur Bundestagswahl 2017. Untersuchungen zu personellen und partizipatorischen Grundlagen demokratischer Ordnung

The political parties represented in the Bundestag have about 300 .000 active members, from whom all elected officials, from local councils to the European Parliament, are recruited . Due to the ongoing membership decline in parties the pool of eligible candidates is also reduced . In spite of this worrying development and the outstanding importance of the parties’ recruitment function for the stability and functioning of the political system, for the last five decades the candidate selection processes for the German Bundestag have neither been analyzed extensively nor systematically . Hence, the Institute of Parliamentary Research (IParl) addressed this research gap and studied the candidate selection before the German parliamentary elections of 2017 by asking who selects whom in which way and for what reasons in the constituency or for the party lists as candidate for the German Bundestag . The results underline the worrying situation: Not only the personal but also the participatory basis of democracy has been shrinking over time . Although the parties hold membership conventions more often, in 15 years the participation of the electorate from CDU, CSU and SPD declined by 46 percent . Thus, inclusive participation offers are not a universal remedy . Rather, the parties have to make sure that such offers are really used comprehensively .

Mistrust, Disinforming News, and Vote Choice: A Panel Survey on the Origins and Consequences of Believing Disinformation in the 2017 German Parliamentary Election

In this paper, we address the question of whether disinforming news spread online possesses the power to change the prevailing political circumstances during an election campaign. We highlight factors for believing disinformation that until now have received little attention, namely trust in news media and trust in politics. A panel survey in the context of the 2017 German parliamentary election (N = 989) shows that believing disinforming news had a specific impact on vote choice by alienating voters from the main governing party (i.e., the CDU/CSU), and driving them into the arms of right-wing populists (i.e., the AfD). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the less one trusts in news media and politics, the more one believes in online disinformation. Hence, we provide empirical evidence for Bennett and Livingston’s notion of a disinformation order, which forms in opposition to the established information system to disrupt democracy.

Modeling electoral choices in multiparty systems with high-dimensional data: A regularized selection of parameters using the lasso approach

The increased usage of discrete choice models in the analysis of multiparty elections faces one severe challenge: the proliferation of parameters, resulting in high-dimensional and difficult-to-interpret models. For example, the application of a multinomial logit model in a party system with J parties results in maximally J−1 parameters for chooser-specific attributes (e.g., sex and age). For the specification of alternative-specific attributes (usually: positions on issues and issue distances), maximally J parameters for each political issue can be estimated. Thus, a model of party choice with five parties based on three political issues and ten voter attributes already produces 59 possible coefficients. As soon as we allow for interaction effects to detect segment-specific reactions to issues, the situation is even aggravated. In order to systematically and efficiently identify relevant predictors in voting models, we derive and use Lasso-type regularized parameter selection techniques that take into account both individual- and alternative-specific variables. Most importantly, our new algorithm can handle for the first time the alternative-wise specification of the attributes of alternatives. Applying the specifically adjusted Lasso method to the 2009 German Parliamentary Election, we demonstrate that our approach massively reduces the models' complexity and simplifies their interpretation. Lasso-penalization clearly outperforms the simple ML estimator. The results are illustrated by innovative visualization methods, the so-called effect star plots.

Under Which Conditions Do Parties Attract Voters’ Reactions to Issues? Party-Varying Issue Voting in German Elections 1987–2009

Are voters’ choices influenced by parties’ position-taking and communication efforts on issues during a campaign? And if so, do voters’ reactions to issues differ across parties? This article outlines a research design for the statistical identification of party-varying issue reactions within the established paradigm of the Spatial Theory of Voting. Using a special feature of conditional logit and probit models – i.e. the estimation of alternative-specific coefficients instead of fixed ‘generic’ issue distance effects – it is possible to detect asymmetrically attached issue saliencies at the level of the voters, and hence at the demand-side of politics. This strategy opens a new way to systematically combine insights obtained by saliency approaches with the Spatial Theory of Voting. An application to the German parliamentary elections from 1987 to 2009 demonstrates that it is predominantly parties taking polar positions – and, more specifically, niche parties taking polar positions – that induce such asymmetric issue voting.

