2013 Elections in Germany

[ERvND]

Few people know that for a long time, Hesse was the SPD stronghold in the whole of Western Germany, at times when even North-Rhine-Westphalia was still CDU-dominated. To some extent, this tendency has survived until today. In particular, compared to other states, the Hesse SPD is relatively strong in some rural areas.

Now, the 23% result was a consequence of the Ypsilanti scandal and the general federal trend in 2009. Since Schäfer-Gümbel has set things straight inside the party, I'd certainly expect a stronger result this time. 33% however would be huge. In the nationwide polls, the SPD is (again) where it started, around 23%. So, to really achieve 33%, the Hesse SPD would have to get almost 50% more votes than Steinbrück and the national party. This is hardly believable, especially considering that state and federal election will take place on the same day.

[ERvND]

With regards to the discussion above, is there any chance of Die Linke becoming "normalized" in the near future (i.e., being considered as potential coalition partners on the federal level and such) - Or will the party always retain its DDR/SED taint?

The fact that Die Linke is not considered as a potential coalition partner on the federal level is not (only) due to its DDR/SED taint. As a matter of fact, in the eastern part of the country, where Die Linke is a "real" and direct successor of the SED, the party is much more pragmatic than in the West, and SPD-Linke coalitions are possible. In the Western states, in contrast, the party is mostly comprised of either die-hard leftwing extremists or unprofessional morons. Both groups are not willing or not able to compromise on any issue, rendering Die Linke basically unfit for politics in general.

So, when they are not considered for coalitions on the federal level, the reason is not so much their SED-past, but rather their current condition in the Western states.

[ERvND]

Could CDU/CSU/FDP/AFD be a potential coalition?

Highly unlikely, at least for now. To enter a coalition with CDU/CSU and FDP, the AfD would have to give up its main goal and raison d'etre, namely the abolishment of the Euro.

Of course, if they want to be part of the federal government some day, this will have to happen anyway. But it would be too early now. You can't found an anti-Euro party in April and enter a pro-Euro government in September.

[ERvND]

In many textbooks about European politics CSU is generally described as being significantly to the right of CDU. Is that incorrrect IYO?

I'd say the CSU is right of the CDU on cultural issues, but left of it on social ones.

Concerning questions like abortion or gay marriage (which are not very important in Germany, though), the CSU will often take a more conservative stance than most CDU politicians. Regarding the economy, of course both parties are very pro-industry, but the CSU has always been less prone to neo-liberal tendencies than the CDU.

[ERvND]

That's not what "social" means in an American context. -_-

You're right, but that's the way I'd put it, from a German point of view.

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Oh yes it's true. I have to deal with the local CSU on an almost daily basis, and its core supporters are definitly left-wing on economic issues, even though they'd never admit it. This has a lot to do with how rural, small-town society and economy are still organized. There are a lot of community-oriented, collaborative elements, which are, of course, not based on Socialist theory, but on kinsmanship and acquaintanceship. The "free market" is an idea most rural CSU politicians have always encountered with distrust. In this environment, a rigorously free-market liberal CSU would die off quickly.

[ERvND]

Yeah, this is just as true elsewhere in rural Germany though, I'd think.

Yes, but Bavaria is more rural and less urbanized than most Western states (e.g. NRW, BW, Hesse), so the "rural mindset" might be more important for the CSU.

[ERvND]

CSU is now in a nepotism scandal (many CSU MP's employed their wifes/husbands/children etc. over the past years and paid them with taxpayer money). And then there's Uli Hoeneß of course.

This won't change a thing, however. The fact that corruption and nepotism flourish inside the CSU is well known and nothing new for the electorate. It's tolerated as long as the Bavarian economy prospers and produces enough windfall for most voters, which is the case right now.

[ERvND]

Now that the county councils are elected, what will happen to the Landräte (heads of county authorities)? As far as I understand, there are no direct elections in S-H, so the county councils will have to choose. Are there fixed terms, or will the councils have the authority to unseat incumbents if majorities changed?

[ERvND]

Having said that, I am also sceptical on the Greens and in fact myself considering to vote for the Pirates.

In other words, you are considering to vote for CDU/FDP.

