German Political Parties Research Articles

ОБРАЗ РОССИЙСКОГО ПАНСЛАВИЗМА В ГЕРМАНСКИХ ПАРЛАМЕНТСКИХ ДЕБАТАХ ПОСЛЕДНЕЙ ТРЕТИ XIX ВЕКА

The main topic of this research is the image of Russian pan-Slavism in German parliamentary discourse. The last third of the 19th century was the time of dramatic change in Russian-German relations – from an alliance to the membership in opposing military blocs. The driving forces of this deterioration were not only international politics and economy. Public opinion, especially in Germany, also played an important part in this process. Not entitled to take part in foreign policy decision making immediately, German political parties were able to influence public opinion on international issues. Therefore, the study of parliamentary debates makes it possible to understand the cooling of Russian-German relations. The sources of this research are minutes of parliament meetings from 1871 to 1895. Qualitative content analysis was chosen as the most appropriate method for this research. Main finding of this research id the existence of a single image of Russian pan-Slavism in German political parties from Conservatives to Left Liberals and Social Democrats. The use of this image was determined by the particular topic and corresponding interests of the party, but its key features remained the same. Pan-Slavism was perceived and presented as a powerful force in Russian society that was able even to overrule the emperor and to dictate political decision. This force was invariably hostile to Germany and constantly warmongering. Within the framework of this interpretation, the deterioration of bilateral relations was perceived by German society as a natural consequence of the activities of Russian pan-Slavists.

Shifting Narratives of the Alternative for Germany.

This article examines the evolving narratives of the German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and its potential as a hybrid threat. Through narrative manipulation, the AfD has demonstrated its ability to influence public discourse and distort reality via disinformation dissemination. The AfD established in 2013 in response to the financial crisis and dissatisfaction with the European Union, has transitioned into a populist party, and along with this change, it has also changed its narrative. This shift was notably evident during the migrant crisis in 2015, showcasing the party's adeptness at evoking fear and animosity among German voters. The AfD's narratives have been for years similar to those of the Russian Federation, which has used almost identical narratives on some topics. The German party is consequently working with Russian politicians to reshape democratic politics within Europe, and the AfD is accordingly acting as a hybrid threat to the entire European Union. The study is based on a discourse analysis of interviews conducted with German experts on the topic as well as a content analysis of selected German media to explore these narrative dynamics and their broader implications.

Gender, family status, and parliamentary careers in the German Bundestag

ABSTRACT This study tackles several important unanswered questions about gender, family status, and parliamentary representation. We use the case of the German Bundestag to explore gender gaps in family status among elected politicians and subsequently to ask whether and how parenthood affects MPs’ advancement in their political careers. Using an original dataset of biographical details for German MPs from 1994 to 2017, we find gender gaps in both marital and parental status among parliamentarians, with men being more likely to report being parents than women, and women being more likely to specify that they have no children. We also find variation across German political parties. Most importantly, we show that parenthood reduces the likelihood of serving multiple terms and that this parenthood penalty is greater for women.

«Союз Сары Вагенкнехт – благоразумие и справедливость» и раскол левой партийной оппозиции в ФРГ: кризис или обновление?

The paper is devoted to the emergence of a new German political party “Sarah Wagenknecht Union – Reason and Justice” (party “SWU”). The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the stated scientific problematic is of particular interest in the context of the current geopolitical situation, which dictates the need to take into account the positions of new groups through the prism of Russian national and foreign policy interests. The object of this study is the political party “SWU”. The aim of the research is to view the new party and the political consequences of its emergence for the left-wing party opposition. To attain the goal comparative and structural-genetic methods were used, allowing us to trace the dynamics of formation and development of left-wing groups in united Germany. The research tasks include the analysis of the political and ideological prerequisites for the SWA emergence; a study of the organizational and structural features of its formation; the identification of the political consequences of a new grouping both for the left-wing party opposition and the party system as a whole. The research results embrace the reasons for the emergence of the party “SWU”; the origins of the internal conflict in the Left party which led to the formation of a new political grouping; the program settings of the SWA and its electoral prospects; the consequences of the formation of a new party both for left-wing political forces and the party system as a whole. The research conclusions underline the following ideas. The emergence of a new party on the German political scene such as the party “SWU” marks a new stage in the development of both the left movement and its party system as a whole. For the Left, this means that the phase of their consolidation has been replaced by a phase of disintegration, which has taken the form of a party split. For the German party system, the creation of the party “SWU” can have two consequences. On the one hand, the emergence of a new left-wing party indicates further fragmentation and pluralization of the political system. On the other hand, it is becoming obvious that the impact of existing parties, primarily the “Alternative for Germany” and the “Left” is decreasing. For the “Left”, the activity of the party “SWU” is an existential threat and may lead to its disappearance as a pan-German parliamentary grouping. The prospects for the influence of the party “SWU” is related to the relevance of the political agenda that the new party will offer to voters as well as to its organizational stability.

