German Party Research Articles

James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes. Nazis in Pre-War London, 1930–1939: The Fate and Role of German Party Members and British Sympathizers. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. Pp. 283. $67.50 (cloth).

James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes. Nazis in Pre-War London, 1930–1939: The Fate and Role of German Party Members and British Sympathizers. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. Pp. 283. $67.50 (cloth).

Model or deterrence? The United States presidential election campaigns and the bundestag election campaigns

This article focuses on the election of the President of the United States of America in 2004 and on the premature election of the Bundestag in Germany in 2005. The main questions which are discussed are: Where can we currently discern central similarities in campaigning, which remain functionally powerful despite the considerable differences in system and context? What can be learned from the United States 2004 presidential election campaign for future Bundestag election campaigns in Germany? Can we observe developments in the USA which we have already seen in the 2005 Bundestag election? Could these trends be useful for the German parties in the future? This contribution argues that there are some developments in the United States which may prove useful to the German parties in future Bundestag campaigns.

Landesparteien in vergleichender Perspektive: Die Linkspartei.PDS zwischen Regierungsverantwortung und Opposition

The increasing regionalization of the German party system raises the question to what extent branches of the same party differ on the state level. A closer look at the predominant aims of the parties on the Länder level, such as the will to participate in government, to maximize vote shares and to realize specific programmatic aims reveals such differences. In comparing the behavior of two governing and two opposition PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) parties one finds the following: while the party branch in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania governs in order to try and implement specific program-related goals, the Berlin branch is more of a genuine office-seeker. The branches in Brandenburg and Saxony, where the PDS is in opposition, have changed their party goals considerably over time: the former has moved away from stressing policy-orientated goals to a more overt vote-maximization strategy whereas the latter has taken the exact reverse way. All in all, internal factors seem to influence the predominant aims of a Land branch to a higher degree than external factors.

Germany's Left Party.PDS and the ‘Vacuum Thesis’: From regional milieu party to left alternative?

The ‘vacuum hypothesis’ became fashionable in the late 1990s to explain the continuing upturn in the PDS's electoral fortunes. It posited that the PDS had begun to occupy an ideological void on the left of the German party system that had opened up with the rightward shift of the governing SPD and Greens. However, although the subsequent election results offered at best qualified support for this thesis, party reformers in the PDS remained its proponents because it pointed the communist successor party towards a continuing process of programmatic modernization. In part it was the failure of the PDS to meet the expectations of the vacuum thesis that led the party in 2005 to join forces with dissident Social Democrats in western Germany.

Nazis in pre-war London, 1930-1939: the fate and role of German party members and British sympathizers

A Nazi journalist comes to London Founding the London Ortsgruppe, 1931-32 Otto Bene, Ortsgruppenleiter, 1932-35 Establishing a Nazi Brown House The expulsion of Hans Wilhelm Thost Appointment of a Nazi consul-general The Nazi take-over of German news agencies Party and SS members in the German embassy Bonhoeffer and the Struggle for church autonomy Nazi infiltration of business and labour Mosley's British union of fascists The Government's Dilemma: Whether to outlaw foreign organisations German journalists: First targets for expulsion Nazi intimidation leads to deportation The question of espionage Index.

A Tale of Two Parties? The Failure of the Catch-All Parties in the 2005 German Elections

The German elections of 2005 proved a critical turning point for a number of reasons. The result led to the fall of Gerhard Schröder's Red-Green government, to the first ‘grand coalition’ between the two Volksparteien (catch-all parties) since the 1960s, and to the election of Germany's first woman and first easterner to the job of chancellor. The election campaign saw the Christian Democrats throw away a strong lead and lose the opportunity to govern with their preferred coalition partner, the liberal Free Democratic party. The results raised key questions about the German party system. Why did the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats achieve their lowest combined score since 1949? How should we explain the success of the smaller parties? To what extent can this be considered a lasting development? This article argues that shrinking support for the two main parties is likely to lead to greater instability in the party system without a clear improvement in the German economy.

The Tipping Point: The 2005 Election and the De-consolidation of the German Party System?

