Journal articles on the topic 'Political parties – Germany (West) – History'

Germany continues to face an inter-regional political divide between the East and the West three decades after unification. Most strikingly, this divide is expressed in different party systems. The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany and the left-wing populist Left Party are considerably more successful in the eastern regions, while German centrist parties perform worse (and shrink faster at the ballot-box) than in the West. The article discusses empirical evidence of this resilient yet puzzling political divide and explores three main clusters of explanatory factors: The after-effects of the German Democratic Republic’s authoritarian past and its politico-cultural legacies, translating into distinct value cleavage configurations alongside significantly weaker institutional trust and more wide-spread skepticism towards democracy in the East; continuous, even if partly reduced inter-regional socioeconomic divisions and varying economic, social and political opportunities; and populist parties and movements acting as political entrepreneurs who construct and politically reinforce the East-West divide. It is argued that only the combination of these factors helps understand the depth and origins of the lasting divide.

Environmental movements became a major vehicle for promoting citizen participation in both East and West Germany during the 1980s. Their critiques of industrial society, however, reflected the different constellations of power in their respective countries. Movements in both East and West formed green parties, but their disparate understandings of power, expertise, and democracy complicated the parties’ efforts to coalesce during the unification process and to play a major role in German politics after unification. I propose that the persistence of this East-West divide helps explain the continuing discrepancy in the appeal of Alliance 90/The Greens in the old and new German federal states. Nevertheless, I also suggest that the Greens have accomplished their goal of opening technical issue areas—particularly energy—to political debate. This is currently working to enhance their image throughout Germany as champions of technological innovation and democratic openness in the face of climate inaction and right-wing populism.

Recent historical studies on the organizations of German expellees and their influence on West German political culture highlight the insincere attitude and deception by the whole West German political establishment toward the expellee politicians and activists and their cause. One study in this field is Matthias Stickler's important book “Ostdeutsch heißt Gesamtdeutsch,” and a more recent one by Manfred Kittel, Vertreibung der Vertriebenen?, takes Stickler's thesis even further. It creates the impression that the expellee organizations, highly dependent on the government for financial and political support, had no option in this matter and were even helpless in that they had to accept the noncommittal rhetoric and the West German government's unwillingness to obligate West Germany for their cause. In this article, I probe this portrayal of the expellee politicians and activists as objects rather than subjects of German politics by inquiring into the political and public relations activities of the German Sudeten Council (Sudetendeutscher Rat) in the field of foreign policy during and around the tenure of Hans-Christoph Seebohm as the leader (Sprecher) of the German Sudeten Expellee Homeland Society (Landsmannschaft) (1959–1967). The Sudeten Council is a non-party association; one half of its members are elected by the federal assembly of the German Sudeten Landsmannschaft and the other half by the political parties of the Bundestag. As well as being a politician of the expellee organization, Hans-Christoph Seebohm pursued the longest political career in the German federal cabinet—seventeen years. He served as Minister of Transportation and Mail of the Federal Republic from 1949 to 1966 under Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. To date, no monographic work has been written about Seebohm.

The year 1945 brought a radical change in the German history. The total defeat landed the Reich in difficulty. On the territory of the German Reich four entities have been established which could only get in touch with each other if the Allied Powers allowed them. The Allies took over the supreme power after Germany’s unconditional surrender. The old-new German political parties had to face the state building under hard circumstances such as the lack of sovereignty. The postwar chaos could be overcome in four years, therefore two new states have been rebuilt on the territory of the ‘Third Reich’. This study is restricted to present the birth of West Germany also known as Federal Republic of Germany from 1948 when the Western Powers officially announced the establishment of a federal state in the West German area.

Perhaps the most remarkable development in the Federal Republicof Germany since World War II has been the creation of its stabledemocracy. Already by the second half of the 1950s, political commentatorsproclaimed that “Bonn is not Weimar.” Whereas theWeimar Republic faced the proliferation of splinter parties, the riseof extremist parties, and the fragmentation of support for liberal andconservative parties—conditions that led to its ultimate collapse—theFederal Republic witnessed the blossoming of moderate, broadbasedparties.1 By the end of the 1950s the Christian DemocraticUnion/Christian Social Union (CDU), Social Democratic Party(SPD) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) had formed the basis of astable party system that would continue through the 1980s.

When Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der went public and announced his plan for early elections on the evening of 22 May 2005, the SPD and the Green Party had just lost the state election in North-Rhine West-phalia. It was the last German state ruled by a Red-Green government, which left the federal government without any stable support in the Bundesrat. The chancellor's radical move resulted in early elections that neither the left (SPD and Greens) nor the conservative political camp (CDU/CSU and FDP) was able to win. While the citizens considered the CDU/CSU to be more competent to solve the country's most important problems, unemployment and the economy, the SPD once again presented the preferred chancellor. The new govrnment, build on a grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD, might be able to solve some of the structural problems of the country. While this will be beneficial for Germany as a whole, it will at the same time weaken the major German parties, which are running the risk of becoming politically indistinguishable.