Pandemic Politics in the Federal Republic

Abstract This article assesses the distinctiveness of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on German party politics. To do so, it compares and contrasts the politics of the pandemic with those of four other historic crises—the catastrophic flooding of August 2002; the 2008–2009 global financial crisis; the European Union's sovereign debt crisis; and the refugee influx of 2015–2016. It examines the extent of a “rally-round-the flag” effect; how political parties framed the crisis in terms of solidarity; and the impact of retrospective assessment and voting on crisis management. The article finds that the political consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on the whole resembled past patterns, notwithstanding the unprecedent nature of the 2020–2021 crisis.

Gender topics in self-presentation of the right Populist italian and German Political Parties

The purpose of the article is to explore the features of the self-presentation of the right-wing political parties in Germany and Italy, based on a different approach to reflecting gender topics. the empirical base of the study is the results of the authors’ quantitative and qualitative content analysis of tests of EU official documents (pacts, doctrines), as well as the texts of the election programs of the elected in 2019 for the European parliament right-wing parties, and discourse analysis of the texts of speeches of party leaders. The themes of gender equality is used by all the analyzed parties both in Germany and Italy, however, they are not the main issues of the election programs, but serve as an auxiliary tool for explaining the proposed decisions on fiscal and economic issues in the programs. Quantitative analysis made it possible to identify a number of key thematic clusters in gender issues. The results of the study may be useful to specialists who study internal processes in the EU countries, as well as to those who are interested in the modern features of right-wing political parties.

Metaphor as Invective in the Genre of Internet Commentary: A Focus on German Political Discourse

This article presents the results of a linguo-stylistic analysis of a Germanlanguage commentary within the context of public political internet discourse. The analysis aims to identify distinctive features specific to this genre. Empirical material consists of over 200 comments on internet posts made by the German political party “Alternative for Germany,” selected through random sampling. The study applies both general scientific and linguistic methods, such as discourse analysis and contextual analysis. The relevance of this chosen topic is justified by the need for research in the field of internet linguistics, particularly in addressing genre-related issues. The goal is to determine, identify, and describe the characteristic features of commentary as an internet text. The article thoroughly examines the approaches taken by German linguists to define the concept of “invective,” encompassing lexical-semantic perspectives, speech act theory, and post-structural discourse analysis. Additionally, the analysis of the material reveals that invective is a hallmark of German political internet discourse, with manifestations in both explicit and implicit forms. The article discusses implicatures, arising through irony and metaphorization. The author concludes that metaphor can serve as a tool of persuasion. Metaphor, as a persuasive device, involves the intentional alteration of the mental representation of a given object based on the metaphorical image imposed by the manipulator. This typically includes exaggeration in some aspects of the metaphorically represented phenomenon while diminishing others.

Semantic temporality analysis: A computational approach to time in English and German texts

Temporality is an important aspect of political discourse. Politicians and policymakers attempt to construct the past and the future to gain power, legitimize their policies, claim success for themselves and blame others. To make computational analysis of temporality more accessible, we develop a new methodology using a semisupervised machine-learning algorithm called Latent Semantic Scaling. Only with a set of common verbs in the past perfect and future tense as seed words, the algorithm estimates the temporality of all other words. We demonstrate that it can identify temporal orientation of English and German sentences from election manifestos around 60–70% accurately, which is comparable to the results from a recent study based on supervised machine-learning algorithms. We also apply it to Twitter posts by German political parties to reveal temporal orientation of policy issues.