Economic Voting under Coalition Governments: Evidence from Germany

This article analyzes the impact of economic voting in federal elections for the German parliament. It combines theories of coalition politics and cabinet decision making—like prime ministerial government, collective cabinet decision making and ministerial discretion—with theoretical approaches on voting behavior to test which cabinet actor voters reward for improved economic conditions. The empirical results, which are based on data from German national election studies from 1987–2009, show that the party of the chancellor (and, thus, the strongest coalition party) benefits most from a positive evaluation of economic policy outcomes. There is, however, no consistent empirical evidence that the coalition parties collectively benefit from perceived positive economic performance. Therefore the findings demonstrate that economic voting occurs in German parliamentary elections, but is targeted specifically toward the chancellor's party.

Hard choices in hard times: Valence voting in Germany (2009)

Recent studies of voting behavior in Anglo-American elections have demonstrated the clear superiority of the valence model over its rivals for explaining how people cast their ballots. In this paper we test the portability of the valence model in a particularly challenging setting the 2009 German Parliamentary elections. Although there are reasons to think that a spatial model might outperform the valence model, we find that the valence model outperforms it with results similar to previous findings in other political settings.

Women on the Battleground: Does Gender Condition the Use of Negative Campaigning?

This article presents the findings of an explorative study examining to what extent and under which conditions gender influences the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. It advances existing research in two ways. First, it is one of the few empirical examinations to date exploring gender differences in negative campaigning outside the US context. Second, it brings to bear novel data on this topic from British, Dutch and German parliamentary election campaigns between 1980 and 2006. In essence, this study explores whether we can find gender effects on the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. These effects are less likely to be found in these three Western European countries than in the United States, because we expect smaller candidate effects in parliamentary systems than in presidential systems. The analysis suggests that female party leaders are significantly more likely to “go negative”. However, this difference between male and female party leaders is entirely due to the inclusion of Margaret Thatcher in the analysis. Without her, the difference disappears.

German parliamentary elections 2009 from the viewpoint of direct democracy

The mathematical theory of democracy is applied to analyze the German Bundestag elections 2009 and to evaluate five German leading parties and their coalitions from the viewpoint of direct democracy. For this purpose, the positions of the parties on over 30 topical issues are compared with results of public opinion polls. The outcomes are summarized in the party indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency of representing a majority). It is shown that the election winner 2009, the conservative party CDU/CSU, has a quite low representativeness (ranked fourth), whereas the most representative is the left party die Linke which received only 11.9% votes. It is concluded that voters are not very consistent with their own political profiles, disregard party manifestos, and are likely driven by political traditions, even if outdated, or by personal images of politicians. To bridge approaches of representative and direct democracy, some modifications to the election procedure are proposed, which, among other things, complicate vote manipulations.

„Unser Land kann mehr…“

This article provides an analysis of the 2009 German parliamentary elections campaign, focussing on aspects of visual political communication on the example of election posters. In the light of a striking gap between the elaborate usages of visual elements in election campaigning and the lack of profound scientific research in this field, three different perspectives are used to evaluate the campaign. First, the preconditions as social, economic and political context of the campaign are worked out and an overview of the general course of the campaign is provided. Secondly, findings of the function and selection logic of visual political communication as a complex and multi-layered process are outlined. Thirdly, based on results of two controlled-environment studies conducted at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, posters and TV spots of the five major parties in the campaign are examined and evaluated on their effectiveness with regard to their intended political goals.

Women on the Political Battleground: Does Gender Condition the Use of Negative Campaigning?

