Have They Learnt to Swim?
“Liquid modernity” is a concept that Zygmunt Bauman suggested todescribe a certain condition in advanced modern societies where changeability,unpredictability, and unreliability have become core featuresdetermining individual life and social interaction.1 Diminishing party loyaltyand increasing voter volatility, erratic but often vociferous articulationof political preferences and participation, and a marked shift towards populismall belong to the political fallout from Bauman’s condition of liquidity.With his notion of the “fluid five-party system,” Oskar Niedermayer hasfurther developed the metaphor.2 On the one hand, his concept attemptsto capture the new structural characteristics of the German party system,i.e., its fragmentation and structural asymmetry. On the other hand, itseeks to capture the changed relationship between the individual parties,specifically their mutual demarcation and rapprochement in the context ofcoalition strategies. Indeed, having to compete in a five-party system andtrying to optimize their strategic position in a context of high unpredictabilityis the major new challenge Germany’s political parties are havingto confront.