Contemporary German Politics
Contemporary German Politics: Introduction of the Transnational Cleavage
Güzin Karagöz
Abstract
There have been apparent shifts in political trends in the aftermath of the large refugee influx in 2015. This paper aims to explain the shift from more traditional center-left-and-right parties to far right sentiment as a result of the application of catch-all politics. Research on the topic of the refugee influx tends to discuss its impact on current politics and how politicians responded. This research does not contextualize the shift in long-term political trends. To describe the shift in political party systems in Germany, I address past trends and how the transnational cleavage caused by the influx of migrants led to present ones. I tie together discourse on the 1994 as well as 2005 elections using the theories of Otto Kirchheimer on catch-all politics and Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset’s work on cleavages. This approach sheds light on the connection between past and present political structures in Germany.
Introduction
Immigration to and from the Germanic lands can be traced back to the early seventeenth century and continues to be prominent today. Both religious and economic migrants were drawn to Germany as a result of the destruction of the Thirty Years’ War (Hanewinkel 2022). Following World War I, the Weimar Republic became home to the thousands who escaped the consequences of the Russian Revolution (Hanewinkel 2022). During World War II, the strong need for labour resulted in both voluntary and forced migration of many into the region. Due to the lack of labour force unable to meet the increased demand in the 60s, Germany recruited workers from several countries and allowed for migrants to be “guest workers.” More recently, there has been an increase of migration into the country due to the large influx of asylum seekers in 2015 (Hanewinkel 2022). Post-World War II globalization led to the introduction of a transnational cleavage in Germany through the influx of migrants, which caused a shift in traditional cleavages such as religion. Traditionally dominating political parties like the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and Christian Social Union (CSU) did not take a stance consistent with their platforms and chose a strategy of catch-all politics instead. As a result, these center-left and right parties started the process of dealignment from their traditional stances on the politics of migration. An increase in the issue salience of migration politics disrupted voters’ loyalty to specific parties. Issue salience refers to the most pertinent issue that parties address that is the driving factor for their platform. Simultaneously, an increase in right-wing populism led to the creation of radical parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
How has the political environment shifted as a result of the large influx of migrants in 2015? In this paper, I demonstrate how a transnational cleavage emerged following the influx, shifting long standing views of traditional parties such as the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) in Germany. I argue that a catch-all attitude displayed by traditionally center-left and center-right wing parties has led to a deviation from such views to the creation of far-right rhetoric in Germany. In order to support my claim, I draw on popular political science theories such as Otto Kirchheimer’s catch-all politics and Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset’s political cleavage theory. In addition, I utilize peer reviewed articles to build my argument case around how these theories apply to modern day German politics.
The rest of this paper is divided into four parts. In the first section, I sketch the current political parties active in German politics. In the second section, I give background information on how the party system in Germany formed, specifically the buildup and outcomes of the 1994 election. In the third section, I analyze the shift of electoral success of past traditionally dominating parties by examining the build-up and outcomes of the 2005 election. In the fourth and final section, I elaborate on the future implications of the shift in party politics in the aftermath of the large influx of refugees in 2015.
Party Politics in Germany: Breakdown of Current Trends
Even though the same political parties have persisted in Germany since its reunification in 1990, their agendas shifted as a result of globalization. Listed below are the current political parties in Germany, from far left to far right, respectively:
Die Linke (the left): far left, rooted in the former communist party, with strong support in the East (Foundation 2021).
Die Grünen (the Greens): center left, evolved out of environmentalist, anti-nuclear and anti-war protest movements in the 1970s; popularity nationwide has increased exponentially in recent years (Foundation 2021).
Social Democratic Party (SPD): center left, historically known to champion worker’s rights, oldest party in Germany (Foundation 2021).
Free Democratic Party (FDP): center right on economic issues but center left on civil liberties issues, post-war German politics (Foundation 2021).
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CSU): center right, traditionally working together (Foundation 2021).
Alternative for Germany (AfD): far right, anti-immigration, shunned by all other parties (Foundation 2021).
Those shown above in italics represent the earliest left-and right-wing parties in Germany today. Others originated after these parties, making them the foundations of current German politics. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, even though the East-West divide post reunification in Germany has narrowed, its influence remains (Foundation 2021). Remnants of this divide led to the prioritization of different issues in West and East Germany. Over time, increasing prosperity in both regions allowed for parties to focus on sociocultural issues, such as addressing migration flows. To address contemporary debates around the 2015 refugee influx, traditional parties such as the CDU-CSU and the SPD resorted to catch-all politics and shifted their party platforms towards the opposite ends of the spectrum. To analyze changes seen in contemporary politics of Germany, it is necessary to evaluate its past.
