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The West German Elections: Economic Fears and the Deployment Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Rainer Eisfeld
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Extract

HARDLY TEN MONTHS AFTER THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC'S ELECtorate had renewed Helmut Schmidt's mandate for another four-year term in office on 5 October 1980, Time offered its readers a scenario that saw Schmidt stepping down as Chancellor by 1 September 1983: an SPD Convention had reneged on his government's commitment to deploy Pershing II and Cruise missiles on West German soil, should the Geneva arms-control talks fail. In a surprise return to the chancellorship, Willy Brandt succeeded in forming a new coalition government with the FDP. When Brandt, however, accepted a Soviet offer to negotiate a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe, Hans Dietrich Genscher's Free Democrats left the cabinet. With its economy deteriorating and the scope of its welfare system another volatile issue, the FRG was pictured as preparing for early, extraordinary elections.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1983 , pp. 291 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1983

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References

1 Bölhg, Klaus, Die letzten 30 Tage des Kanzlers Helmut Schmidt. Ein Tagebuch, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1982 Google Scholar, cit. after Der Spiegel, 11 October 1982, pp. 79, 72.

2 See Dyson, Kenneth, ‘The Problem of Morality and Power in the Politics of West Germany’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1981, pp. 134f., 139f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 This point is explored at length by Liepelt, Ursula Feist/Klaus, ‘New Elites in Old Parties’, International Political Science Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1983, p. 71f.Google Scholar

4 Hippel, William M., Arkin, Frank von, Levi, Barbara, ‘Kollektiver Selbstmord? Atomkrieg in Deutschland’, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, No. 3, 1983, p. 26.Google Scholar

5 Compare also the judicious remarks on the ‘repudiation of the values of the 1960s’ as a contribution to analysis of the deeper‐lying reasons of Reagan’s electoral success in Mansfield, Harvey C., ‘The American Election: Towards Constitutional Democracy?’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1981, p. 5f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The most perceptive studies of the Christian Social Union are Alf Mintzel, Die CSU. Anatomie einer konservativen Partei, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975 and id., Geschichte der CSU, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1977.

7 The development of the Greens has been traced, for instance, by Pilat, J. F., ‘Democracy or Discontent? Ecologists in European Elections’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1982, pp. 222f., 225 CrossRefGoogle Scholarf. (for the West German context). See also Abromeit, Heidrun, ‘Parteiverdrossenheit und Alternativbewegung’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1982, p. 182 Google Scholarf., and Murphy, Detlef, ‘Gruene und Bunte ‐ Theorie und Praxis “Alternativer Parteien”’, in; Raschke, Joachim (ed.), Buerger und Parteien, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1977, p. 323f.Google Scholar

8 Der Spiegel, 14 December 1970, p. 27.