A relatively broad support enjoyed by the populist and nationalist parties and movements (AfD, National Democratic Party of Germany, PEGIDA), as well as a higher rate of hate crimes in the eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany raise a question on the nature of nationalism in this region. The present paper examines the causes of widespread xenophobic and nationalist sentiments in the ‘new’ federal states. To this end, the authors address a wide range of social-political and psychological factors, focusing on the historical roots and causes of the recent rise of nationalism in East Germany. Particularly, the authors show that the right-wing parties took advantage of popular frustration caused by the collapse of the East German economy after the country’s reunification and massive unemployment by putting all the blame on migrants. Nevertheless, the causes of growing xenophobia in East Germany were far from being solely economic. For example, the authors underline the role of the politics of memory in the GDR and primarily the approaches of its leaders to the issues of the Nazi past and their attempts to draw on the country’s history to shape a new national identity. However, the failure of the state to provide an unbiased view on the national history, rigid official ideology and its alienation from the popular demands have led to the growing nationalism in the GDR. Besides, a number of other aspects is pointed out which have also fostered xenophobic sentiments in this part of the country. Unlike West Germany which started to accept labour migrants from Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia back in 1950s, the GDR saw few foreigners and contacts between them and local population were limited. As a result, the paper not only helps to create a more detailed image of the East German nationalism but also to identify the underlying causes of the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties and movements in the FRG, most notably, the unfinished process of the country’s reunification and structural imbalances between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ federal states.

According to Jürgen Habermas, the federal election in 1998 finally“sealed” the democratic foundation of Germany and confirmed thatthis country belonged to the “west.”1 Until then, the day of judgmenthad left the “judges” in Germany—that is, the voters—with only limitedinfluence in coalition building and the formation of each government.2 Between 1949 and 1998 no federal government has totallybeen unsettled by elections. Changes in government were due tochanges in coalitions, thus based on decisions by the parties ratherthan on the electorate. Insofar as the landslide victory of the SocialDemocratic Party and the Alliance ‘90/Greens in the 1998 electionnot only reflected important changes in the party system, but it alsocould mean that the German electorate is going to play a more influentialrole in the future.

The last parliament of the GDR, the 10. Volkskammer, existed only from March to October 1990 and was undoubtedly different from those in other eastern European communist countries. This had to do with its special situation as the parliament of one half of a former united nation. After the victory of the conservatives in the election of March 1990 it was clear that the majority of voters wanted unification with West Germany according to Art. 23 of the German Constitution and as quickly as possible. This meant reunification by accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic. It was the Volkskammer’s main task to organize this process. Given that the 400 newly elected MPs were completely unexperienced following the model of the German Bundestag was probably the only way to be able to tackle the problems they were faced with. But this meant too that there was little room and no time to develop own solutions to their problems. Critics saw the massive support by West German political parties and institutions as a form of colonization. And a lot of MPs too were highly critical of their work. A feeling of lack of influence and powerlessness was widespread. But, as the example of the reintroduction of the five Länder shows, both sides could pull in the same direction too.This article tries to answer the question whether this parliament was only an assiduous student of its West German master or despite the circumstances able to develop its own culture and its own pace.

History textbooks speak of an American, an English, a French, and a Russian revolution, but historians do not recognize a “German Revolution.” For this reason the formation of a German national state was long described as an aspect of a German “divergent path” (Sonderweg) or exceptionalism. While this concept established itself in post-1945 West Germany, German historical scholarship had even earlier insisted on a uniquely German transition from the Old Regime to the modern state, fundamentally different from what took place in the other western European countries. Still earlier, German idealist thinkers had declared the national state (Reich) to be the German people's historical objective. Around 1900 the Reich was understood to be not a rational community based on a contract between independent individuals, as were France and England, but a national community of destiny. The German ideal was not a republic split up into political parties but an organic community between the Reich's people and its rulers. This is why German history had never known a successful revolution from below. During the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, this alleged unity was seen in a positive light, but after 1945 it inspired an explanation, which quickly became canonical, of why German history had led to a catastrophe. German exceptionalism was now understood, especially by German social historians, as a one-way street toward the National Socialist regime.

Sixty years old Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) history is very representative for study West European far-right parties and movements. In last decade West Europe are going through the unprecedented rise of right-wing populism in conditions of citizens’ dissatisfaction with traditional parties’ politics and its institutions. Trying to retain their power the governance parties are involving in the common political trend: use narrative of right-wing populism, are ready to previously unthinkable party alliances erasing usual ideological boundaries. FPÖ exclusive characteristic consists in its special interpretation of Austrian identity combining German nationalism and Austrian patriotism. This position loyalty allows FPÖ to have its own stable electoral foundation and to hope for its support in crisis situations. FPÖ went through several intra-party conflict and experienced periods of serious falls and successful upgrades. At present the party is on its political rise supported by almost one third of Austrian electorate. FPÖ chairman Heinz- Christian Strache became the Vice-Chancellor of Austria after Austrian legislative election in 2017. FPÖ had 6 of 13 seats in the government led by Sebastian Kurz. Set of specific to the Austrian society circumstances, such as denazification minimize and imitation of Austrian identity formation in the postwar period, politicization of the immigration issue escalated in 2015 by European migrant crisis, is making FPÖ a dangerous player on the Austrian political scene and an encouraging example for the far-rights parties of neighbor countries.

In the midst of the upheaval created by military defeat, the collapse of the Hohenzollern and other German monarchies, and the threat of radical social revolution, a movement that had been taking shape for some time became a visible presence in German public life. Intellectuals, writers, visual artists, and numerous others declared that they would no longer remain aloof from the world of politics, social reform, and even revolution. On the contrary, they would seek to merge the arts and politics into a synthesis that would help to mold a new and greatly improved society. They issued manifestos and programs, founded organizations and journals, joined political parties — primarily on the left — and went to the streets, at least to observe if not also to act. The majority of the participants in this movement were, at some point in their careers, part of new artistic trends and, as such, contributors to the formation and advancement of aesthetic modernism in Germany.