This article develops the thesis that the past quarter-century of electoral volatility in Germany reached a critical tipping point at the 2005 election. The two major parties of the Bonn Republic are now at their lowest combined share of the popular vote since the Federal Republic's founding in 1949. Electoral necessity and not, as in 1966, elite choice forced them into a grand coalition with little programmatic consensus. Their respective demographic cores-church-going Catholics for the CDU and unionized industrial workers for the SPD-have eroded as has the proportion of the electorate identifying with them. Institutional factors such as the electoral system have neither helped nor hindered these changes. The current grand coalition also faces a larger and more focused opposition than in 1966. The article concludes with some comparisons between the current German party system and its Italian counterpart of the late 1980s.

The Extraordinary Bundestag Election of 2005: The Interplay of Long-term Trends and Short-term Factors

When Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der went public and announced his plan for early elections on the evening of 22 May 2005, the SPD and the Green Party had just lost the state election in North-Rhine West-phalia. It was the last German state ruled by a Red-Green government, which left the federal government without any stable support in the Bundesrat. The chancellor's radical move resulted in early elections that neither the left (SPD and Greens) nor the conservative political camp (CDU/CSU and FDP) was able to win. While the citizens considered the CDU/CSU to be more competent to solve the country's most important problems, unemployment and the economy, the SPD once again presented the preferred chancellor. The new govrnment, build on a grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD, might be able to solve some of the structural problems of the country. While this will be beneficial for Germany as a whole, it will at the same time weaken the major German parties, which are running the risk of becoming politically indistinguishable.

From High Hopes To On-Going Defeat: The New Extreme Right's Political Mobilization and its National Electoral Failure in Germany

German extreme Right parties have increased their political and electoral significance in recent years, in particular through some considerable regional successes in the East. However, in spite of noticeable nation-wide gains by the NPD in the Bundestag election, the extreme Right suffered from another defeat. Looking at the interplay of supply side and demand side factors, the article examines the transformations and continuities of extreme Right parties within the German party system, their performance in the 2005 general election, and the reasons for their ongoing national electoral failure. While extreme Right parties benefit from more favorable conditions related to increased voter volatility, new public issues and new cleavage structures, these parties also continuously face crucial difficulties, especially on the supply side: the cordon sanitaire is still intact, and new cleavages in relation to globalization are more convincingly and effectively utilized by left-wing competitors. The main obstacle, though, are the extreme Right agents themselves. Incorporating Zeitgeist issues, they nevertheless remain unable to actually modernize their agenda. The present and future challenge to liberal democracy may be a new level of cooperation between extreme Right parties and consolidated "informal" right-wing extremist subcultures in Eastern regional strongholds.

Who's Afraid of Angela Merkel?

Many believe Angela Merkel's political masterpiece to be a surprisingly short article that appeared on 22 December 1999 in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. This article was to pave her way to the top of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a right-of-centre party, and eventually to the German chancellorship. Yet, at the turn of the 21st century the CDU had to cope with the deepest crisis since its founding in 1945. A few days before Merkel's article was published the former chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who had led and dominated the CDU between 1973 and 1998, had publicly confessed to have illegally accepted financial donations. To make things worse, he refused-and still refuses-to reveal the name (or names) of the donator(s), stating that he had given his word of honour never to do so. Kohl's confession threw the party into turmoil. The CDU not only had to fear legal consequences (it was later fined to more than euro40 million), but it was on the brink of losing an essential asset of a party: its credibility. Some thought the very existence of the CDU in jeopardy.The party was thrown into shock. Neither the then-party leader, Wolfgang Schauble, who used to be one of Kohl's closest allies, nor other party heavyweights could convincingly symbolize a new beginning. They all had been part of the so-called Kohl system. It was only Angela Merkel, a maverick from East Germany and the then-general secretary of the CDU, who dared to make the inevitable break and envisage a way of the dilemma. After consulting a few people she trusted, Merkel decided to publish the aforementioned article without informing her chairman beforehand. In the article she harshly criticized Kohl, the man most responsible for her political ascent since 1990. Yet in 1999 Merkel demanded that the Kohl era end and urged the CDU to move on. Shortly after the article was published, Wolfgang Schauble was also accused of having accepted money and abstained from running for reelection as chairman of the CDU. Merkel succeeded him in April 2000 when she received 96 percent of the votes at the party convention. She was the first woman ever to lead the CDU, the first from East Germany, the first with a degree in the natural sciences, the first who was divorced-but not the first protestant. Her predecessor was a protestant, too.The story highlights some of the most important political qualities of Angela Merkel. She has a strong-some claim an absolute-will to power and is a most adept political strategist. She learns quickly, never repeats a mistake, and is able to adjust easily to new circumstances. On numerous occasions she has shown that she knows when to take risks and how to keep her cool under pressure. And the risks were high at the time. In 1999 Merkel could neither rely on a significant power base in her party, nor was she integrated into the political network of the established West German party elite of the CDU. As a divorced protestant woman with no children (remarried in 1998), she did not at all fit into the party culture of the CDU in the first place. The party is still dominated by catholic male politicians with strong family values. Hence, neither her personal background nor her political past destined Merkel for a leading role in the CDU. On the contrary, in 1990 she seemed the least likely of all to become the first female chancellor of Germany. This might be one reason why she still is regarded as a sort of sphinx or enigma.'ANGELA MERKEL BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONBorn 17 July 1954 in Hamburg, West Germany, Angela Merkel grew up as the oldest daughter of a protestant pastor in East Germany (she has two siblings, a brother and a sister). Three weeks after her birth her mother, Herlind Kasner, followed her father out of love to the GDR, first to Quitzow and in 1957 to the small town of Templin some 90 km north of Berlin. Her father, Horst Kasner, believed the East Germans to be in greater need of pastors than the West Germans. …