This comparative study examines to what extent and under which conditions gender influences the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. It advances existing research as this study is one of the few empirical examinations of party leaders’ use of negative campaigning in election campaigns and the conditioning effect of gender outside the US context. The analysis covers the British, Dutch and German parliamentary election campaigns between 1980-2006. These three Western European democracies represent least likely cases to test the relationship between a party leader’s gender and the extent and content of negative campaigning for two reasons. First of all, we expect lower levels of negative campaigning in these multiparty systems compared to the US two party context. Second, we expect smaller candidate effects in these parliamentary systems compared to the US presidential system. The findings highlight that gender indeed affects negative campaigning in Western Europe. This being said, female party leaders do not differ from their male counterparts in the degree to which they utilize negative messages, but the content of these messages does vary on the basis of gender. When female party leaders go negative, they are more likely to attack their opponents on the basis of their existing policy records or future policy proposals than male party leaders. Overall, this study allows for an advancement of theoretical and empirical work on the relationship between gender and negative campaigning which originated in the US context.

Evaluation of German parties and coalitions by methods of the mathematical theory of democracy

Abstract The paper continues author’s studies on applications of the mathematical theory of democracy. Five German leading parties and their coalitions are evaluated with indices of popularity and universality to show how well they represent the electorate. The evaluation goes beyond the information on election results and uses an operational representation of party manifestos. It is shown that at the time of German parliamentary elections 2005 the most representative was the Social Democratic Party (SPD) which was however behind Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the best coalition could be the coalition SPD/Green/Left-Party which failed because of disagreement between party leaders.

Polls that Mattered: Effects of Media Polls on Voters' Coalition Expectations and Party Preferences in the 2005 German Parliamentary Election

While much speculated on, the effects of media polls on citizens’ political perceptions and preferences have remained notoriously elusive in empirical research, in particular in field research using representative surveys. Applying a unique data base—a two-wave pre- and post-election panel survey of German voters whose first wave was designed as a rolling cross-section survey supplemented on a day-by-day basis with published data from media polls—this article demonstrates that polls mattered in the 2005 German parliamentary election in various ways. Combining aggregate-level time-series analyses with individual-level regression analyses, the study shows that expectations concerning the coalition seen as the most likely outcome of the election were strongly influenced by combined party shares reported by polling news. In particular, this pertained to voters who closely followed the polls. Our findings also indicate that at least for some parties polls even had an impact on voting behavior itself. Vote choices for the SPD and voting intentions for the Leftist Party were positively influenced by polling reports that suggested an improved standing of these parties. At least for the Social Democrats this again especially concerned voters who paid close attention to that kind of media content.

Individualised Constituency Campaigns in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: Candidates in the 2005 German Elections

Constituency campaigns are important phenomena for students of political parties, voting behaviour as well as political communication. These research communities perceive constituency campaigns as parts of centralised high-tech campaigns aiming in strategic ways at the efficient mobilisation of voters. We propose in this paper an alternative understanding of constituency campaigns using the case of the German parliamentary elections in 2005 to empirically test this understanding. We perceive constituency campaigns as phenomena signalling a relative independence of individual candidates from the national party campaign. We label this phenomenon individualised campaigning. We argue that individualised campaigning is driven among others by electoral incentives. We test this hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis of a survey of all candidates standing for election in 2005.

Kirchheimer Revisited: Party Polarisation, Party Convergence, or Party Decline in the German Party System

The 2005 German parliamentary elections produced two parties claiming victory, the inability to form a government, and Germany's second post-war grand coalition government. This article explores the peculiarities in the contemporary dynamic of the German party system. It considers the strategy and motivation of parties and the effect of party competition. A key focus is to revisit and evaluate the predictive power of Otto Kirchheimer's ‘end of ideology’ proposition in the German case. On the one hand, mainstream parties seem to be converging at the ideological centre across Western Europe. At the same time, some party polarisation within the party system is evident as more marginal parties such as those of the far left and far right have gained votes at the expense of the mainstream parties in recent elections. A third possibility is that both of these circumstances have produced a political void with voters becoming increasingly apathetic and non-ideological. This paper argues that in the aggregate, trends do not reflect the predictions of Kirchheimer.