Few aspects of politics have been as variable as partisan politics in the two decades since German unification. In the East, citizens had to learn about democratic electoral politics and the party system from an almost completely fresh start. In the West, voters experienced a changing partisan landscape and the shifting policy positions of the established parties as they confronted the challenges of unification. This article raises the question of whether there is one party system or two in the Federal Republic. We first describe the voting results since 1990, and examine the evolving links between social milieu and the parties. Then we consider whether citizens are developing affective party ties that reflect the institutionalization of a party system and voter choice. Although there are broad similarities between electoral politics in West and East, the differences have not substantially narrowed in the past two decades.

- Focuses on the sport policies of the Italian Communist Party and the West German Social Democratic Party in the post-war period. Whereas the Pci leadership decided to build up a flanking sports association (the Unione Italiana Sport Popolare, established in 1948), the Spd abandoned the pre-Nazi tradition of the Arbeitersport (workers' sport). Based on a research undertaken in the archives of the two parties, the article analyses their sport policies in a comparative perspective. Particular attention is paid to the legacy of the Nazi and Fascist regimes and the different political contexts in the two countries after World War II.Keywords: Italian Communist Party, West German Social Democratic Party, Sport, Labour Movement, Leisure.Parole chiave: Partito comunista italiano, Partito socialdemocratico tedesco-occidentale, sport, movimento operaio, tempo libero.

Many writers have argued that anti-immigration politics in Germanyand other West European countries have been driven by radical-rightparties or the electoral maneuvering of national politiciansfrom established parties. Others have argued that waves of violenceagainst immigrants and ethnic minorities have spurred anti-immigrationpolitics, or that racist ideologies and socioeconomic inequalityare the root causes. By comparison, authors have paid relatively littleattention to anti-immigration mobilization at subnational levels,including the public positions taken by subnational politicians andthe activities of movement groups, or “challengers.” Nonetheless,research has shown that subnational politicians are often importantin pressing national campaigns for immigration controls. Moreover,as I have argued elsewhere, anti-immigration politicians in Britainand Germany have responded in large part to local challengers, whowere aided by political elites at local and regional levels.

This overview of the academic literature on the Cold War argues that current historiography is characterised by a combination of classical historical approaches and political science methodology. Military history alone cannot explain the phenomenon; it has to reach out into political, economic, and ideological fields. Towards the end of the Cold War, revisionist approaches blaming the West to a large extent for the international tension after 1945, seemed to gain ground, but after the opening of the former Eastern Bloc archives, they lost credibility. Recently, based on cultural history approaches, they appear to be gaining ground again. Recent historiography also looks at the rifts within the Communist world, both the tensions between states in the Soviet orbit, and at the role of Western Communist parties. In many ways, the crisis years of 1958–1962 emerge as the pivotal period of the Cold War (Berlin, Cuba, etc.). Finally, the way the origins of the Cold War are interpreted has a direct impact on how its eventual termination is explained. Was it due to cultural factors, to nato cohesion, or to German Ostpolitik?

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.

A new apt term rashism appeared in the political vocabulary and scientific literature in 2022 to describe the essence of an authoritarian dictatorship, militant and aggressive, which appeals to the lower instincts of the population of the state, capturing not only its marginal groups but the general public. Scholars around the world are looking for (and fi nding) common features of rashism and classical (Italian) fascism and German Nazism. We believe that by focusing on fi nding common features in fascism, Nazism and rashism, domestic and foreign scholars overlook the diff erences. This allows the Russian side to exploit the gap, pushing the world community to profi table for themselves, and in fact – fake «diff erences» (such as the alleged multiparty system of the Russian political system). The article focuses on the question of how rashism diff ers from fascism and Nazism. We will also examine the alleged multiparty system of the Russian parliamentary branch of government and its attitude to aggression in Ukraine and the annexation of Ukrainian state territories. To solve this issue, a number of general and special scientifi c methods were used, public statements of Russian top offi cials and direct actions of the Russian army in Ukraine were analyzed. In total, at least five distinctive features have been identifi ed. 1. Rashism is multinational and polyreligious fascism. 2. Rashism is ultra-chauvinistic fascism. 3. Rashism is dishonest fascism. 4. Rashism is corrupt mafi a fascism. 5. Rashism is vulgar fascism. On the other hand, rashism cannot deny its fascist nature by referring to alleged multiparty system. As of the beginning of the summer of 2022, all parties represented in the Duma jointly support the aggressive foreign policy of their state and its notorious president. Rashism is the most degraded, vulgarized fascism, which should be placed in the dustbin of history. As for the prospects for further research in this direction, we believe that they should be held mainly in the form of a direct discussion with the apologists of the «Russian world» and their ideological allies in the West. Not only depth of argumentation, but also the rapid response to the facts distortion from the opponents’ side will have a decisive importance. Key words: rashism as a form of fascism, Russian aggression against Ukraine, the ruling party in Russia, religious institutions in Putin’s Russia.

