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Party and Federation in Germany: A Developmental Dilemma1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Gerhard Lehmbruch
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Extract

CONTEMPORARY WEST GERMAN FEDERALISM IS FACING A DILEMMA generated by the transformation of the party system after the second world war. Since the late nineteenth century highly complex political and administrative structures have developed in Germany and for most of the time federalism has been one of their important elements. Because of their complexity effective policy-making depended largely upon strategies of accommodation, bargaining and repartition of influence between rival groups and organizations. This has been the rationale of federalism as well as of multi-party coalition government.

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Article
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Government and Opposition , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1978 , pp. 151 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1978

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Footnotes

1

Paper presented to the Workshop on Comparative Federalism (Canadian Political Science Association ‐ European Consortium for Political Research), Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 23–28 August 1977. For a more detailed analysis see my book, Parteienwetfbewerb im Bundesrtaat, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1976.

References

2 The term ‘congruence’ has been suggested by Harry Eckstein’s concept of ‘congruence of authority patterns’ as first developed in his A Theory of Stable Democracy, 1961. I am, of course, aware of the somewhat different meaning that the concept has in his research.

3 The best analysis of the working of federalism in Imperial Germany is Manfred Rauh, Föderalismus und Parlamentarismus im Wilhelminischen Reich, 1973.

4 See, in particular, Rudolf Smend, ‘Ungeschriebenes Verfassungsrecht im monarchischen Bundesstaat’, in Festgabe für O. Mayer zum 70. Geburtrtag, 1916, and Erich Kaufmann, Bismarcks Erbe in der Reichsuerfassung, 1917.

5 Smend, Rudolf, Staatsrechtliche Abhandlungen, 2nd. ed., 1968, p. 231.Google Scholar

6 Kaufmann, op. cit.

7 The distinction between ‘Zentralisierung’ and ‘Unitarisierung’ is due to Konrad Hesse, Der unitarische Bundesstaat, 1962: unitarization may be obtained either by outright centralization or by coordination of autonomous units. Hesse’s theory of ‘unitarizing tendencies in contemporary federalism’ and of the changing functions of federalism has come to exert a strong influence on the West German theory of federalism. However, ‘unitarization’ is not such a recent development as Hesse implies.

8 As far as I can see, this was first pointed out by Richard Thoma, ‘Das Staatsrecht des Reiches’ in Handbuch des Deutschen Staatsrechts, vol. 1, 1930, p. 78 ff.

9 On the evolution of the German party system see, in particular, Sigmund Neumann, Die Parteien der Weimarer Republik, 3rd ed., 1973, and Hans Fenske, Struktur probleme der deutschen Parteiengesrhichte, 1974.

10 Cf. Loewenberg, Gerhard, Parliament in the German Political System, 1966, p. 10 ff.Google Scholar

11 On federalism in the Weimar Republic see, in particular, Gerhard Schulz, Zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur: Verfassungspolitik und Reichsreform in der Weimarer Republik, vol. 1, 1963, covering the period 1919–1930 (the only volume that has appeared), Waldemar Besson, Württemberg und die deutsche Staatskrise 1928–1933, 1959, and Hans Peter Ehni, Bollwerk Preussen? Preussen‐Regierung, Reich‐Länder‐Problem und Sozialdemokratie 1928–1932, 1975.

12 On the arguments of an influential group of liberal intellectuals (Max Weber, Troeltsch, Meinecke) see Gustav H. Schmidt, Deutscher Historismus und der Übergang zur parlamentarischen Demokratie, 1964.

13 For this element of the bureaucratic‐federalist ideology see, in particular, Besson, op. cit.

14 For this and the following see Marie Elise Foelz‐Schroeter, Föderalistische Politik und national Repräsentation 1945–1947: Westdeutscbe Landesregierungen, zonale Bürokratien und politische Parteien im Widerstreit, 1974, and Theodor Eschenburg, ‘Regierung, Bürokratie und Parteien 1945–1949’, Vierteljabresbefte für Zeitgeschichte, Jahrgang 24, 1976.

