Chancellor Hegemony

Party Politics and the Bundestag Party System after the 2013 Federal Election

Bibliographic Data

ID3668664
AuthorsCharles Lees (0000-0002-3517-2211, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume32
Issue2
Pages41-53
Publication date2014-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGerman Politics & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1045-0300 • E-ISSN: 1558-5441
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/gps.2014.320203
OpenAlexW2048012382
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

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

Democracy · Economics · Electoral system · German · Hegemony · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Realigning election · Split-ticket voting · Voting · Law · Political Systems and Governance · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Public Administration · Public Administration and Political Analysis

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