The Origins of Chancellor Democracy and the Transformation of the German Democratic Paradigm

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Mommsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
The Social

The role of Konrad Adenauer in the proceedings of the Parliamentary Council in Bonn and his decision after his election as first federal chancellor not to form a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party paved the way to a fundamental transformation of the traditional German democratic paradigm versus the Anglo-Saxon concept of interaction between government and parliamentary opposition. The inherited pattern of constitutional democracy that had contributed to the structural weaknesses of Weimar parliamentarism was replaced by the concept of an interaction between government and opposition. Political parties took on the primary tasks of securing stable parliamentary majorities and providing sufficient electoral support for the chancellor. Adenauer's resolved political leadership, therefore, was an indispensable contribution to the reorientation of West German political culture from the former distrust of unrestricted parliamentary sovereignty toward Western democratic traditions.

Partisan Activism in the Age of Individualization

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-87
Author(s):  
Fabio Wolkenstein
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Social ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Democratic Parties

This chapter addresses the following question: How do contemporary party members view themselves, their party, and their role in it? This question is important because the success of party reforms depends centrally on whether the newly-created channels of participation and engagement are recognized as meaningful and valuable by those who engage in parties (or are generally inclined to engage in them); and to find out what could be considered meaningful and valuable by these individuals we need to understand what they expect from a party in terms of participation and opportunities to make one’s agency felt. The basis of the study, as will be explained in detail, are focus group interviews held with party members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), two parties that were chosen as empirical cases because Social Democratic parties are arguably on top of the list of the parties that may be considered ‘victims’ of the trend of shifting participatory norms, having lost much of their once-great electoral support across most of Europe. An important finding the chapter presents is the tendency of party members to demand (not more direct participation like membership ballots or the like but) more face-to-face contact and two-way communication with party elites and their fellow activists—which strengthens the general case for a more deliberative understanding of parties that the book advances.

The Center Wages Kulturpolitik: Conflict in the Marx-Keudell Cabinet of 1927

1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen L. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Center Party ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right

In descriptions of the political structure of the Weimar Republic, the German Center Party is usually grouped as a party of the “middle,” together with the German Democratic Party and German People's Party, between the left-wing Social Democrats and the right-wing German Nationalists. In the years after 1928, the Center showed an increasing disinclination to work in coalition with the Social Democratic Party and finally, under the leadership of Dr. Ludwig Kaas, the last chairman of the Center Party, broke completely with the Socialists. During the same years Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932, made persistent, though futile, attempts to find an acceptable coalition partner for the Center on the Right, hoping, among other possibilities, to encourage a secession movement from the Nationalist Party in 1930. Because of the rapid dwindling of electoral support for the other parties of the middle, very little attention has been paid to the Center's relationship with them. It is the purpose of this article to show that the mutual antipathies between these parties and the Center were as great or greater than its antipathy toward Social Democracy on certain matters which were vital to the Center's existence. By 1928, in fact, coalition with the parties of the middle had become as unsatisfactory to the leaders of the Center as coalition with the party of the Left. The turning-point in this development was the breakup of the Marx-Keudell right-wing cabinet of 1927. The failure of that government to attain the party's goals in the realm of Kulturpolitik, i.e., religion and education, confirmed the Center's disillusionment with the workings of the parliamentary system itself.

Explaining Change: The Online Political Marketing of the Romanian Social Democrats

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 778-792
Author(s):  
Marius Grad ◽  
Claudiu Marian
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Online Marketing ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constant Support

In the most recent two decades, the political campaigns conducted by the Social Democratic Party in Romania targeted specific groups of voters, with little intention to attract new voters. The reason behind their strategy is that they could secure a relatively constant support of roughly one third of the electorate and so win the popular vote in every election since 2000. However, the 2016 parliamentary elections marked a turning point in this approach and the party used almost exclusively online marketing to organize, streamline and channel its messages. This article seeks to understand why this change occurred although it did not seem to be necessary. This change is more surprising in a context in which the main political competitors were weak and disorganized. Our qualitative analysis aims to identify and explain the main elements that determined this change. It accounts for three main variables: experiential learning, the role of a new party leader and the use of new opportunities.

scholarly journals The Stability of Regional Suffrage for Traditional Parties in the Czech Lands (1920-1990)

Geografie ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Petr Jehlička ◽  
Luděk Sýkora
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Spatial Differentiation ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The Social ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Czech Lands

The paper deals with the appraisal of the space and time suffrage stability of four traditional political parties - the People's Party, the Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. The evaluation demonstrates connections between voting patterns in 1920-1946 and the spatial differentiation of 1990 election results.