Individualisierte Wahlkämpfe im Wahlkreis. Eine Analyse am Beispiel des Bundestagswahlkampfes von 2005

Constituency campaigns are an important subject matter for students of political parties, voting behavior and political communication. In all three fields, constituency campaigns are perceived as elements of centralized high-tech campaigns strategically targeting particular segments in electoral markets. In this paper, we propose an alternative understanding of local campaigns and use the case of the German Parliamentary Elections in 2005 to provide empirical evidence for this view. We analyze constituency campaigns from an actor-centred perspective, which assumes local campaigns to signal independence of individual candidates from their parties. We label this phenomenon individualized campaigning. We argue that individualized campaigning is, on the one hand, driven by changing electoral markets. On the other hand, we argue, however, that electoral incentives and particular types of electoral competitiveness foster individualized constituency campaigning. We test this latter hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis of a survey of all candidates standing for election in 2005.

Adolescent voting for right-wing extremist parties and readiness to use violence in political action: parent and peer contexts

Almost all shapes of adolescent risky and deviant behaviour take place in the context of peer-relations. The present study examined the role of parents and peer-relations with respect to two indicators of deviant political development. In the fall 1998, directly after the German parliamentary elections, 1309 East German adolescents were asked about their voting for a right-wing extremist party and their readiness to use violence in political action. Friend′s voting was a strong predictor of individual voting for a right-wing extremist party, particularly when the friend was the best friend with a reciprocal nomination, and when the friends frequently communicated about political themes. In addition, voting behaviour and willingness to use violence were associated with membership in peer groups who met frequently. Finally, the violence-disposed adolescents spent more of their spare time with peers and less with their parents. Similarities of our results with the findings of research on deviant behaviour in non-political areas support the idea that deviant political behaviour could be an expression of a problematic life situation.

Contrarian deterministic effects on opinion dynamics: “the hung elections scenario”

We study the effects of contrarians on the dynamics of opinion forming using the 2-state Galam opinion dynamics model. In a single update step, groups of a given size are defined and all agents in each group adopt the state of the local majority. In the absence of contrarians, the dynamics is fast and leads to a total polarization always along the initial majority (for groups of odd sizes). The introduction of contrarians is then shown to give rise to interesting new dynamics properties. First, at low concentration a, a new mixed phase is stabilized with a coexistence of both states. This is an ordered phase with a clear cut majority–minority splitting (non zero order parameter). Second, there is a phase transition into a new disordered phase at a c= 1 6 , 0.23, 0.30… 1 2 for groups of respective sizes 3, 5, 9 and infinite. For a⩾ a c the disordered phase has no opinion dominating with both state densities equal (zero order parameter). In this phase agents keep shifting states but no global symmetry breaking, i.e., the appearance of a majority, takes place. Our results may shed a new light on the phenomenon of “hung elections” as occured in the 2000 American presidential elections and that of the 2002 German parliamentary elections.

Petra Kelly: The Other Green

Petra Kelly enjoyed celebrity status as cofounder and "leader" of the German Greens from 1979 to 1990. A prominent theoretician of the Greens, she broke ranks with the party on the issue of joining the Social Democrats in a governing coalition. She proposed, instead, that the Greens remain a radical parliamentary opposition force. Defeated in the All German parliamentary election of 1990, the Greens rejected Kelly's position and ultimately, in 1998, became the governing partner of the SPD. Ostracized and devastated by the 1990 defeat, Kelly spoke of "moving beyond the Greens." In 1992 she died under tragic circumstances. Her name sank into obscurity. Within our globalized era, however, Petra Kelly's ideas have particular salience. She represents the other Green who laid the foundations for a global political theory and for global political action.