TY - JOUR
T1 - Chancellor Hegemony
T2 - Party Politics and the Bundestag Party System after the 2013 Federal Election
AU - Lees, Charlie
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - 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 negotia- tions 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 redistribu- tion of voting power in the Bundestag in favor of the catch-all parties as for- mateurs. 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.
AB - 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 negotia- tions 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 redistribu- tion of voting power in the Bundestag in favor of the catch-all parties as for- mateurs. 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.
KW - Campaigns
KW - CDU/CSU
KW - Elections
KW - Angela Merkel
KW - Party systems
KW - SPD
UR - http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berghahn/gerpol/2014/00000032/00000002/art00003
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/gps.2014.320203
U2 - 10.3167/gps.2014.320203
DO - 10.3167/gps.2014.320203
M3 - Article
SN - 1045-0300
VL - 32
SP - 41
EP - 53
JO - German Politics & Society
JF - German Politics & Society
IS - 2
ER -