Honecker's Revenge: The Enduring Legacy of German Unification in the 2005 Election

A core lesson of Germany's federal election of September 2005 is the enduring legacy of the communist past in East Germany, a legacy that substantially shapes politics in unified Germany. Fifteen years after unification, the crucial difference in German politics still lies in the East. The 2005 election demonstrated the enduring east-west divide in German party politics. The result is that Germany today has two coherent party systems, one in the East and one in the West. Combined, however, they produce incoherent outcomes. Any party that hopes to win at the federal level must perform well in the very different circumstances in the East.

Evaluation of Parties and Coalitions After Parliamentary Elections

Five leading German political parties and their coalitions are evaluated with regard to party manifestos and results of the 2005 parliamentary elections. For this purpose, the party manifestos are converted into Yes/No answers to 95 topical questions (Relax the protection against dismissals? Close nuclear power plants? etc.). On each question, every party represents its adherents as well as those of the parties with the same position. Therefore, a party usually represents a larger group than its voters. The popularity of a party is understood to be the percentage of the electorate represented, averaged on all the 95 questions. The universality of a party is the frequency of representing a majority of electors. The questions are considered either unweighted, or weighted by an expert, or weighted by the number of GOOGLE-results for given keywords (the more important the question, the more documents in the Internet). The weighting however plays a negligible role because the party answers are backed up by the party ``ideology'' which determines a high intra-question correlation. The SPD (Social-Democratic Party) did not receive the highest percentage of votes, remains nevertheless the most popular and the most universal German party. A comparison of the election results with the position of German Trade Union Federation (DGB) reveals its high representativeness as well. Finally, all coalitions with two and three parties are also evaluated. The coalition CDU/SPD (which is currently in power) is the most popular, and the coalition SPD/Green/Left-Party (which failed due to personal conflicts) is the most universal.

Election Campaigning Online

This article presents an integrated quantitative analysis of the functional, formal and content-related aspects of German political party websites during the 2002 National Elections. The analysis is guided by the normalization hypothesis of cyberspace, which infers a transfer of ‘real-world’ features of politics to the Internet. Results provide empirical evidence of a limited normalization in German e-campaigning: indeed, German party websites primarily serve information functions while neglecting interactive features. Yet, no overall gap in professionalism is found between major and minor parties analysed. Finally, online campaigning is dominated by a high level of self-referentiality but lacks both the expected degree of personalization and characteristic differences in communication styles between incumbents and challengers.

The Fall and Rise of a Nation: Czechoslovakia 1938-1941 by Edvard s> Beneš Milan Hauner (review)

