The Grand Coalition and a Changing Political Order: Shifting Alliances and a New Era in German Politics
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Clay M Clemens
Since its 2005 federal election, Germany has been governed by the country's two historically strongest political rivals, the center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Despite initial hope in some quarters that this broad-based Grand Coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel could overcome partisan gridlock and enact major policy changes, seeking to work together has only fed frictions within as well between both partners. A resulting stalemate has reinforced the more skeptical view that this government was in fact destined to remain at most a transitional one. It only came about in the first place due to an increasing fractionalization of the party system, as the declining core support for CDU/CSU and SPD boosted several smaller contenders, yet also denied either of two more familiar federal alliances--center-right (CDU/CSU-Liberal) or center-left (SPD-Green)--a clear parliamentary majority. There is thus widespread and mounting speculation that Germany's next national election will produce a wholly new governing constellation, one based on multiple parties, perhaps one crossing all traditional bloc divisions, or possibly one drawn entirely from the left; Germany might conceivably even enter a phase of minority government. While to be sure all such scenarios remain hypothetical, the Federal Republic does seem poised on the edge of a new political era.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Notes from a New Editor
- A Blair Era? The Political Order of Modern Britain
- From Collectivist Consensus to 21st Century Neoliberalism: Orders and Eras in Postwar Britain
- Where Are We in History? Political Orders and Political Eras in the Postwar U.S.
- The Grand Coalition and a Changing Political Order: Shifting Alliances and a New Era in German Politics
- Political Orders and Political Eras in France: Can There be a Sarkozy Era?
- Listening to the Coalition Merchants: Measuring the Intellectual Influence of Academic Scribblers
- The Utility of Staying on Message: Competing Partisan Frames and Public Awareness of Elite Differences on Political Issues
- Review
- Those Wild and Wooly Seventies
- The Great Society in Education: A Persistent National Consensus?
- Book Review: A Divider, Not a Uniter
- Poles Apart: The Effect of George W. Bush on the American Electorate--Review of A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People: The 2006 Election and Beyond
- Review of A Divider, Not a Uniter
- Saving Us from Liberals: A Commentary on Who Really Cares