This article examines citizens' attitudes towards the two major parties in the United States since 1952 and in West Germany since 1969 employing open-ended data from each country's National Election Study time series. Despite similar declining trends in party identification in the two countries, it is found that the patterns of change in party images are markedly different. In the United States it is shown that voters have become increasingly neutral towards the two parties as the focus has turned more and more towards the candidates. In contrast, in West Germany voters have come to have a more balanced view of the parties, seeing both positive and negative features of both. Thus in both cases there has been a decline in polarized strong partisanship (‘my party right or wrong’), but for different reasons. In the United States this decline can be seen as a sign of the decay of an ageing and outdated party system; in West Germany it can be seen as the development of realistic and balanced views of a party system which is just reaching full maturity. The implications for analysing party system development in Eastern Europe are discussed.

In contrast to the United States, where there is little or no public financing of parties and candidates below the presidential level, the German “party state” grants generous subsidies in a variety of forms to the political parties, though not to individual candidates. The German Basic Law (constitution), various laws passed by the national and Land (state) parliaments, and the Federal Constitutional Court have been important factors in the development of a complex and costly system of public financing for election campaigns, parliamentary parties and party foundations and for free television and radio time and billboard advertising space. In addition, the federal government incurs large tax expenditures through the encouragement of tax deductible contributions to political parties. In spite of the crucial role which public financing has assumed, recent scandals have occurred involving illegal contributions from business interests. A revised party law of 1984 and a Federal Constitutional Court decision in July 1986 have brought about significant changes, but controversy in Germany over public financing and the impact of recent reforms continues.

Many of the new states that emerged or reconstituted themselves after the First World War used declarations of independence or preliminary constitutions, or both, as organic law until the adoption of a permanent constitution. The majority of those documents did not address the civil and political rights of citizens (e.g. Germany, Ireland) or did so very briefly (e.g. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Latvia). Estonia stood out by having a whole chapter dedicated to civil rights in its preliminary constitution. The Preliminary Constitution of Estonia (valitsemise ajutine kord) was adopted by the Constituent Assembly (Asutav Kogu) on 4 June 1919, only six weeks after the Assembly first convened on 23 April 1919. The Constituent Assembly was elected and worked on the Preliminary Constitution at the time of the War of Independence between Estonia and Soviet Russia. Strong left-wing sentiment in the country’s society was reflected in the composition of the Assembly: social democrats held 41 seats, the Labour Party (tööerakond) held 30 seats, and Socialist-Revolutionaries (esseerid) held seven seats, together accounting for 65 per cent of the total 120 seats. The centrist People’s Party (rahvaerakond) led by the journalist and renowned politician Jaan Tõnisson had 25 seats, the centre-right Rural League (maaliit) led by another prominent politician and lawyer Konstantin Päts had only seven seats, the Christian People’s Party had five seats, three seats belonged to representatives of the German minority, and one seat went to the Russian minority. Similar proportions were reflected in the 15-member Constitution Committee that was elected on 24 April 1919. The first draft of the Preliminary Constitution, and of the Civil Rights Chapter as part of it, was allegedly prepared by a young legal scholar named Jüri Uluots. Uluots was a member of the Special Committee that was already convened by the Provisional Government in March of 1919 before the election of the Constituent Assembly. The Special Committee was composed of eight lawyers, each of whom was appointed by one of the major political parties. It was assigned the task to provide first drafts of the provisional and permanent constitutions. The Committee fulfilled only the first task. Due to disagreements in the Special Committee, the draft Preliminary Constitution was submitted to the Assembly without the Civil Rights Chapter. The Constituent Assembly processed the Preliminary Constitution Bill very quickly. The Assembly and its committees worked six days a week. It took about three weeks for the Constitution Committee to modify the Bill and submit it to the plenary session of the Assembly on 18 May 1919. The plenary session read the Bill three times and adopted it on 4 June 1919. The Preliminary Constitution entered into force on 9 July 1919 and was in force until 21 December 1920, when Estonia’s first Constitution entered into full force. The Committee spent considerable time on discussing the Civil Rights Chapter. Although concerns were expressed that the Committee was losing time with such discussions and suggestions were made to develop the chapter later as part of the permanent Constitution, the majority of the Committee deemed it important to also address civil rights in the Bill. Uluots, who had been elected to the Assembly as a candidate of the Rural League and was also a member of the Committee, submitted his draft Civil Rights Chapter to the Committee. Four out of eight sections in the Uluots draft found their way into the Chapter. These included equality before the law, civil and political rights and freedoms, and extraordinary restrictions. Sections regarding the right to participate in politics and the duty to obey the law (including military duty and the duty to pay taxes) were rejected at the plenary session, and the section regarding the right to private property was already omitted by the Committee. Also, the Committee preferred the social security provision proposed by the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the schoolmaster Hans Kruus, to the one included in the Uluots draft. The Committee added a new provision concerning education and rejected the right to choose occupations and engage in business proposed by a People’s Party member, the military officer Karl Einbund, and a provision entitling citizens to bring criminal charges against corrupt officials proposed by the social democrat, lawyer and journalist Johan Jans. The first section of the Uluots draft declared all citizens equal before the law. Disputes arouse over the second sentence of the provision. Uluots had proposed that all property and other rights relating to social ranks (the privileges of the nobility) should be abolished. The social democrats (Jans, the writer Karl Ast and others) demanded that privileges and titles should be abolished immediately. Their more moderate opponents (Uluots, Tõnisson, Westholm and others) feared that this would create a legal vacuum in property, inheritance and matrimonial rights. The majority of the Assembly supported the more radical approach and declared that there are no privileges and titles relating to ranks in Estonia. The law implementing the abolition was adopted a year later, in June of 1920. The school headmaster Jakob Westholm, a member of the People’s Party, and Villem Ernits, a social democrat, proposed that the Committee should include a provision concerning education. Their original proposal was scaled back by omitting the duration of mandatory elementary education and by deleting the right to free secondary and university education for talented students. The Preliminary Constitution eventually stipulated (§ 5) that education is compulsory for school age children and is free in elementary schools, and that every citizen is entitled to education in his/her mother tongue. The Committee combined civil and political rights, which were originally in two separate provisions in the Uluots draft, into one section (§ 6) stipulating that the inviolability of the person and home, secrecy of correspondence, freedom of conscience, religion, expression, language, press, assembly, association, and movement can only be restricted in accordance with the law. There were no disputes over the provision in the Committee or at the plenary session. The Committee preferred the proposal made by Kruus as the basis for further discussions on social security: “Every citizen will be guaranteed a decent standard of living according to which every citizen will have the right to receive the goods and support necessary for the satisfaction of his/her basic needs before less urgent needs of other citizens are satisfied. For that purpose, citizens must be guaranteed the obtaining of employment, the protection of motherhood and work safety, and necessary state support in the case of youth, old age, work disability and accidents.” While the last part of Kruus’ proposal was similar to Uluots’ draft and the term “decent standard of living” resembled the German menschenwürdiges Dasein (later adopted in Article 151 of the Weimar Constitution), the origin of the middle part of the provision remains unclear. The social security provision was by far the most extensively debated provision of the Chapter. The main issue was the state’s ability to fulfil its promises and whether social security should take the form of direct allowances or mandatory insurance.Views diverged even within the same parliamentary groups. The Committee replaced “will be guaranteed” with the less imperative “must be guaranteed in accordance with the law”. As a compromise, it deleted the middle part guaranteeing satisfaction of basic needs since it was deemed ‘too communist’ for many members. The plenary session supported adding the right to acquire land for cultivation and dwelling in the second sentence of the provision (§ 7) just before the adoption of the Bill. The last section in the Chapter (§ 8) provided that extraordinary restrictions of the rights and freedoms of citizens and the imposition of burdens come into force in the event of the proclamation of a state of emergency on the basis and within the limits of the corresponding laws. In the course of the discussions led by the lawyer and member of the Labour Party, Lui Olesk, the Committee turned the original general limitations clause into an emergency powers clause resembling similar provisions in the Russian Constitution of 1906 (Article 83) and the Austrian Basic Law on the General Rights of Nationals of 1867 (Article 20). Uluots urged the Committee to include protection of private property in the Bill as a safeguard against tyranny. The provision caused long and heated debates on the limits to nationalisation of private property, especially the principle of fair compensation. The provision was rejected by the majority of both the Committee and the plenary session. In anticipation of land reform, the deputies did not want to narrow down legal options for the expropriation of large estates owned mostly by the German nobility. After their defeat on the protection of private property, the right-wing members wished to protect freedom to choose an occupation and engage in business, trade, industry and agriculture. The majority refused again, arguing that during the war, there had been too much profiteering, and speculators do not deserve protection, and also that the government should have free hands to regulate industry. Without any long deliberations, the Committee also rejected the proposal to allow citizens to sue civil servants in criminal courts. Jans defended his proposal by pointing out the high level of corruption among officials and the need to provide the people with a means for self-defence. His opponents argued that Estonia had already set up administrative courts in February of 1919, providing citizens with an avenue for challenging the corrupt practices of officials. Committee and Assembly members also discussed the legal nature of the fundamental rights and freedoms included in the Bill. Some social democrats deemed it important to craft the provisions as guarantees that citizens can enforce against the state (Jans), but the majority deemed the provisions as political guidance for the legislator. Supporters of the latter view were afraid that direct enforceability of the Civil Rights Chapter would saddle the government with an unsurmountable economic burden. The state’s only directly binding obligation was probably the right to free elementary education.