[ERvND]

Congratulations to him on pissing off all of one of the SPD's two core regions...in a single sentence. Has he managed to annoy anyone in the Ruhr yet?

The SPD's two core regions? As I see it, there are five regions left where the SPD can hope to be on top of / on par with the CDU/CSU: The Ruhr area, Northern Hesse, Southern Lower Saxony, Eastern Frisia and Brandenburg. Of those, only Brandenburg is located in the East. The rest of the former GDR is either in CDU or Left hands.

[ERvND]

The AfD's slogan "Mut zur Wahrheit" (loosely translated as "Courage under fire") is an allusion to a popular right-wing conspiracy theory. According to this theory, the entire German society is controlled and restrained by leftist-liberal media and a leftist opinion leadership which makes it impossible or even illegal to utter deviant, "politically incorrect" opinions. Those who still dare to do it - like the AfD - are, of course, persecuted and oppressed heroes of the freedom of speech.

You have to concede, on the other hand, that the extent of right-wing populism within the AfD is relatively moderate. Naturally, all those professors and doctors know their German history and are aware that they can't go too far; but it's also a zeitgeist phenomenon. During the last decade, the German society underwent an important transition. It has actually (see above) become more liberal, open and tolerant. Right wing populism doesn't work as well as it used to. Ten or fifteen years ago, a party like the AfD would have orchestrated a brutal carnage of xenophobia, Europe-bashing and maybe even racisms/antisemitism. Not any more. The electorate has changed, and has mostly stopped falling for this sh**t.      

[ERvND]

Is it possible that too many CDU voters do that and then the final results be 35% to CDU/CSU and 10% to FDP?

I expect this to happen; at least it was what happened in the most recent state elections, where the FDP was estimated at ca. 4-5% and ended up at 8-9%.

The problem for the CDU is that they have no control over / means against this phenomenon. Their voters are not dumb; if they see the FDP at 5% and expect the result to be close, some of them will always cast a strategic vote, no matter what Merkel might say.     

[ERvND]

The FDP loan vote is one of the most tricky questions. It obviously depends on how many potential loan voters assume the FDP to already be safely in, which in turn depends on the polling coming out over the next weeks (a  paradox situation- the higher FDP polling results, the lower their vote is probably to get).

That's also one of the few aspects under which the Bavarian state election (one week ahead of the federal election) might be of some significance.

If the FDP fails to reach 5% there - and Bavaria is one of the states where this is entirely possible - the loan votes will flock to them en masse in the federal election.

[ERvND]

If these results are representative for the East as a whole (and a Brandenburg poll from May with similar trends suggests they may well be), the Linke, but also CDU may face unpleasant surprises in the East in the upcoming federal election.

The Linke decline in the East was to be expected, so no real surprise here. CDU at 36 (+3), on the other hand, is nothing I'd call "unpleasant".

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Trying to get the Pirates above 5% is actually the riskiest, and therefore most moronic, strategy to prevent a black-yellow majority. If there was no Pirate party, black-yellow wouldn't have a majority (in polls) in the first place.

[ERvND]

The Greens' traditional civil rights and direct democracy focus should never have allowed the Pirates to emerge in first place.

That's the point, but the problem goes even deeper: The SPD should never have allowed the Greens to emerge in the first place.

The major parties used to be "big-tent-parties". They managed to assemble very different kinds of socioeconomic groups and political issues, thereby balancing contradictory opinions within themselves. With the establishment of the Greens in the 1980s (the first successful founding of a party since 1949), this ability - or the need for it - seems to have gone on the left side of the political spectrum.

With the Pirates, we are already experiencing the third major split of the left, accompanied by all of its negative consequences: The inability to collaborate (SPD - Linke; Pirates - everyone else, as long as they are deemed too inexperienced), the loss of votes for parties that fail to reach the 5% threshold (Linke in the West, Pirates nation-wide), the inability to constitute the strongest party (effectively giving the CDU a lock on the chancellorship for the decades to come) and so on.

With all of this, we should remember that the establishment of new parties doesn't go by natural law. If there is a new issue on which you don't agree with the existing parties, you don't have to found a new party. You could also try to become involved in the traditional parties, changing their positions from within, as it's been the case for decades. If people on the left keep forgetting this, we'll soon have the CDU on the right and ten small parties on the left, effectively terminating every chance for a leftist government.