Political Party Structure in the Past
In the 1994 second general election, the two coalitions were the CDU-CSU-FDP (TAN) and the SPD-the Greens (GAL) (Gibowski 1995). Despite their reunification in 1990, issue salience in West and East Germany were deemed separate because it had not been long since their reunion. “The dominant issues in both western and eastern Germany relate to everyday concerns” (31). Major issues in the 1994 election in the West were unemployment and immigration (30). The issue of asylum seekers “had strongly preoccupied German politics for many years and generated far-reaching political and social debates” (30). Shortly preceding the 1994 election, as a result of migrants being posed by right-wing Republicans as a threat to already scarce jobs, the issue of immigration moved to the top in terms of political salience from September 1991 until July 1993. The issue began to lose importance “when the governing parties and the SPD opposition reached an agreement on amending Germany’s asylum laws, …[which] led very rapidly to a decline in the number of asylum seekers” (31). Consequently, “right-wing Republicans profited from the public debate conducted on the strong influx of asylum seekers and foreigners” (31). Their platform was based around anti-immigrant sentiment, which attracted voters who felt threatened by the influx of immigrants. “The asylum-seeker issue, which was so important in western Germany for a long period of time, became prominent in the new Länder only for a short period of time in the summer of 1993.” A reasoning for this was that “most asylum seekers and ethnic German resettlers prefer to settle in the western Länder” (31).
On the other hand, the Green Party had little to no influence in East Germany, while it had some appeal in the West (Gibowski 1995, 31). Inglehart first introduced the concept of post-materialism in 1977, which was based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It states that after the basic needs of a human being are met, such as food and shelter, then people start to consider issues outside of that circle (Mcleod). This can be observed in the 1994 election since “Bread-and-Butter issues” dominated while post material issues were of little importance in the West and observably no importance in the East (Gibowski 1995, 31). Consequently, the future state of the Green Party will depend on how quickly Eastern Germany assimilates into Western Germany (Gibowski 1995). During this election, the Greens have “replaced the FDP as the third strongest party in general elections,” but only stable in western Germany (38). This foreshadows the current trends regarding the Greens in the 2020s since their popularity is increasing exponentially.
Particularly in the 1994 election, the right-wing coalition tended to attract older voters. By contrast, the left-wing coalition’s electorate was mostly made up of younger voters (Gibowski 1995). Cleavages within the political system, not the current events discussed by leading candidates in debates, help to explain this age discrepancy (Gibowski 1995). For example, a religious cleavage between the Catholics and Protestants exists in western Germany, and voters with religious ties and those without any in eastern Germany (Gibowski 1995). The ideologies of CDU-CSU and SPD voters were heavily based around the religious cleavage:
The CDU-CSU attracts more voter support among Catholics in western Germany and the few Catholics who live in eastern Germany than among Protestants. Conversely, the SPD attracts more voter support among Protestants than among Catholics, both in western and eastern Germany. In western Germany the SPD also attracts more voter support among persons without religious affiliations. (42)
With the introduction of the new dimensions of competition through the introduction of the transnational cleavage via the influx of refugees, however, this trend has shifted in contemporary German politics.
Prosperity after World War II, coupled with the expansion of the welfare state, deemed survival as a given in Western Europe. This led to more of a focus on sociocultural issues, which gave rise to the cultural theory that entails the degree of perceived threat to the status quo. The most glaring evidence of this would be the refugee influx as explained below.
Changes in Electoral Success
Shortcomings of the political system were brought to light through the introduction of a new transnational cleavage, specifically related to the immigration debate during the 2010s. Prior to the influx of migrants into Germany, the CDU committed to lower tax rates to secure electoral success in the 2009 election (Zolleis 2009). These tax cuts later evoked an ill-responsive strategy for the refugee influx as the government did not have adequate funding to accommodate for the increased population.