Left and Right in Space and Politics

The terms left and right can refer to spatial or political orientations. We hypothesized that a match (vs. mismatch) of spatial position and political orientation would lead to more positive political judgments. In three experiments, German participants (total N = 517) evaluated statements from the political left-wing and right-wing spectrums as well as German political parties presented either on the left or on the right side of their screens. When statements were presented on the left, politically left statements as well as left-wing parties were evaluated more favorably than when these statements were presented on the right. Conversely, politically right statements and right-wing parties were evaluated more favorably when the statements were presented on the right versus left side of the screen. Cultural conservatism, need for cognitive closure, and openness to experience were assessed but did not mediate these effects. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the results.

Политические партии ФРГ на современном этапе

The topic of the paper is research on the relationships among the political parties of the FRG after the federal election for the 20th German Bundestag (2021). The purpose of the research is to study the factors that determine the development of the German party system at the present stage. The research objectives are as follows: the analysis of the balance of forces between governing and opposition parties after the election for the Bundestag; the explication of the factors of stability and conflictogenicity within the governing coalition; the characteristic of the results of the 2022–2023 regional elections as an intermediate result of the interparty competition; and the study of the present political potential of the parliamentary opposition. The research resulted in the identification of the specific features of the interparty distribution of power during the current legislature period; the description of the scenarios within the governmental coalition as well as amongst the Parliamentary opposition; the explication of the reasons for instability and potential risks for the existing government; and the analysis of factors that stabilize the actions of the latter and ensure the government against possible disintegration or collapse. The conclusions of the research are as follows: the major domestic factor in the preservation of the governing coalition is the weakness of the SPD’s key competitor – the CDU/CSU Union – which does not allow the latter to offer a real political alternative to the government in power. The intermediate results of the activities of the governing coalition testify to the existence of a tension amongst the coalition members. This refers especially to its minority partners – Alliance 90 / The Greens and FDP which are balanced by the Social Democrats. The results of the 2022–2023 regional elections became important indicators of their political influence for the German political parties. Examining these results through the prism of competition between the “people’s parties” – CDU and SPD – leads to the conclusion that their competition proceeded with varying success. The Greens turned out to become the absolute winners of those regional elections. The political well-being of the opposition parties vary. The CDU/CSU Union is undergoing the stage of reconstruction and gradual gain in its public impact. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is also gaining in popularity. The Left Party is undergoing a structural crisis and the ways of the crisis resolution found by the party will determine its further existence and the place within the German party system.

The Shifting Role of Climate Change in the 2021 Bundestag Election

Abstract The climate crisis unfolded in real time during the 2021 Bundestag campaign, as western Germany experienced sudden, catastrophic flooding. The climate issue presented a varying and at times unexpected array of challenges and opportunities to the German political parties. In this article I will analyze the shifting role of climate change as it played out during the campaign, in the coalition discussions that followed, and in the first nine months of the new traffic light coalition government.

Germany’s stance on the Nord Stream 2 project: Internal and external determinants

In recent years, Germany’s energy policy has been pursuing several long-term goals: not only to ensure energy security, but also to achieve energy transition and to become a major gas hub in the European Union. In that context, cooperation with Russia as a key exporter of natural gas to Germany was of particular importance. At the same time, relations between the two states showed contradictory dynamics. This became especially evident during the political struggle over the project of the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The author traces the evolution of the arguments of the key participants in the discussions sparked by the project in Germany before Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine and after it. The first section examines the positions of the main interest groups, leading political parties and regional authorities. The author shows that representatives from the business community and political forces related to them (SPD, CSU, part of the CDU and FDP) were generally inclined to support the project, albeit under certain conditions. The latter particularly included Russia’s guarantees for preserving gas transit through Ukraine. The human rights (legalist) group and eco-activists, affiliated with the Greens, partly the CDU and the FDP, took a much more critical stand regarding Nord Stream 2. Moreover, the federal government’s policy was greatly affected by a number of external factors. Germany made significant diplomatic efforts not only to coordinate its position with other EU countries, but also to overcome the resistance to the project from the United States and Ukraine. Nevertheless, the German government eventually managed through various compromises to advance the Nord Stream 2 project. The situation has changed dramatically after Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. The German government halted the process of certification of Nord Stream 2. All major German political parties supported this decision.

Unmanaged Transparency in a Digital Society: Swiss army knife or double-edged sword?