AbstractIn his examinations of the ecological parties of Belgium and West Germany, Herbert Kitschelt argues that he has found a new form of political representation that defies patterns of behaviour outlined for political parties by all previous scholarly work. These parties, which Kitschelt calls “left-libertarian,” are unique because they lack the organizational structures common to traditional parties, and include in their membership constituencies that are normally more comfortable in social movements. This article compares the political platforms of these parties and the sociological characteristics of their activists with those of the Montreal Citizen's Movement (MCM) and concludes that the MCM is indeed a left-libertarian party. However, an examination of the MCM reveals that although Kitschelt has found a new form of political representation in the left-libertarian party, this new form does not actually defy the developmental patterns outlined by the classical studies of political parties.

In 1989-1990, peaceful protests shook the German Democratic Republic (GDR), ushered in unification, and provided a powerful narrative of people power that would shape protest movements for decades to come. This article surveys eastern German protest across three decades, exploring the interplay of protest voting, demonstrations, and protest parties since the Wende. It finds that protest voting in the east has had a significant political impact, benefiting and shaping parties on both the left and the right of the party spectrum. To understand this potential, it examines how economic and political factors, although changing, have continued to provide favorable conditions for political protest in the east. At particular junctures, waves of protest occurred in each of the three decades after unification, shaping the party landscape in Germany.