[ERvND]

The Greens reflected several fundamental changes - transformation from an industrial to a service- and knowledge-based economy, increase in academics, female professional emancipation (commencing, still on-going), internationalisation/globalisation. Most importantly, they have been the vehicle for the political aspirations of the baby-boomers, the first post-WW II generation, and the single largest age group still to date.

Without any doubt, there are several legitimate reasons for the Greens to be a separate party. Basically (at least I'd argue), they are a Conservative movement, while Social Democrats are a Progressive one.

Yet, and in spite of this sharp distinction, the definition of both parties as "leftist" seems to hold. All efforts to to redefine the Greens as a Centrist/"middle class" party and to bring Greens and CDU closer together - as in black-green coalitions - have more or less failed, so far. All black-green flirtations aside, as elections come closer, the two "blocks" (red-green on the one, black-yellow on the other side) will usually consolidate, culminating in loan-vote recommendations and sometimes even joint campaign events.

Now, if SPD and Greens see each other as "natural partners" and usually form no coalitions with center-right parties anyway, why don't they just merge? From this point of view, the ever-repeating coalition talks are just redundant; political differences could as well be resolved within a bigger, united party.

The social structure of the SPD membership, by the way, would no longer be a hindrance to such a merger. The days of "coal, cars and construction" are long gone, and with it the cultural and economic differences between both parties' base.

[ERvND]

There is the issue of identity- no social democrat would ever agree to give up the party name (and it would also be a shame to have a party with that tradition disappear). However, you also cannot expect a Green (and even less so a "Bündnis 90" member) to give up these names and all what they stand for. "Social democrat-Green Alliance for Germany", with a sunflower logo that is red inside and green outside - come on!

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Yes, and that's exactly the problem with the left. "I'd never", "I'd rather", "We will never" is what we get to hear. That's the result of a dogmatic tradition. If they could, every leftist would maintain his or her own party, masochistically enjoying the resulting right-wing dominance.

[ERvND]

Think of what you will, but Heinz Buschkowsky and Dieter Wiefelspütz being in the same political party with Claudia Roth and Hans-Christian Ströbele is not even remorely close to what I would define as "realistic".

Yes, but only in Germany. In the USA, for example, such constellations are not at all unrealistic. If Colin Powell can be a member of the same party as Sarah Palin, why should comparable things be impossible in Germany?

I'll tell you why: While Americans are pragmatic, Germans - and, even more so, German leftists - are dogmatic. In their eyes, a fringe group that insists on its standpoint is preferable to an actually relevant party that has to compromise. That's why the left in this country has always been outplayed by the right, and things will get even worse.

[ERvND]

So what you're actually saying is that you want to see FPTP introduced in Germany.

Yes, that's indeed what I propose. As long as you have proportional representation, the establishment of splinter groups is encouraged. But install FPTP and you'll see how fast SPD, Greens and Pirates would overcome their mutual reservations.

Of course, the introduction of a FPTP system in Germany is something we will never see. The Grand coalition should have introduced it in the 60s. Now, it's too late, and discussing it would really be pointless.

[ERvND]

And you're the very reason why SPD is in decline.

Ok, I admit it. It's been me the whole time. Next, I'll ruin the Greens.

But seriously, the underlying reason for the SPD's decline is that the very idea of Social Democracy has come to an end. It achieved most of its objectives in the 1970s, and this was when its downfall began. The short boom of the 1990s was no longer fueled by social democratic, but by neoliberal ideas.

Today, there is nobody left who'd vote for a social democratic party: The industrial working class has almost diappeared; the welfare dependent proletarians have stopped voting at all; the rich vote conservative or liberal, and if they are culturally leftist, they vote green.

That's why I'd prefer a merger into a broader, more loosely defined "left" movement, structurally akin to the American Democrats. On it's own, the SPD will soon vanish, that's a given.

[ERvND]

Unlikely, they'll just change to suit the times, as all large parties do.

The neoliberal re-orientation ("third way", "Agenda 2010" in Germany) was such an attempt to suit the times. We see the results.