146 SEER, 83, I, 2005 aspects of his topic, he often resorts to cataloguing themes addressed in journals or public lectures. This is perhaps inevitable, as his topic is the popularization of science rather than its content perse. Still, the descriptive tone left this reader at least vaguely dissatisfiedand wanting more analysisof the content of popular science, the narrativesconstructed,and their evolving place in both the popular imagination and propaganda campaigns. Indeed, the argumentthat popular science became increasinglyoriented towardsthe technical needs of industrialproductivity is wholly credible but also incomplete . Did not the heroicepics of Stalinistpropaganda,asin polar exploration, for example, also build on earlier trends and tastes?More attention to the thirdcomponent in Andrews'ssubtitle popularimagination would have enriched this study. Still, this well-researched monograph deserves a wide readershipamong studentsof earlySoviet history. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies SUSAN MORRISSEY University College London Edvard Benes. 7he FallandRiseofa Nation.Czechoslovakia I938-I94I. Edited and translatedby Milan Hauner. East European Monographs, Boulder, CO, 2004. xxvii + I90 pp. Notes. Index. $40.00. EDVARD BENES had a crucial at times a decisive -influence in the evolution of international affairsin Eastern Europe throughout most of the period 1914-48. Establishedat the crux of Czechoslovakpolitics as the righthand man of Tomas Masarykin the course of WorldWar I, he was critically instrumental in the newly independent state as well as in European affairs more generallyfromthe originsof CzechoslovakiathroughitstrialsatMunich and the new World War and its demise at the hands of Stalinism in 1948. Milan Hauner identifies Benes's controversial role in four fateful issues: Munich, the maintenance of an allegedlyartificialunion between Czechs and Slovaks,the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945, and the capitulation in the face of the Communistcoup in February1948 (p. vii). Benes's life has been voluminously but far from fully documented in great part from his own writings and state papers. A substantial collection of Czechoslovak government-in-exile documents naturally accumulated in London during the War. Prior to the fall of the Soviet bloc, an important element of pertinent documentation was sequesteredin the state archives of Prague. The London papers have now been transferred to the Masaryk Institute in Prague. Recently, scholars such as Z. A. B. Zeman, Antonin Klimek (The Life of EduardBenes,Oxford, I997), Igor Lukes (Czechoslovakia between HitlerandStalin. TheDiplomacy of EduardBenesin theI930s, Oxford, I996), and Milan Hauner have exploited the Benes papers to give us authoritativeaccountsof largepartsof his life and work. Hauner, widely published in Czech and Americanjournals on the period, has recently addressed himself especially to producing critical editions of Benes's memoirs, which are remarkablycopious, disparate and incomplete. Of three volumes that Benes planned, he completed and published only the middle one (English translation, Memoirs.FromMunichtoNew WarandNew REVIEWS I47 Victoy,London, 1954). His memoir materials pertinent to Munich were gathered and published by a Czech emigre organization in London in I955 under the titleMnichovske dny(enlargededition, Prague I968). The title under reviewhere, previouslyunpublished,is from the collection of Benes'swartime papersin London. Benes addressed in this volume several particular subjects:the successful struggle to achieve official recognition of his government-in-exile by the Britishand American governments;the equally successfulstruggleto achieve recognition of the pre-Munich bordersof Czechoslovakia(thoughit materialized only afterthe period covered here, i.e. in I942); the brutalconditions of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia;the organization of a Czechoslovakarmyin exile and itsparticipationin thewarin France;and the evacuation of this army, and especially its crucial component of fighter pilots (8oo of them, Benes says!),to the BritishIsles after the fall of France.Munich is not addressed at length here, as Benes says explicitly (p. i53) that it would be premature to discuss it at the early date of the composition of this memoir (I 940-41). Benesaddressed Munichseriously onlyinMnichovske dny, butthe subjectintrudestangentiallyinto thisvolume. Especially curious here is the publication of a hitherto obscure speech of Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German Party,in I94 I. Henlein was widely believed in Prague to be the willing servant of Hitler's imperialist intentions. We now have the German diplomatic documents in which Hitler and Ribbentrop instructedhim never to breakoff negotiations and yet never to make acceptable demands. What we have lacked until now is his candid confession...

The post-communist left and the European Union: The Czech Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) and the German Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS)

This article traces the development of two post-communist parties—the Czech KSČM and the German PDS—illustrating how they may continue to shape hard left policy in an expanded European Union (EU). It analyses three policy areas in detail (security and defense policy, employment policy and policies towards the institutional reform of the EU) and argues that, providing the parties avoid internal ideological conflict, they may come to play significant roles in influencing hard left policy in future years. The PDS is likely to act as a bridge for other hard left groups with more conservative agendas while the much larger KSČM may attempt to shift the ideological balance back towards more structurally conservative anti-capitalist policies.

