German Political Parties Research Articles

Principles of Environmental Economics and the Political Economy of West German Environmental Policy

We begin by recognizing that environmental economics has an influence on environmental policy. We describe two schools of environmental economics: A standard school, an outgrowth of the standard economics paradigm; and an alternative school, one which is more normative in nature, which calls for radical economic change largely through a change in individual values and a transformation of industrial society. The policies and proposals of West German political parties are examined in terms of the principles of these two schools. We conclude that both schools are well represented across the political spectrum, from the fundamentalists in the Greens to the present governing coalition.

West German Political Parties and the European Community: Structures without Function?

The German party debate concerning European Community policy-making is a low key affair which contrasts greatly with the situation in Britain. This paper examines the form of the debate in the Federal Republic and argues that the nature of the European institutions, of the German party system and, particularly, of internal party policy-making account for this situation. Three short case histories are used to show the operation of the ‘German model’ of party policy-making. The conclusion is that the parties seem to lack any clear function in their activities in connection with the European Community.

West German Party Politics and Theater Nuclear Modernization Since 1977

West German Party Politics and Theater Nuclear Modernization Since 1977

West German Political Parties and the 1972 Bundestag Election

HE BUNDESTAG election of November 19, 1972, in its unequivocal ratification of Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, was immediately proclaimed by many observers as the most decisive for postwar Europe. It was also widely hailed as evidence that the West Germans had finally come of age politically. An astonishingly high voter interest manifested itself not only in the 91.1 electoral turnout, but also in unprecedented active involvement by ordinary Germans, especially youth, throughout the campaign. For the first time in the Bonn Republic, the Social Democratic party (SDP) became the largest party in the Bundestag while the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was relegated for the second time to the opposition, perhaps for the indefinite future. Each of the Bundestag elections to date has been eagerly awaited by students of German politics in the hope of ascertaining definitive clues to the future probable characteristics of the emerging West German party system. A possibly significant clue in the 1972 election was the victory of the small Free Democratic party (FDP) which had aligned with the SPD in the social-liberal Coalition (1969-72). The FDP not only survived the five percent rule,' but also dramatically increased its percentage of the vote. The combined SPD-FDP triumph in 1972 presents an excellent opportunity for noting evolving changes in West German society which have resulted in steadily increasing political moderation, analysis of the likely future evolution of the modified two-party system which West Germany has produced, and enhancing our understanding of the significance of electoral provisions.

West German Political Parties and the 1972 Bundestag Election

West German Political Parties and the 1972 Bundestag Election

Institutional Immobility and Attitudinal Change in West Germany

This article encompasses a wide area. For reasons of space alone, it seems advisable to be severely selective in dealing with my subject. Specifically, I propose to focus on items relevant to the national elections of 1969. Second, I shall emphasize social change at the expense of structures since, presumably, a good many readers are familiar with the basic social structures of the Federal Republic. Finally, I will make an effort to single out those developments which can be considered crucial to forecasting the results of future national elections. Some introductory remarks on the outline of this article are in order. Social change will be handled on three levels: demographic, institutional, and attitudinal. There is no doubt that developments on these levels, and especially the institutional and the attitudinal, are highly interactive and frequently parallel. Analytically, however, they are distinctive; to some extent, this is true also in practice. In Germany today, attitudinal changes in many areas of social life appear to proceed at a more rapid rate than institutional reforms or replacements. Writers dealing with attitudes, however, suffer from at least two handicaps: 1) it is comparatively difficult to validate statements on the patterns of change; and 2) attitudes are not necessarily expressed directly and proportionately in actual voting. In discussing the tie-in between changes on these three levels and the politics of the last elections, it would seem advisable to distinguish between the campaign and the election results. The former point of reference will provide us with opportunities to comment on the adjustment of German political parties to prevailing social ideas, desires, and demands. Certain conclusions can be drawn here concerning the self-conception of these political parties and of their image of the electorate. Aside from looking into

Safety First: The West German Election

The West German political parties conduct their politics within the framework of economic prosperity and nonideological clashes of interest, report the authors as they survey the recent elections, while the great and persistent dilemmas of their foreign relations remain frozen. George K. Romoser, associate professor of government, Connecticut College, spent three weeks in West Germany during the campaigns. Charles R. Foster is a lecturer in Germany politics, University of Liverpool.

German Diplomacy and the Sudeten Question before 1938

T | SHE post-war publication of captured German diplomatic documents has revealed that German diplomacy, until shortly before the Munich crisis of I938, was apprehensive of any openly aggressive policy towards Czechoslovakia, since it assessed Czech-German relations within Czechoslovakia in a way quite contrary to National Socialist propaganda slogans. This impression is reinforced by a study of the unpublished files of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin and of the pre-war German Legation in Prague. They confirm the fact that there was no really serious friction between Germany and Czechoslovakia before Hitler's accession to power and that any unavoidable small conflicts between these two countries, one of which had only come into being in I9I8, were but slightly concerned with the Sudeten German question. On the contrary, German diplomacy before I933 deliberately rejected any policy of German interference in Czechoslovak affairs, though it was frequently sought by certain Sudeten German circles, and supported as far as possible the active participation of German political parties in the Government of Czechoslovakia. In a secret report, dated as early as I9 April I9I9, Count Wedel, the German Ambassador in Vienna, definitely countered the belief that the Germans in Bohemia fervently desired to be attached to Germany after the break-up of the Hapsburg Monarchy:'

Military Government and the German Political Parties

Military Government and the German Political Parties

Populism

Needless to say, it is not with an American agrarian revolt of the end of last century, nor with the fortunes of a German political party that this paper is concerned, but rather with that fruitful and significant grouping of a score or more of contemporary French novelists under the banner of a common conception of the novel, its aims and appropriate media. If the name “Populism” is misleading because of certain political implications, one can at least be thankful that André Thérive and Léon Lemonnier in the consultations that preceded the launching of the new school a little over three years ago rejected labels such as “humilism” and “demotism” which might have proved even more puzzling.

The German Reichstag Elections of 1930

Casting the largest popular vote yet recorded in any election in Germany, the German people elected on Sunday, September 14, 1930, the fifth Reichstag under the Weimar constitution. Using Article 48, the Brüning government had put into effect certain emergency measures which it considered necessary to alleviate the existing economic situation. But when called upon to pass upon these decrees, the Reichstag rejected them; whereupon the President, on the advice of the cabinet, dissolved the Reichstag and ordered new elections.The campaign occurred in a time of serious economic depression. Nearly three million unemployed persons were in receipt of government relief, either national or local. Taxes had been increased, salaries decreased, and there was widespread dissatisfaction. The government headed by Chancellor Brüning, from its inception a minority cabinet, appealed to the country to return to power with increased strength the parties which had given it support. On the other hand, the government was severely attacked by the Social Democrats for its use of Article 48; by the Nationalists because of its support of the Young Plan; by the Communists on general principles; and last, but not least, by the National Socialists led by Adolf Hitler, not on general principles, but without any principles at all! In many respects this election resembled the May election of 1924 more closely than the election of 1928.Not only was the election of critical importance to Germany and the world from an economic point of view, but it was also of great moment in the evolution of German political parties and democratic institutions in general.