scholarly journals Chancellor Hegemony: Party Politics and the Bundestag Party System after the 2013 Federal Election

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Lees
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Good News ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Voting Power ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Individual ◽  
First Time

The eighteenth Bundestag elections of 22 September 2013 brought important changes to the Bundestag party system, some of which are contingent but others of which are more systemic and profound. The narrow failure of the FDP to scale the electoral threshold has had an impact on coalition negotiations and the improvement in the overall vote share for the CDU/CSU and the SPD, for the first time since the 1960s represents a significant, if probably only temporary, concentration of the German party system in the Bundestag. More systemically, the election saw a continuation of the ongoing redistribution of voting power in the Bundestag in favor of the catch-all parties as formateurs. The article also discusses how the increased importance of the potential formateuer parties has gone hand-in-hand with a greater focus on the individual leading candidates, and concludes that this is particularly good news for the CDU/CSU, given the political qualities of Angela Merkel and the failure of the SPD to find and support a leading candidate that can match her political acumen.

Coalition Politics in Crisis?

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Decker ◽  
Philipp Adorf
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Political Party System ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
First Time

The 2017 federal election illustrated the transformation of Germany’s political party system with six parties managing to enter the Bundestag. With the Christian and Social Democrats finally coming to an agreement almost half a year after the election, a grand coalition is set to govern for two consecutive terms for the very first time. The Alternative for Germany’s success also signaled the definite parliamentary establishment of right-wing populism in Germany. Multiparty coalitions that bridge ideological gulfs as the political fringe has grown in size are a new reality that must be accommodated. The 2017 election and subsequent arduous negotiations point towards a period of uncertainty and further upheaval for Germany’s party system.

Public Opinion, Party Politics, and the Welfare State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Lindvall ◽  
David Rueda
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Party System ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the long-run relationship between public opinion, party politics, and the welfare state. It argues that when large parties receive a clear signal concerning the median voter’s position on the welfare state, vote-seeking motivations dominate and the large parties in the party system converge on the position of the median voter. When the position of the median voter is more difficult to discern, however, policy-seeking motivations dominate, and party positions diverge. This argument implies that the effects of government partisanship on welfare state policy are more ambiguous than generally understood. The countries covered in the chapter are Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom (going back to the 1960s). The number of observations is (necessarily) limited, but the diverse cases illustrate a common electoral dynamic centered around the position of the median voter.

scholarly journals The social origins and political uses of popular narratives on Serbian disunity

2005 ◽  
pp. 65-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Slobodan Naumovic
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Party System ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Social ◽  
Identity Based

The text offers an examination of socio-political bases, modes of functioning, and of the consequences of political instrumentalisation of popular narratives on Serbian disunity. The first section of the paper deals with what is being expressed and what is being done socially when narratives on Serbian disunity are invoked in everyday discourses. The next section investigates what political actor sty, by publicly replicating them, or by basing their speeches on key words of those narratives. The narratives on Serbian disunity are then related to their historical and social contexts, and to various forms of identity politics with which they share common traits. The nineteenth century wars over political and cultural identity, intensified by the struggle between contesting claims to political authority, further channeled by the development of party politics in Serbia and radicalized by conflicts of interest and ideology together provided the initial reasons for the apparition of modern discourses on Serbian disunity and disaccord. Next, addressed are the uninnally solidifying or misinterpreting really existing social problems (in the case of some popular narratives on disunity), or because of intentionally exploiting popular perceptions of such problems (in the case of most political meta-narratives), the constructive potential related to existing social conflicts and splits can be completely wasted. What results is a deep feeling of frustration, and the diminishing of popular trust in the political elites and the political process in general. The contemporary hyperproduction of narratives on disunity and disaccord in Serbia seems to be directly related to the incapacity of the party system, and of the political system in general, to responsibly address, and eventually resolve historical and contemporary clashes of interest and identity-splits. If this vicious circle in which the consequences of social realities are turned into their causes is to be prevented, conflicts of interest must be discursively disassociated from ideological conflicts, as well as from identity-based conflicts, and all of them have to be disentangled from popular narratives on splits and disunity. Most important of all, the practice of political instrumentalisation of popular narratives on disunity and disaccord has to be gradually abandoned.

None past the post

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Election Outcome ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Minority Government ◽  
Unexpected Outcome ◽  
Political Economic

This book tells the story of the unexpected 2017 British general election and its equally unexpected outcome: the Conservatives’ loss of their parliamentary majority and Theresa May’s return at the head of a minority government. As with previous volumes in the Britain at the polls series, it provides readers with a series of interpretations of the election and expert accounts of the major political parties, including their responses to the 2016 Brexit referendum. Again in keeping with previous volumes, the book does not seek to provide a blow-by-blow account of the 2017 election campaign, nor does it seek to provide a detailed survey-based account of voting behaviour. Instead, it offers readers a broad analysis of recent political, economic and social developments and assesses their impact on the election outcome. It also addresses questions about the state of the political parties and the party system in the wake of the election, and reflects on the future of British electoral and party politics.

The Grand Coalition: Precedents and Prospects

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludger Helms
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Party System ◽  
Grand Coalition ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Federal System ◽  
System Reform ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Basic Parameters

While the Federal Republic has been famously characterized as a "grand coalition state," the Merkel government, formed in the after-math of the 2005 federal election, is only the second CDU/CSU-SPD coalition at the federal level since 1949. A comparison of the present administration with the first grand coalition government (1966-1969) reveals a wealth of differences that include some of the basic parameters of governing and governance in Germany, such as the structure of the party system and the overall public climate. Also, the personnel features and patterns of informal coalition governance under Chancellors Angela Merkel and Kurt-Georg Kiesinger display major differences. Arguably the single most important difference between the two administrations, however, relates to the level of public policy, with the Merkel government seeking to reverse some of the key decisions of its historical predecessor. Such u-turn dynamics have been particularly tangible in the field of federal system reform.