15 Bericht über den Verfassungskonvent auf Herrenchiemsee vom 10–25. 8., 1948, p. 37 ff.

16 This is the usage current in West Germany. As in Giovanni Sartori’s taxonomy (in Parties and Party Systems, 1976) it implies ideological distance between the parties. But while according to Sartori ‘polarization’ afises from ‘extreme pluralism’ (with more than 5 parties) in the West German case a ‘moderate pluralist’ party system (in Sartori’s terminology) is conceived as being strongly ‘polarized’.

17 William Riker’s theoretical reasoning is useful in interpreting this process (The theory of political coalitions, 1962).

18 In particular, Arnold Heidenheimer, ‘Federalism and the Party System: The Case of West Germany’, in APSR, vol. 52, 1958; Karlheinz Neunreither, Der Bundesrat zwischen Politik und Verwaltung, 1959; id., ‘Politics and Bureaucracy in the West German Bundesrat’, in APSR, vol. 53, 1959; Edward Pinney, Federalism, Bureaucracy and Party Politics in West Germany: The Role of the Bundesrat, 1963.

19 Cf. Neunreithér, op. cit.; Pinney, op. cit.

20 ‘Wohl kaum praktische Möglichkeit’, Hesse, op. cit., p. 24.

21 In Baden‐Württemberg the coalition of the CDU with the SPD had survived till 1960, because of circumstances peculiar to that Land. Its replacement by a ‘small’ (CDU‐FDP) coalition was justified by Kiesinger, in his governmental declaration to the Diet, by the importance of the Bundesrat conforming with the federal government and its majority.

22 Cited in Heinz Laufer, ‘Der Bundesrat als Instrument der Opposition’, in Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, Jahrgang I, 1970, Fn. 8.

23 Cf. Laufer, op. cit.

24 Basic Law, art. 77 III–IV. In some cases, the Christian Democrats successfully appealed to the Constitutional Court (e. g. against a first change in the abortion law) but these decisions were not based upon considerations concerning states’ or Bundesrat’s rights.

25 Art. 84 I of the Basic Law states as a rule that, if the execution of federal laws is in the autonomous jurisdiction of the Länder (‘eigene Angelegenheit’, art. 83). they are competent to regulate the establishment of agencies and the administrative procedure, ‘unless federal laws, with the assent of the Bundesrat, decide otherwise’. The latter has rapidly become the rule in order to establish uniformity of standards. standards.

26 This point has been made in an article by Gerhard Stoltenberg (at present CDU Ministerpräsident of Schleswig‐Holstein), ‘Legislative und Finanzverfassung 1954/55: Parlamentarische Willensbildung in Bundestag, Bundesrat und Vermittlungsausschuß’, in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 13. Jahrgang, 1965, p. 271. Cf. also Harri Reinert, Vermittlungsausschuβ und Conference Committee, 1966.

27 For details see my ‘Parteienwettbewerb im Bundesstaat’, op cit., p. 135 f.

28 Hans Joachim Veen, Opposition im Bundestag: Ihre Funktionen, institutionallen Handlungsbedingungen und das Verhalten der CDU/CSU‐Fraktion in der 6. Wahlperiode 1969–1972, 1975, has gone so far as to speak of a ‘reshaping (Neuprägung) of parliamentary government’ since 1969 (p. 201).

29 Berlin’s 3 votes are not included since, because of the special international status of this Land, they are not formally counted, except in matters of parliamentary procedure.

30 Since 1969 in most Läder elections the FDP has been allied to the SPD by stating its intention to form a coalition in case of victory.

31 Lower Saxony voted for the Bill after the president of the Lower Saxon FDP had threatened to resign from the cabinet; Albrecht stated that in yielding to this pressure he gave precedence to the interests of his Land coalition over his party principles.

32 Cf. Max Kaase, ‘Die Bundestagswahl 1972’, in Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 14. J. g., 1972, p. 167.