IT HAS NOW BECOME COMMON FOR OBSERVERS TO NOTE that German reunification, an unthinkable prospect only a year ago, will be realised before anyone, either the East and West Germans themselves or any of their neighbours and allies, is fully prepared for this eventuality. As the conservative Alliance for Germany's stunning successes in the GDR's first free Volkskammer (parliamentary) elections on 18 March demonstrated, a near majority of the country's population was eager to cast its vote for those forces which promised to facilitate East Germany's absorption into the FRG on the fastest possible terms. By the same token, the vote was also a victory of sorts for all of the West German parties who rushed to lend material and financial aid to their GDR counterparts, for their involvement in the East German election campaigns clearly helped to accelerate the momentum behind national reunification.

The emergence of new parties, especially of populist radical-right parties, has generated considerable scholarly as well as media attention in recent decades. German exceptionalism since the 1950s has come to an end with the electoral successes of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), formed in 2013. Comparative studies, however, provide caution about quick pronouncements of party system transformation. Party organization is an important factor in a new party’s coping with changing external circumstances. Accordingly, this article concerns itself first with the formative circumstances of the AfD compared to those of the Greens and the Pirates, earlier new parties that challenged the established parties. Second, the article focuses on the institutionalization of the AfD as a party organization since 2013. To what extent has it followed the design of successful populist radical-right parties, such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPӦ) and the Italian Northern League (ln)? Third, the article considers the prospective relationships between the AfD and established parties. Such challenger parties have agency and may switch from government-mode to opposition-mode and back again without lasting electoral harm. In conclusion, the AfD seems likely to survive its first term in the Bundestag, but it seems unlikely soon to be mainstreamed by its participation in electoral and parliamentary politics.

The German federal election in October 1994, just four years after German Unity, revealed that clear divisions between east and west Germany still exist. Whilst the PDS on the left of the political spectrum was supported by around one fifth of east German voters, the parties on the right gained negligible support in Germany as a whole. The federal German electoral system, based on a personalised sytem of PR, again played a key role; it is, however still too early in the development of the new Germany to speak of a single new party system.

Representatives of German state (constitutional) law define political extremism as "a set of political beliefs and aspirations... which are aimed at denying the democratic constitutional state and its fundamental values". Based on the definition, the criterion for recognising any "political belief or aspiration" as extremist is the notion of a democratic constitutional state. In line with this, the Federal Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany has given an expansive interpretation of a "free democratic state" that "constitutes a legal state order whose basis is the self-determination of the people according to the will of the majority, freedom and equality. It excludes all forms of despotism or arbitrariness. Among the basic principles of this order are at least: the protection of human rights as laid down in the Basic Law of Germany, the sovereignty of the people, the separation of powers, the responsibility of the government, the legitimacy of government, the independence of the judiciary and the principle of multi-partyism. According to article 21, paragraph 2 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949), political parties that "endeavour to harm or destroy the foundation of the free demo-cratic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany" are declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. The possibility to ban political parties as provided for in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany guarantees the development of a democratic political system of the state. It is worth emphasising that the stability and democratism of the German political system and the stability of the constitutional order in the state depend not only on the prohibition provision in the Basic Law of the FRG, but above all on the ability of political parties to reach agreement on the basic principles of a "free democratic state system" and to implement these principles in the minds of the people. To realise these goals, Germany has the Federal Office for the Protection of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949, a public authority whose task is to control and supervise the legality of the activities of political parties. The forms of extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany are "left-wing extremism" and "right-wing extremism". In right-wing extremism, the older generation is gradually being freed from the aggressive youth, in an increased willingness to use force. Left-wing extremism has become less focused on global global themes - it has become more local and regional, more relatable and at the same time integrated. Because of the new nature of the development of extremism in a united Germany a left-right antagonism has emerged. At the same time, different tendencies of West and East Germany can be observed: in West Germany the struggle "left vs. right" prevails, in East Germany the struggle "right vs. left" prevails.

The article makes focus on the rise of Western Europe’s far-right parties which act with anti-immigrant agenda amid 2010s European migrant crisis. Massive influxes of refugees and migrants have accumulated huge political significance and triggered off a wide range of conflicts (both on international and national levels). The migrant crisis has indicated many social-political challenges for European countries. The crisis has been synchronous with a rise of popularity of right populist political movements (old ones as well as new ones), which promote restrictions of immigration etc. At the same time it cannot be ignored that West European right-wing populist political movements achieved some success in previous decades, well ahead of the current migrant crisis. Immigration issue has been a centerpiece of political discourses of West European right-wing parties (National Front in France, for instance) since late 1970s – early 1980s. But it is quite obvious that the 2010s migrant crisis became a trigger for revitalization of the far-right movements which are outspoken critics of the European Union as “a supra- national body” dictating its conditions to the member countries. Besides, the crisis gave a boost to a rise of new populist movements (for example, “Alternative for Germany”). In 2017 the populist right-wing parties in Europe won the largest support over the three past decades. Recently the right populist forces appeared in elections in a number of European countries (Germany, Austria, France etc.) as tough competitor of traditional mainstream political parties and won parliamentary representation and/or representation in the government coalitions. Furthermore, these movements demonstrate attempts to change their image to shift to political mainstream. However, in the foreseeable future, any cardinal breakthrough and far-right anti- immigrant parties’ coming to the power in Western Europe’s coutrnies is hardly possible.

In September 2017, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to join the Bundestag in nearly seventy years. Yet, it was not the first time that a challenger party entered the parliament to the chagrin of the political establishment. After introducing the AfD, the bhe, the Greens, and the Party of Democratic Socialism (pds), the article analyzes how established parties treated the newcomers and why they did so. This comparative perspective offers insights into the AfD’s challenge, how distinctive the policies toward the AfD have been, and why the established parties have dealt with the AfD as they have.