Another Look at Connections Across German Elections

By examining connections between recent federal and state elections in Germany, we evaluate whether German elections seem to be maintaining some interesting preunification patterns broadly reminiscent of American elections, even as the re-absorption of the East has made the German party system more chaotic. Regional partisan stability does persist and there is continuity by way of a robust ‘moderating elections’ phenomenon: all parties suffer in state polls when holding power nationally, the big parties quite substantially. The evidence for retrospective economic voting of late, though mixed, is actually stronger than was the comparable evidence for the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The larger goal is to begin to explore how one might develop a cross-national analysis of whether there are general patterns consistent with actors in parliamentary democracies exploiting multiple occasions to vote - as created by bicameralism, federalism, mixed proportional-plural electoral rules, and local government - systematically in an effort to rein in governments or finetune policy.

The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry by Marshall s> Goldman (review)

REVIEWS 389 Another favouredclue presented may conceal problems.In historicalterms those partiespassed, as itwere, througha funnel constitutedby the Comintern and the Cold War. They entered the funnel from widely disparate starting points and, once emerging from the funnel, they began to diverge again. Herbert Kitschelt, in this work and elsewhere, has built on this idea (though not the funnel image itself). But not even he or not in thisbook develops the full implications of this. One implication concerns the term 'successor party' itself. Except in a very simple and analytically barren sense, the Communist Partyof Bohemia and Moravia is no more a successorof the prewar , and then Cold WarCPCz than today'sGerman Social-Democratic Party is a successorof the SPD of Engels's day. It is the same party (apartfrom the loss of the Slovakelement, which does not affectthis argument)and let not the defenders of the organization thesisgainsay this, since it makes theirpoint. It is history and geopolitics that in fact created two of the three types nationalist-patriotic and pragmatic reform parties that the book derives from a studyof the post-Communist 'succession'period. And it is a sensitivity to history that suggeststhat the label given for the book's third type -leftist retreat, embracing the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the German Party of Democratic Socialism is a perverse and dangerous misnomer. What is important is that they started together in a category differentfrom the others, that the Comintern and the Cold Warbound them together with weird congeries of sections/parties with which they had little in common, and that they have now picked up the trail from which they were diverted,but in a world that has, of course, changed. SPIRE,Keele University MICHAEL WALLER Goldman, Marshall. T7he Piratizationof Russia: RussianReformGoesAwgy. Routledge, London and New York, 2003. x + 289 pp. Tables. Figures. Notes. Bibliography.Index. /IJ4.i99 (paperback). THE question of how far oligarchic power has been established over the Russian economy and political system, and why, is the main theme of this book. Marshall Goldman argues that the power of oligarchs and (sometimes associated)criminalgroupsisboth extensiveand hashad a formativeinfluence on the outcome of Russian economic and political reform. These reform outcomes were the product, Goldman contends, of a mixture of economic 'culture'and bad policy choices. The economic 'culture'of Russia created by its historical experience as a late modernizer under the Tsars and as an antimarketmodernizerunder the CPSU was a problem thatwas inescapable,but sensitivepolicies might have ameliorateditsworsteffects.However, Goldman argues,suchpolicieswere not developed, let alone implemented. Inparticular, Goldman argues, it was the policies of privatization in both its firstround of voucher and insiderprivatizationand in its second round of 'sharesfor loans' that were responsible for the deformations of Russia's political economy. In support of his argument, Goldman provides an economic history of Russia from the nineteenth century to the present, records the failures of economic reform in terms of the transitional recession that accompanied it, reviews 390 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 privatizationpolicies and the structuresof ownership and corporate governance thattheyproduced, provides detailsoftheoriginsandactivities of the oligarchs,boththosethatemergedfromwithinthe old nomenklatura and thenewcomers, looksattheinfluence oforganized crimeoneconomicactivity, recountsofficialconnivancewith, and participation in, illegal,or at least dubiouseconomicactivity,and sketchesout alternativepoliciesto those followedinRussia. The empiricalpicturethat Goldmanpaintsis one thatmostpeoplewill knowat leastin outline:marketization hasbeendeformed; wealthhasbeen concentrated in a fewhandswhilstgeneralpovertyhasrisen;corruption and the misappropriation of state assetshave been rife;the preconditions for development whethereconomicorpoliticalhavebeenerodedasconfidence in the economicfuturehascollapsed.Goldman's accountof thesefailingsis richin detailandanecdote.Althoughhisnarrative is similarto manyof the journalistic booksthathavebeenpublished overthelastfewyearsaboutthe 'saleof thecentury'or theriseof themafiya, Goldmanhasa greatersenseof contextandismorejudiciousinevaluating thenatureandextentofeconomic collapse.In particular,the chapterson the currentstate of the Russian economy,who theoligarchsareandwheretheirwealthhascomefrom,are excellentintroductions tothesesubjects. Whatis lesssatisfying is the explanation forreformsgoing'awry'andthe implicitidea thatpervadesthe bookthat Russiahas becomestuckwith a dysfunctional formofpoliticaleconomythatwillreplicate itselfbecauseofthe culture/badpolicymix. Goldmanis too determined to critiquetheformof privatization in Russiato fullyallowforotherfactorsinfluencing change.He presents reform as being more or less synonymouswith privatization. Althoughcriticalofthe'Washington consensus' reform package,discussion of otheraspectsof the Washington reformmodelsuchas priceliberalization, currencystabilization, and commercialization, areperfunctory and are not accordedmuchexplanatory role.The rolethatGoldmanassignsto 'culture' isalsolessthansatisfactory sinceitbecomessomething ofa catch-all category describing atdifferent timesthingsthatarequitediverse: attitudes andvalues, incentivestructures, socialpracticesand politicalinstitutions. Yet,each of thesehasplayeddifferentrolesat varioustimesoverthe lasttwentyyears, sometimespositiveandsometimesnegative.Theseproblemsmakethe idea that Russiais stuckin a half-wayhousebetweenthe past...