Facing increasing demands for transparency, more and more organizations have embraced managed forms of information disclosure that rely on digital technologies. However, when doing so, they tend to create an idealized self-presentation for their audiences. Aggravated by these attempts to undermine ‘true openness’, calls for a ‘hands-off’ approach to information disclosure – also known as unmanaged transparency – have grown louder. Following this development, the paper conceptualizes organizations as sites of managed and unmanaged transparency practices and asks how these practices shape audience support and are affected by audiences. Empirically, we study a German political party from 2011 to 2017. Audiences initially supported the party’s commitment to unmanaged transparency but soon withdrew their support. Members in executive positions reacted by enacting multiple managed transparency practices to change the party’s negative public image. These efforts, however, were futile, and the party could not regain audience support. We theorize this dynamic in a framework that draws attention to the impact of (un)managed transparency and the organizational environment on audience support. Overall, our study suggests that unmanaged transparency in a digital society is more like a double-edged sword rather than a Swiss army knife: organizations might profit from its positive effects on the audience’s support, but they also make themselves vulnerable by the high level of dissonance they put on display.

On finite mixtures of Discretized Beta model for ordered responses

The paper discusses the specification of finite mixture models based on the Discretized Beta distribution for the analysis of ordered discrete responses, as ratings and count data. The ultimate goal of the paper is to parameterize clusters of opposite and intermediate response outcomes. After a thorough discussion on model interpretation, identifiability and estimation, the proposal is illustrated on the wake of a case study on the probability to vote for German Political Parties and with a comparative discussion with the state of the art.

Institutional Determinants of Democratic Breakdown (The Case of Weimar Republic)

The paper aims to examine the institutional causes of the democratic breakdown of the Weimar Republic. To accomplish that purpose following problems were set: firstly, paper discusses current state of democracy throughout the world, its issues and challenges. Paper also underlines global trend of democratic decline. That discussion is provided to draw parallels and pinpoint relevance of the analysis. Afterwards, the research examines German political system, democratic roots and development. Moreover, constitutional changes and checks and balances are analyzed as well. The paper particularly scrutinizes evolution of German political parties and specifics of electoral system. Institutional heritage of regime change is also unveiled. The paper underlines pitfalls of Weimar Republic’s institutions that led to democratic breakdown. Apart from it, research generally outlines socio-economic background of Weimar Republic. During the research examination of documents, content analysis, comparative and historical methods were applied. The paper concludes that regarding to its institutional weakness, that is absence of electoral threshold, fragmentation of parliament and political parties, the abundance of social associations, semi-presidential system and socioeconomic situation created ground for an authoritarian takeover of the Weimar Republic.

Die Koalitionstheorie in der Ära Merkel

Since the early 1960s scholars have tried to figure out how to explain coalition building . Meanwhile the approaches broadened from the classic office and policy seeking theory to more elaborated theories that include more factors and variables . The latest development has been to look at the subnational level and identify the necessities for “conflict free” governance within federal states . This paper tries to show how the coalition building in the Merkel era was led by a strategy the author labels “smooth-governance seeking” . It embodies strategies well known from other theories but adds specific variables, which are necessary ingredients to explain and predict coalition building within the German political party system, with a stronger focus on the political institutional system . At the same time the bargaining participants are viewed in more detail and instead of following the established pattern of negotiating parties the approach concentrates on individuals who seek to produce the best outcome for themselves; and if the party benefits as well that would be a welcoming benefit .

Korruption bei der parteiinternen Kandidatenaufstellung für Parlamentswahlen – ein Fall für das Strafrecht?

Taking a proposal of a parliamentary group in the Landtag of the Saarland as a starting point, the paper discusses pros and cons as well as legal options to criminalize bribery in the context of party meetings that select candidates for general elections . The author argues that it is advisable to extend the criminal law to that effect . In this regard, well-defined new provisions in the German Political Parties Act are preferable to a general clause in the Crim- inal Code .

Egy új, mégis régi Németország születése

The year 1945 brought a radical change in the German history. The total defeat landed the Reich in difficulty. On the territory of the German Reich four entities have been established which could only get in touch with each other if the Allied Powers allowed them. The Allies took over the supreme power after Germany’s unconditional surrender. The old-new German political parties had to face the state building under hard circumstances such as the lack of sovereignty. The postwar chaos could be overcome in four years, therefore two new states have been rebuilt on the territory of the ‘Third Reich’. This study is restricted to present the birth of West Germany also known as Federal Republic of Germany from 1948 when the Western Powers officially announced the establishment of a federal state in the West German area.