Since the 2005 election, reforms have been indeterminate compared to previous years: the most prominent change in the political program for parties was the departure from the reform agenda in multiple spheres such as economic and social policy (Zolleis 2009). Even though the CDU remained rooted in Christian ideals and democratic principles (Zolleis 2009), “it could not retain its dominance without appealing to the increasingly post-ideological center, even if this entailed disappointing traditionally conservative-minded supporters” (Bock 2018, 379). As suspected, this was not well received by the traditional supporters of the CDU. “Attacks on Merkel [through social media as a response towards her interaction with a 4-year-old Palestinian refugee] were accompanied by criticism of her inaction towards refugee suffering at Europe’s doorstep” (379). In addition to criticism towards an indeterminate approach to an increasingly salient issue, “the refugee situation illustrated that not all was well in Germany: state institutions struggled and revealed the inadequacy of public institutions after years of cuts” (384).
The left-wing response was that of economic safeguarding while the right-wing response was that of reform. Helmut Schmidt focused on rebuilding the strength of the German economy and did so by merging unemployment and welfare state systems. This caused a reduction in amount and eligibility in benefits, which cost him the traditional supporters of the Social Democrats. As Christopher S. Allen noted, “From the late 1970s to the present, we have seen both Social Democratic parties downplay or minimize traditional social democratic policies such as: worker participation, extending the public provision of social welfare and pressing for increased democratic governance and regulation of market activity” (Allen 2018, 639). A reasoning for this is how the “neoliberal tenor of the European Union (EU) economic policy and continued globalization, threatened both the traditional welfare state social spending as well as the trade union working-class base that represented its primary support” (637). The right-wing response was more radical compared to the Social Democrats. A significant supporter base of conservatives saw the migrant influx as the last straw in maintaining CDU’s traditional values, which led to the creation of an alternative to centrism (Bock 2018). The Alternative for Germany (AfD) was founded in 2013 to oppose the idea of the euro rescue through which Europe would bare the responsibility of refugees from other regions. They supported an anti-Merkel sentiment in support of authoritarian statehood and closed borders (Bock 2018).
One of the leading causes for this shift to the extreme is indeterminism from the government. “Neither critics from the left, demanding solidarity with crisis countries and the end of austerity, nor from the right, dissatisfied with rescue packages and the modernization of a conservative party, could challenge her popular centrism” (Bock 2018, 384). There exists a pattern of Otto Kirchheimer’s catch-all party thesis in both left-and right-wing parties in contemporary German politics (Allen 2018). This shift to the center was triggered via the introduction of a transnational cleavage through the influx of migrants. The prior religious or class-based cleavages led political parties in Germany to base their platforms around where their constituents lied within that spectrum. With the migrant influx, parties shifted their traditional stances to attract the most amount of votes for their campaign. The right-wing parties shifted towards the center-left, and the left-wing parties shifted towards the center-right. This shift among traditionally left- and right-wing parties upset constituents who didn’t align with the party that they support. This led to the spreading of harmful rhetoric through the creation of far right and ethnopopulist party, called the Alternative für Deutschland. In his transnational analysis of the matter, Martin Eiermann notes, “As Emily Ekins has pointed out in her analysis of the US electorate, a key feature of contemporary populism is heterogeneity of supporters rather than commonality of vision. The same argument holds for the AfD” (Eiermann 2017). Less than 10% of AfD supporters are concerned with their own economic situation, but 69% are concerned with the distributional aspect of the welfare system due to welfare chauvinism, which states that benefits of the welfare system should be given to who “deserve” it, which is the “native” population more times than not (Eiermann 2017).
Future Implications
Even though the general trend in AfD supporter base seems to be consistent within residence status and age, it is not as consistent as traditional cleavages apparent in the CDU-CSU or SPD before the introduction of a new cleavage. As of now, “the AfD … trumps the Social Democrats as the party with the largest share of working-class supporters and surpassed die Linke as the party with the lowest median household income” (Eiermann 2017). Since “the institutions of Germany’s fortified democracy are much less equipped to confront a party with mass appeal and parliamentary representation that undergoes a process of political radicalization” (Eiermann 2017), there exists a thin line preventing a party rooted in populism from potentially rising to power.
Güzin Karagöz is an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying Political Science and Contemporary European Studies with a minor in Data Science. She has taken classes in Contemporary European Politics, Migration into Western Europe, and Democratization and International Organizations after Communism. In addition to Turkish and English, she is conversational in German and is planning to study abroad to strengthen her language skills. Born and raised in Turkey, she migrated to the United States in 2014 for one year and later again in 2018. After her own experiences as an immigrant, Karagöz has made it her goal to become an immigration attorney and help others going through the struggles that she did.
Works Cited
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