Maybe the SPD will survive as a special interest party for specific social groups (though I can't think of any right now), but its days as a major party are clearly over. Retaining more than 5% of the vote nationwide will be seen as a success in 20 to 25 years' time.

[ERvND]

Could that possibly be because social democrats have largely washed their hands of them?

Yes. This was, of course, part of their attempt to win over middle-class voters via the "third way". There was some success in it initially, but ultimately, this strategy failed big time. The very poor / welfare dependent classes abandoned the SPD completely, whereas the middle class did not really catch on. The situation right now is rather funny: While large parts of society hate the SPD because of its welfare cuts, the middle class still tends to percieve it as the party of the lazy, the moochers and the welfare recipients (which it has, under all historic circumstances, never been).  

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It's quite simple, actually: Social Democracy has always been a skilled labour and lower middle class movement. It promised to create a society in which the members of these classes should, by hard work and education, be able to achieve some prosperity. During the 1960s and 1970s, they effectively created this society. Education opportunities increased vastly, the classes got more permeable, many of their core supporters gained some wealth.

In consequence, exactly those people who had benefitted the most from Social Democracy began to turn against it. Being rather successfull, but in an uncertain economic environment (the 70s and 80s), they suddenly had nothing more to win - but a lot to lose. Now hoping to stop social upward mobility, they turned to conservatism and neoliberalism. Meanwhile, the remaining lower classes were shaken off so badly that they lost all hope of social advancement.

So it's not by accident that the last social group that still hopes to climb the social ladder - naturalized foreigners, especially Turks - is also the last group that still predominantly supports the SPD. All others are either too rich or too poor to be appealed by Social Democracy.  

[ERvND]

With general regards to one line of discussion, as recently as 2005, the SPD polled 34% across Germany and as recently as 1998 managed 41%. And whatever may have changed irrevocably since, and whatever longterm factors may well (and certainly actually do)* lurk around, it is pathetic to blame the party's current lousy (federal) electoral situation entirely on things that are 'inevitable' or in some other way totally out of their control.

1998, 2002 and 2005 showed how much impact a popular leader and good campaigner (in this case, Schröder) can have. No doubt, such things can and will happen again. The general trend, however, remains intact. Just take a look at the following chart (SPD trendline by me). It shows that the SPD has been in a more or less steady decline since 1972. The seven-year-interval between 1998 and 2005 constitutes a deviation, after which the vote share reverted back to the trendline. So, the 23% result in 2009 was actually no shocking, outrageous aberration, but completely in line with a trend that's been going on for over 40 years now.

[ERvND]

So which elections did you actually use for the trendline? Only 72 to 90 presumably, since even including 1994 would presumably destroy the neatness of the graph?

As I already said, outliers and deviations did happen (and will happen again). It's no natural law, after all, just a general political trend.

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Of course. It's one of the reasons for the 1994 outlier, and it's also partly responsible for the 1998-2005 phase, as Schröder got disproportionately more votes in the East. Almost 25 years after the reunification however, voting patterns in the East and the West seem to have converged. Easterners still have a bias towards Die Linke, while Westerners are more into parties like the Greens and FDP, but both agree not to vote for the SPD.

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Yes, and where is the methodological concern with that? Obviously it's one of the SPD's main problems that many of their supporters have turned into non-voters.

[ERvND]

What you actually did is use a trend that existed ages ago (and starting at the SPD's all time high, mind you, not that there's necessarily anything wrong with doing so) extend it into the future indefinitely which is invalid even when the future's still the future, and then hey presto, find an isolated (soon not so isolated) data point that confirms to that trend despite twenty years of recent history - as long as the original trend was - in between not doing so in any way or form.

Granted, my approach is rather bold, and I'd better not try to have it published in a statistics magazine or something.

I am just a political amateur, and as such, I simply took a look at the longtime trend, and the connection between the (undeniable) trend from 1972-1990 and 2009's result was striking. Maybe that's just by accident, maybe not. Soon there'll be another data point, and we'll see how good or bad it fits into my theory. Right now, at least, it looks as if the 23% result was no grotesque outlier, and we won't see the SPD above 25% in the near future.