33 Cf. Foelz‐Schroeter, op. cit., and Friedrich Klein, Neus deutsrhes Verfassungsrecht, 1949, p. 93 f., 106 ff.

34 On these conferences, see the dissertations of Martin Hirschmüller, Die Konferenzen der Minister präsidenten und Ressortminirter der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Diss. jur., Tübingen, 1967; Thomas Knoke, Die Kultusministerkonferenz und die Ministerpräsidentenkonferenz, Hamburg, 1966. On the role of the Bundesrat and more recent developments see the important dissertation of Helmut Fröchling, Der Bundesrat in der Koordinierungspraxis von Bund und Ländern, Freiburgh i. Br., 1972.

35 See, e. g., Wieland Hempel, Der demokratische Bundesstaat, 1969, p. 211.

36 Cf. Michel Crozier, The bureaucratic phenomenon, 1964.

37 This is analogous to the evolution of the Bundesrat which has also been ‘politicized’ in 1949 since, unlike its predecessors, it is composed of Länderminister. But the bulk of its business takes place in its committees which, for the most part, continue to be composed of civil servants.

38 See, among others, the analysis of a business consultant prepared at the request of the federal government: Dieter Schröder, Wachstum und Gesellschaftspolitik, 1971.

39 See Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf, Policy‐making in the German federal bureaucracy, 1975.

40 Allen Schick, ‘System politics and systems budgeting’, in Public Administration Review, vol. 29, 1969.

41 This is true, in particular, of the recommendations contained in the report of the commission of experts established in 1964 by the government of Ludwig Erhard to prepare a reform of the financial system: Kommission für die Finanzreform, Gutarhten über die Finanzreform in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1966.

42 Article 79 III of the Basic Law largely bars constitutional amendments affecting the federal organization.

43 The term Politikver flechtung (interlocking politics), now widely used to describe these new trends in federalism, was coined by Fritz Scharpf. See the analysis of the Gemeinschaftaufgaben in: Fritz W. Scharpf et al., Politikverjechtung: Theorie und Empirie des kooperativen Föderalismus in der Bundesrepublik, 1976.

44 Gerhard Lehmbruch, ‘The Ambiguous Coalition in West Germany’, Government and Opposition, vol. 3, 1968; reprinted in Rodney Barker (ed.), Studies in Opposition, 1971, p. 168 ff.

45 In the Joint Commission, the vote of West Berlin is counted and therefore the social‐liberal coalition had a majority of the Länder.

46 Cf. Mäding, Heinrich, Bildungsplanung und Finanzplanung, 1974.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Kock, Heinz, Stabilitätspolitik im föderalistischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1975.Google Scholar

48 Cf. Walker, Jack L., ‘The Diffusion of Innovations among American States’, American Political Science Review, vol. 63, 1969.Google Scholar

49 Cf. Charles Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy, 1965.

50 This seems apparent from ongoing research on ‘resource transfer policies’ in the West German states conducted by Manfred G. Schmidt, University of Tübingen.

51 The Australian crisis of 1975, with diverging majorities in the two chambers of parliament, is another case in point. (In Germany, however, the electoral balance of forces is more stable than in Australia where this situation did not last very long. This difference seems to be due, among other reasons, to proportional representation.)

52 Cf. the speculations of Philip E. Converse and Georges Dupeux, in Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States (Angus Campbell et al., Elections and the Political Order, 1966, p. 290 f.)

53 The notion that multi‐party systems like the traditional German one were characteristic of a ‘fragmented political culture’ where ‘the political actors came to the market not to exchange, compromise and adapt’ (Gabriel Almond, ‘Comparative Political Systems’, Journal of Politics, vol. 18, 1956) is a simpllfication of a much more complex reality. It would be more exact to say that the evolution of the German multi‐party system towards a political culture based on bargaining and exchange was destabilized by external conditions.

54 In Austria legislation on state schools presupposes ‘concurring’ (paktierte) federal and state laws. Hence the agreement of both large parties is necessary.