This article analyzes why, despite similar transformations in the dimensions structuring political space since the late 1980s, extreme right-wing populist parties have emerged in some West European countries, but not in others. Two factors may affect the fortunes of these parties. First, if electorates remain firmly entrenched in older cleavages, new parties will find it difficult to establish themselves. Second, the positions of the established actors with respect to the new cultural divide that the extreme populist right mobilizes may be crucial. This article systematizes the various explanations regarding the impact of mainstream party positions on the electoral fortunes of the extreme right, and develops two new hypotheses that differentiate between the conditions that favor the entry of the extreme right, and its subsequent success. The various hypotheses are then tested in an empirical analysis of election campaigns in France and Germany, combining data on party positions as reflected in the news media with mass-level surveys. The results show that the diverging behavior of the established parties, rather than the strength of the traditional state-market cleavage, explains the differences between these two countries. More specifically, the differing strategy of the mainstream left in the two contexts has allowed the Front National to anchor itself in the French party system, whereas similar parties have not achieved a breakthrough in Germany.

International comparisons of new radical right-wing parties usuallyfocus on differences in electoral fortunes, party organizations, andleadership styles and conclude that Germany stands out as a specialcase of successful marginalization of the new radical right. Explanationsfor this German anomaly point at the combined effects of Germanhistory and institutional arrangements of the Federal Republicof Germany, of ideological dilemmas and strategic failures of thevarious parties of the new radical right, and the efforts of the establishedpolitical parties to prevent the rise of new parties to the rightof them. By implication, this means that, whereas in countries likeFrance or Austria the new radical right plays a significant role in politicsto the point of changing the political systems themselves, theGerman counterpart has a negligible impact and has little or noeffects on politics and polity.

The capacity of political parties to adapt to rapid political change has received little attention. The literature on parties usually studies political organizations from either a sociological perspective, as if they are automatically transformed by socioeconomic changes, or a rational choice perspective, as if they optimally adapt themselves to environmental changes. Neither approach pays sufficient attention to parties’ internal decision making and its effect on their capacity to innovate. This article compares the Parti radical (French Radical Party, Radicals) with the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (German Democratic Party, DDP) and the Deutsche Volkspartei (German People’s Party, DVP) during the interwar period to demonstrate how electoral mechanisms can systematically account for their different innovative capacities.

In the 1980's the West Germany party system finds itself in a new stage of development which bodes well for the continued long-term development of the second republic. Drawing on research from the comparative historical development of party systems and democratic regimes as well as from analysis of the recent elections, it is suggested that the concentration process in the party system of 1949–1983 has evolved into a more dispersed pattern with predominantly positive consequences for the Bonn democracy. The rise of the Greens, the gradual decline of the SPD, and the center-right coalition of CDU/CSU/FDP are analyzed from the standpoint of their contribution to stable and effective democracy. The nature of the coalition dynamics on both sides of the right-left spectrum are discussed with the conclusion that while West Germany is predominantly a Parteiendemokratie, the new forms of participation, the further development of pluralism, and the increased competition of ideas make it a democracy governed essentially by parliamentary parties yet more responsive to extraparliamentary forces.

During the 1960s, development aid helped West Germany project a benign image while it discouraged diplomatic recognition of East Germany. In Ghana, however, this effort clashed with the Pan-Africanist aims of President Kwame Nkrumah. Four periodicals under his control attacked West Germany as neo-colonialist, militarist, racist, latently Nazi and a danger to world peace. West German officials resented this campaign and tried to make it stop, but none of their tactics, not even vague threats to aid, worked for long. The attacks ended with Nkrumah's overthrow in early 1966, but while they lasted, they demonstrated that a small state receiving aid could use the press to invert its asymmetric political relationship with the donor.

By 1955, the formation of a Cold War bloc in Western Europe was complete. The Western European Union (WEU), a redesigned Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO) within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with West Germany and Italy as members, was created. The 1954 Paris Agreements that established WEU also enabled West Germany to become a virtually sovereign actor, and a member of NATO. The Agreements were effected on the rubble of an acrimonious four-year international debate over a proposed European Defence Community (EDC). This would have created a European army for France, the Benelux countries, Italy and West Germany on the model of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and a parallel political community for the Six.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Germany found itself defeated, destroyed, occupied, and ultimately divided. The eastern portion of Germany fell under Soviet administration, while the western part came under joint occupation by the three victorious western Allies (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France). Recognizing at an early date that rebuilding Germany would promote political stability, economic growth, and peace in central Europe, the western Allies set out to reconstruct the defeated nation. The schools were an important part of this project. Many observers argued that without substantial reform to the educational system, German nationalism, militarism, and xenophobia might once again lead to conflict. In the western zones, particularly in the American zone, democratizing the schools took on great importance by 1947. This effort, however, was short-lived. The occupation of Germany ended in 1949, leaving many Americans with the sense that school reform was incomplete.

As Central and East Europeans (including Germans) strive to build new democracies on the ruins of old dictatorships, they seek to establish democratic values as well as democratic institutions. They know that democratic institutions alone were not able to save democracy in Germany's Weimar Republic, which had also risen out of the collapse of an authoritarian regime. West Germans, though, later built a viable democracy, the Federal Republic, from even more devastated and authoritarian remnants. To help explain such differing outcomes, historians have posited changes in political values, arguing that West Germans developed a democratic political culture to replace the authoritarian values many Germans had held earlier. As illuminating as such arguments could be, historians have had great difficulty finding evidence on just what political values Germans, especially common citizens, have in fact held at various times.