Роль слов-градуаторов в представлении имиджа немецких политических партий

В статье анализируются показатели градуальности, которые влияют на создание имиджа политической партии и позволяют политикам конструировать свое речевое поведение таким образом, чтобы выставлять в лучшем свете деятельность своей партии, а политику, проводимую политическими оппонентами, критиковать и подвергать сомнению. Слова-градуаторы рассматриваются как операторы имидж-поддерживающих или имидж-нарушающих процессов, объединяющие такие понятия, как «шкала», «норма» и «количество». За норму принимается идеализированная когнитивная модель имиджа. Слова-градуаторы в исследовании распределяются по степени интенсивности наличия признака на градуаторы с повышенной или недостаточной степенью этого признака. Каждая категория в свою очередь подразделяется на два модуса. При использовании градуаторов с повышенной степенью наличия признака акцентируется внимание на соответствии своей партии идеализированной когнитивной модели имиджа или на несоответствии партии оппонентов данной модели. Использование градуаторов с недостаточной степенью наличия признака перемещает фокус с несоответствия своей собственной партии идеализированной когнитивной модели имиджа или «затемняет» полное соответствие конкурентов этой модели имиджа. Доказывается, что формирование смысла градуальности, усиление или уменьшение степени признака связано с когнитивными механизмами фокусирования и дефокусирования, которые являются средством воздействия на общественное сознание. The article analyzes the grading indicators that affect the creation of a political party’s image and allow politicians to design their verbal behavior in such a way as to expose the activities of their party in the best light, and criticize and question the policies pursued by political opponents. Grading words are considered as operators of image-supporting or image-disturbing processes, combining concepts such as “scale”, “norm” and “quantity”. The idealized cognitive model (ICM) of the image, which represents the idea of a positive image of the party and its members, developed over a long period of time, and is present in the minds of most carriers of a certain linguistic culture, acts as a norm on the basis of which the speaker grades the qualities and characteristics of his opponents. We define grading words as unchangeable lexical units, i.e. units that do not have inflections: adverbs of measure and degree, particles, conjunctions, interjections. On the other hand, the measurement relation can express the speaker's attitude to the s ubject of speech also using various lexical, derivational, morphological or syntactic means. In the study, the grading words are divided into those with an emphasized or weakened presence of the semantic sign. Each category, in turn, is subdivided into two modes. Grading words with an emphasized degree of the presence of a feature focus attention on the conformity of their party to the ICM image or on the discrepancy between the party of opponents and he ICM image. Grading words with an insufficient degree of presence of a feature shift the focus from the discrepancy between their own party and the ICM image or "obscure" the full compliance of competitors with the ICM image. It is proved that the formation of a sense of gradation, an increase or decrease in the degree of a feature, is associated with the cognitive mechanisms of focusing and defocusing, which are a means of influencing public consciousness.

Ведущие немецкие партии в преддверии выборов в Бундестаг

The article is devoted to changes in the party-political system of Germany. Elections to the Bundestag are to be held in Germany on September 26. After 16 years of the leadership, Angela Merkel will not run for chancellor. Currently, the main German political parties face challenges. Major parties lose electoral support. The emergence of a new party, the “Alternative for Germany”, split votes, and makes it difficult to form a coalition. Parties should also overcome internal split and find their identity in a changing world. An analysis of the electoral programmes revealed that German political parties seek to return to traditional identity. CDU/CSU moves to the right, seeking to win back the AfG supporters. SPD and FDP in their electoral documents also appeal to their traditional electorate. The AfG’s nomination of lead candidates supported by the right wing of the party also indicates that the “Alternative for Germany” will move towards radical right-wing positions. The Left Party comes out with radical leftist demands, which limits the possibility of its entry into the coalition. The most successful is the Green Party’s electoral strategy. Party leaders abandoned radical demands of their predecessors. Greens advocate a citizen-supported climate program, but pay attention to the economic viability of reforms. According to polls, the black-green coalition (CDU/CSU and Union 90/Greens) seems the most likely. However, in the course of coalition negotiations, the parties may face difficulties in finding a compromise on tax policy and environmental reforms. At the same time, the parties have no significant contradictions on the foreign policy agenda (with the exception of a number of specific issues). Acknowledgments. The article was prepared within the project “Post-Crisis World Order: Challenges and Technologies, Competition and Cooperation” supported by the grant from Ministry of science and higher education of the Russian Federation program for research projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development (Agreement № 075-15-2020-783).