Forms of Representation of the Monarch in Irish Court Odes During the Reign of Queen Anne Stuart

2021 ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Denis Kirilov
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Physical Disabilities ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Irish Government ◽  
The Status

The article aims to explore forms of representation of a monarch in Irish court odes between 1702 and 1714. By 1702, Protestant Ireland to a large extent adopted the political structure of its mother country. The Irish parliament was turning into a regular institution, and the development of the party system was also underway. This posed a threat to the status quo, which the Irish government sought to maintain. To protect the rights of the Crown in England Queen Anne used a theatre of power and heavily relied on self-representation. However, in Ireland, the Queen's representation was limited to the odes for the Queen’s birthdays. Control over the writing of odes was given into the hands of Irish lords-justices, who were heavily involved in party politics. This led to the appropriation of the Queen’s second body by a dominant party in the Irish government: the image of Queen Anne was frequently used to support party politics. The image of the Queen was fairly passive due to her gender and physical disabilities: with the lack of the Queen’s personal control, it was not difficult for the parties to use the monarch’s second body for their purposes. In odes of 1709–1710, the image of Queen Anne was used to support Whig war policies; in 1711–1714 it was transformed to support the new moderate cabinet. As a result, instead of being an important weapon against partisanship, the representation of Queen Anne in Ireland was occasionally used as party propaganda.

Figuring Korean Futures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafna Zur
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Organic Part ◽  
Future Aspirations ◽  
Individual Family ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Child Reader ◽  
First Time

This book is the story of the emergence and development of writing for children in modern Korea. In the 1920s, a narrator-adult voice began to speak for the first time directly to a child-reader whose mind was deemed knowable and moldable. Writers and educators saw the qualities of this unique child audience manifest in a new concept called the child-heart, or tongsim. This book examines children’s literature at the moment the child emerged as a powerful metaphor of Korea’s future, through the colonization of Korea, and up until the ideological entrenchment that intensified in the post-liberation period. By reading children’s periodicals against the political, educational, and psychological discourses of their time, this book argues that the child-heart concept was particularly productive for the project of modernity and nation-building, as well as for the colonial and postcolonial projects of socialization and nationalization, because it posited the child in a symbiotic relationship with the natural world that allowed for explorations of the meaning of culture and nature at a time when culture and nature were deeply contested. This book reveals a trajectory of Korean children’s prose and poetry that begins with depictions of the child as an organic part of nature and ends with the child as the agent of the control of nature. Ultimately, the book reveals the complex ways the figure of the child became a driving force of nostalgia that stood in for future aspirations for the individual, family, class, and nation.

Small Parties and the 2013 Bundestag Election: End of the Upward Trend?

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Patton
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Upward Trend ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
To Come ◽  
And Performance ◽  
First Time

In the 2009 German federal election, the small parties together captured 43.2 percent of the vote; three small parties boasted a result in the double digits. Four years later, none of the small parties finished above 8.6 percent and only two reentered the Bundestag. Notably, the FDP, one of the original West German parties, dropped out of the federal parliament for the first time. Yet, any talk of catch-all party revival and party system concentration needs qualification. As a group, the small parties received nearly a third of all votes cast—the second highest share in six decades. Those that did not make it into the Bundestag won 15.7 percent, a higher share than in any other federal election. This article examines the positioning of the leading small parties in the 2013 Bundestag election campaign and their respective electoral results; highlights party systemic as well as internal party factors to explain small party performance; reassesses the commonplace classification of small parties by whether there is an established legislative presence or not; and considers the positioning and performance of small parties in the years to come.

The Reshaping of West European Party Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Incentive Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Issue Content ◽  
West European

Long gone are the times when class-based political parties with extensive membership dominated politics. Instead, party politics has become issue-based. Surprisingly few studies have focused on how the issue content of West European party politics has developed over the past decades. Empirically, this books studies party politics in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK from 1980 and onwards. The book highlights the more complex party system agenda with the decline, but not disappearance, of macroeconomic issues as well as the rise in ‘new politics’ issues together with education and health care. Moreover, various ‘new politics’ issues such as immigration, the environment, and European integration have seen very different trajectories. To explain the development of the individual issues, the book develops a new theoretical model labelled the ‘issue incentive model’ of party system attention. The aim of the model is to explain how much attention issues get throughout the party system, which is labelled ‘the party system agenda’. To explain the development of the party system agenda, one needs to focus on the incentives that individual policy issues offer to large, mainstream parties, i.e. the typical Social Democratic, Christian Democratic, or Conservative/Liberal parties that have dominated West European governments for decades. The core idea of the model is that the incentives that individual policy issues offer to these vote- and office-seeking parties depend on three factors, namely issue characteristics, issue ownership, and coalition considerations. The issue incentive model builds on and develops a top-down perspective on which the issue content of party politics is determined by the strategic considerations of political parties and their competition with each other.

scholarly journals New Media, First Time Voters and the 2007 Australian Federal Election

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwyneth Howell ◽  
Bruce Da Silva
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Third Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Communication Context ◽  
First Time

Researchers suggest that the youth of today has disengaged from the political landscape in Australia. However, the online realm provides potential first time voters an avenue in which to engage in politics in an environment that is generally associated with a youthful demographic. New media tactics utilised during the 2007 Australian federal election aimed to not only attract youthful voters, but also to educate and deliver policy on a level generally associated with the 18-24 demographic. This study explored the effectiveness of new media in the political communication context, in particular with relation to first time voters. This research found that first time voters were not as engaged as predicted, and that the third party sites were more popular with undecided voters than the formal political party sites in voter influence.

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