This essay tells the diplomatic history of the Treasures of Tutankhamun touring exhibition, the most successful exhibition of all time, and its engagement in West Germany. It argues that the exhibition ascribed an ambassadorial role to its objects and used them as a tool of diplomatic propaganda. While the visit of the objects was promoted as an attempt at cross-cultural understanding, the interpretation and commodification of the exhibits also served to justify the West’s appropriation of Egypt’s natural and cultural resources.

The author explores the behavior of the West-European far-right parties under the coronavirus crisis circumstances. In the beginning stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020 opposition right-wing nationalist parties tried immediately to take advantage of the difficult health situation and of the following social shock and economic problems. The actions and the rhetoric of these parties varied depending on the each country specific circumstances: number of pandemic casualties, strictness and effectiveness of measures taken by the government, national characteristic. Right-wing nationalist were able to achieve success exactly in those West-European countries, where the society was not enough consolidated. For example, Vlaams Belang in Belgium and Brothers of Italy became very popular. In front of this national cohesion and unity of society have created a formidable opposition to anti-government right-wing agitation. Political campaigns of Scandinavian far-right parties, Alternative for Germany, National Rally and the Freedom Party of Austria were almost ineffective. The current situation is unprecedented and indefinite. All sides of the political process are under tension and they are trying to calculate all possible scenarios for further development of events.

There Has Been Much Concern In The Past Few Years About the ‘decline of parliament’ in West European democracies. In the United Kingdom, criticism of the New Labour government has included its apparent neglect of Parliament demonstrated by the style and strategies of the government, ranging from reduction in the time allotted to prime minister's question-time and the utilization of the mass media rather than Parliament as the forum for important policy statements, to the government's refusal to accept reforms to the method of appointments to House of Commons select committees, as recommended by the House of Commons Liaison Committee. Strong party discipline, coupled with sanctions which can affect the political careers of MPs for failure to obey the edicts of the party leadership, have limited the autonomy of MPs in Britain, and, to a varying degree, in other West European countries also. Certainly the German Bundestag has been criticized for being too much under the control of the leaderships of the political parties, in terms of voting on legislation, the stage-management of debates and the choice of leaders of the parliamentary parties (the removal by Chancellor Schröder of Scharping as leader of the SPD parliamentary party in 1998 at the instigation of Lafontaine, the then party chairman, is a notorious instance).

Partisan attachments and voting behavior in Germany today are more volatile than in the past. This article tests the enduring influence of social cleavages on voting relative to two other factors that account for party performance: path dependent forces and spatial dependence. Drawing on original data from the eastern German states, we explain support for Germany’s main parties in the 2017 federal election. We find relatively weak evidence for continued influence of social divisions for the major parties, but that support for the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) did reflect underlying cleavage structures. Additionally, we identify reliable effects of the historical immigrant population on contemporary voting. We also see weak evidence of lock-in political effects associated with German reunification, limited only to the CDU. Most interestingly, we observe powerful and robust effects of spatial dependence for three of the four parties we examine. We conclude that the effects presented here should signal to scholars of parties and electoral politics the need to incorporate history and geography into their analytical frameworks alongside more traditional approaches, since eastern Germany may in fact be less spatialized than western Germany or other country cases because of the homogenizing efforts of the SED regime.

Partisan attachments and voting behavior in Germany today are more volatile than in the past. This article tests the enduring influence of social cleavages on voting relative to two other factors that account for party performance: path dependent forces and spatial dependence. Drawing on original data from the eastern German states, we explain support for Germany’s main parties in the 2017 federal election. We find relatively weak evidence for continued influence of social divisions for the major parties, but that support for the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) did reflect underlying cleavage structures. Additionally, we identify reliable effects of the historical immigrant population on contemporary voting. We also see weak evidence of lock-in political effects associated with German reunification, limited only to the CDU. Most interestingly, we observe powerful and robust effects of spatial dependence for three of the four parties we examine. We conclude that the effects presented here should signal to scholars of parties and electoral politics the need to incorporate history and geography into their analytical frameworks alongside more traditional approaches, since eastern Germany may in fact be less spatialized than western Germany or other country cases because of the homogenizing efforts of the SED regime.

“Votes count,” Stein Rokkan asserted many years ago, “but resourcesdecide.”1 Political finance is one of the many arenas in which Alexanderand Shiratori’s “conflict between real inequalities in economicresources and idealized equalities in political resources” is fought out.2Yet the battleground is more complex than either of these authoritiessuggests. Votes are also a resource. They legitimate, and they can alsopunish, if those who cast them think that economic resources arebeing used unreasonably. Above all, the determination of electoraloutcomes involves players others than voters and moneyedinterests. In almost all modern democracies there are referees ofvarying effectiveness. In general, the referee is “the state,” but muchdepends on the organs through which the state operates. Governmentsare not necessarily neutral agents; they and the parliamentsthat legislate on the regulation of political finance may merely reflectthe interests of dominant or established parties. Political finance can,however, also be regulated, as for instance in Germany or the UnitedStates, by judicial review. In addition the media almost everywhereplay an unpredictable role as spectator, watchdog or interested participant.