Negotiating Identities: The Party of Democratic Socialism between East German Regionalism, German National Identity and European Integration

For many East Germans, the Party of Democratic Socialism has been a political and social environment in which German national identity, GDR biographies, post‐unification East German experiences and European integration could be successfully negotiated. The PDS enabled GDR identifiers to arrive at a critical evaluation of GDR history while maintaining self‐respect for their individual biographies and avoiding the temptations of GDR nostalgia. As it found its place in the regionalized pluralism of the new German party system, PDS supporters came to terms with the dual transformation that ended the post‐1945 socialist experiment as well as GDR statehood. Far from deepening the continuing cultural divisions between East and West Germans, the expression of regional East German interests and identity by the PDS contributed to the integration of post‐unification German society.

Keepers of Order? Strategic Legality in the 1935 Czechoslovak General Elections

Konrad Henlein founded the Sudeten German Heimatfront (SHF) in October 1933 and in less than a year and a half it would become the largest party in the First Czechoslovak Republic. This achievement is all the more remarkable in light of the initiative undertaken by the Czech and German Social Democrats, as well as the Communists to have the SHF banned in the year before the elections. This initiative would most likely have succeeded had the matter not been referred to Czechoslovakia's ailing President, Tomáš Masaryk. After the state had banned both the Sudeten German Nazi and Nationalist parties on account of their alleged ties to Hitler, Masaryk concluded one month before the 19 May 1935 general elections that the SHF should be allowed to campaign.1 Masaryk, however, mandated that the Heimatfront must change its name to the more democratic “Sudeten German Party” (SdP). Despite the specter of a ban that still haunted the party in the month before the election, the SdP succeeded in transforming itself from a political pariah into a majority German party by using the legal protections and security forces of Czech democracy to wage a legalistic campaign against the state. In light of this stunning success, how then did the party leadership perform this act of political alchemy and what strategies did it deploy in campaigning against the state?

Multi-Level Electoral Competition:

Symmetry has been a prominent feature of multilevel electoral competition in postwar Germany. However, regional parameters affecting the degree of symmetry have changed significantly over time. Looking at voting behaviour, coalition formation, party systems and party organizations, we distinguish three different phases: (a) an initial period (late 1940s to early 1960s) with a rather complex and uneven party system configuration; (b) the classical period (early 1960s to late 1980s) with a very high degree of symmetry; (c) the postunification period (since 1990) with a tendency towards a stronger regionalization of party competition. The article argues that these changes can be explained by the interaction of three different factors. First, a structural explanation focuses on the institutional framework of German `cooperative federalism', which was, at least until the 1990s, characterized by a constant trend towards more interdependence between the different political levels. Second, a socio-cultural explanation emphasizes the (varying) degree of homogeneity among the German electorate. Third, an actor-centred explanation points to the organizational capacities of political parties. German parties have developed a high degree of vertical integration and are (were) thus able to resolve disputes between the different levels of the political system or between different regions within their own ranks. In the 1990s, German parties found it more difficult to maintain their levels of vertical integration. Since reunification, territorial politics has therefore played a much greater role in multi-level electoral competition in Germany.