Continuity or Politikwechsel? The First Federal Red-Green Coalition

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Richter
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
First Time ◽  
Party State

In October 1998 the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens1formed a coalition government, the first ever between these parties atthe federal level. In more ways than one, this new coalition marked awatershed in Germany’s post-1945 development. Since 1945, Germanyhad been a democracy in which political parties hold an especiallyprivileged position. This “party-state” has operated almostexclusively through the three major “Bonn” parties, which for nearlya half-century had governed through shifting coalitions. The Greensarose as a social movement challenging this hegemony; yet, only fifteenyears after they first entered the Bundestag, they forged a federalcoalition with one of the established parties they had once attacked.For the first time since 1957, a coalition had been formed thatinvolved not only a party other than the three “Bonn” parties but alsoone not linked to the Federal Republic’s creation. It was, furthermore,the first coalition ever to have resulted unambiguously fromthe wishes of voters.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF GESTURES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MULTIMODAL METAPHORS: analysis of a political-electoral debate

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maíra Avelar Miranda ◽  
Paulo Henrique Aguiar Mendes
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Orientation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Labor Party ◽  
The Social ◽  
Operational Concept

This paper intends to analyze the role of gestures in the construction of multimodal metaphors in the "political-electoral debate" genre. Theoretically, we considered that metaphoric gestures can be analyzed as expressions of conceptual metaphors. We mainly approached and illustrated the importance of spatial orientation in the emergence of the metaphors in the political discourse. Methodologically, we have selected four sequences of a second-tour debate. Starting from the operational concept of gesture excursion, we specifically observed the multimodal metaphoricity in speech and gesture compounds. After analyzing the metaphors found in the debate sequences, we established a continuumbetween metaphors of a conventional nature and those of a new nature. We also tried to establish a comparative relation between the metaphors used by the two candidates, Dilma Rousseff (from the Labor Party) and José Serra (from the Social Democratic Party).

The SPD, the Welfare State, and Agenda 2010

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Braunthal
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
World War ◽  
Major Party ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Agenda 2010 ◽  
The Welfare State

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) celebrated its 140 yearsof existence on 23 May 2003 with the appropriate fanfare in Berlin.Not too many other political parties in the world can match this survivalrecord, especially given the hostility of Chancellor Bismarck,who in 1878 outlawed the fledgling party as an organization fortwelve years, and of Adolf Hitler, who in 1933 drove the party intoexile for twelve years. During the post-World War II era, the SPDreestablished itself as a major party and shared in governing thecountry from 1966 to 1982 and again from 1998 to the present. Ithas left an imprint on the country’s domestic and foreign policies.But in the twenty-first century’s initial years, the SPD, despite beingin power, is facing serious problems of maintaining membership andelectoral support.

Authoritarian Repression and Electoral Opposition: Mobilization under Germany’s Antisocialist Law

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The Social ◽  
Electoral Authoritarianism ◽  
Local Party

We know little about repression’s effects on opposition party mobilization under electoral authoritarianism. I argue that targeted repression of opposition leaders has both direct negative effects on mobilization and indirect effects on activist and voter support. However, party organizations and ideological leadership can adapt to mitigate targeted repression’s effects. In Germany, from 1878–1890 the social democratic party was banned and its leaders were expelled from their home districts. I estimate difference-in-differences models that leverage variation in expulsion timing and frequency to estimate their effects on electoral outcomes. Expulsions caused declines in social democrats’ electoral support. However, their effects diminished with each additional expulsion and after the first election post-expulsions, as local party organizations adapted to maintain mobilization in electoral districts despite targeted repression.

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