Following World War II, the Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demokratische Union–CDU) was founded by a diverse group of Catholics and Protestants, businesspeople and trade unionists, and conservatives and moderates. The party espoused a Christian approach to politics and rejected both Nazism and communism. CDU members advocated conservative values and the benefits of a social market economy–that is, one combining capitalist practices and an extensive welfare system. Konrad Adenauer, the CDU’s first leader and West Germany’s first chancellor, envisioned the CDU as a conservative catchall party (Volkspartei) that would attract a majority of the electorate.

The CDU is a national party except in the Land of Bavaria, where it is not active, in deference to its sister party, the Christian Social Union (Christlich-Soziale Union–CSU). Bavaria has the largest concentration of conservative, rural, Catholic voters, and the CSU has dominated politics there since 1957. The CSU was personified by its leader, Franz-Josef Strauss, until his death in 1988. By 1994 no clear heir to Strauss had emerged, but the CSU nonetheless retained its absolute majority in the Land election of September 1994. Germany’s population increased through unification, and thus it has become more difficult for the CSU to pass the 5 percent electoral threshold at the national level. However, the CSU performed strongly in the 1994 national election, garnering 7.3 percent of the vote. The CDU and the CSU form a single Fraktion in parliament, choose a common candidate for chancellor, and have always governed in coalition. Below the federal level, the two party organizations are entirely separate.

From 1949 until 1963, Adenauer and his CDU dominated German politics. At the time of the 1961 election, Adenauer was eighty-five years old, and the opposition SPD was gaining in popularity. Ludwig Erhard, a CDU member credited with engineering Germany’s postwar economic miracle, succeeded Adenauer as chancellor in 1963 (see table 3, Appendix). An economic recession then hastened the end of the CDU/CSU’s hold on power. November 1966 brought the creation of the Grand Coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD with Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) as chancellor and Willy Brandt (SPD) as vice chancellor. The FDP was relegated to the opposition benches. After the 1969 election, the SPD formed a coalition with the FDP, leaving the CDU/CSU in opposition for the first time in West German history.

For thirteen years, the CDU/CSU waited to regain power. By the early 1980s, the CDU had adopted a new party program consisting of conservative economic policies, resembling those of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and moderate social and foreign policies. Helmut Kohl, as leader of the CDU/CSU Fraktion in the Bundestag, was also rebuilding a political bridge to the FDP. In 1982, as West Germany’s economy weakened, the liberal SPD and the economically conservative FDP could not settle on a package of economic remedies. The FDP chose to leave the coalition and form a new government with the CDU/CSU. The constructive vote of no-confidence was used successfully for the first time to unseat Helmut Schmidt as chancellor; Kohl replaced him. West Germans ratified this change through early elections called for March 1983.

By the late 1980s, the CDU/CSU was growing increasingly unpopular. The CDU/CSU was also facing a new challenge from the right in the form of a new extreme right party, the Republikaner. In a series of Land elections, the Republikaner successfully eroded some of the CDU/CSU’s support. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic, however, provided Kohl with a historic opportunity to reverse the fortunes of his party. While most Germans reacted to the change in the geopolitical landscape with amazement, Kohl seized the moment and actively advocated early unification (see Unification, ch. 8). The first, free, all-Germany election since November 1932 took place in December 1990. In essence, this election became a referendum on the process of unification; the CDU/CSU emerged victorious, with Kohl promising greater prosperity for all Germans. As the costs of unification, in economic, social, and psychological terms, became more apparent to both western and eastern Germans, the CDU began suffering setbacks in Land and local elections. Nonetheless, Chancellor Kohl was able to claim a narrow victory in the national election of October 1994. Kohl’s governing coalition benefited from an increasingly positive economic outlook in Germany and from the fact that the opposition Social Democratic candidate, Rudolf Scharping, was seen by many as lackluster.

The organizational structure of the CDU is a product of the party’s evolution. In its early years, the CDU was a loose collection of local groups. Over time, a weak national party emerged to complement the strong Land party organizations. In the early 1970s, the CDU built up its national organization to compete with the more tightly structured SPD. Membership and party income increased accordingly. The Federal Executive is the primary executive organ of the CDU. It consists of about sixty individuals, including the party chair (elected for two years), several deputy chairs, a general secretary, a treasurer, the CDU’s main legislative representatives, and the leaders of the Land party organizations. Because the Federal Executive is too large and does not meet frequently, a smaller subset called the Presidium, composed of the highest ranking CDU officials, actually sets party policy and makes administrative decisions. Each Land except Bavaria, where the CSU is active, holds semiannual party congresses and has an executive committee. These party structures are primarily responsible for the selection of party candidates for Bundestag elections. Every two years, the CDU holds a full party congress of several hundred party activists. Kohl has served as national chairman of the CDU since 1973, headed the parliamentary Fraktion from 1976 until 1982, and continues to lead the party as chancellor. Kohl’s single-handed management of the party has given him a political dominance within the CDU that only Adenauer surpassed.

The CDU maintains several auxiliary organizations designed to increase the party’s attractiveness to particular societal groups and to represent their views within the party. CDU statutes list seven organizations representing youth, women, workers, business and industry, the middle class, municipal politics, and refugees. Other, unofficial groupings exist as well. The most powerful of the auxiliary organizations has traditionally been the one representing business and industry. Although these auxiliary organizations are legally autonomous from the CDU, a high percentage of their members are also members of the CDU.

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The flag of Germany was adopted in its present form in 1919. It was readopted with the new constitution of 1949. It is a tricolour, made of three equal horizontal bands coloured black (top), red, and gold (bottom).

There are several theories regarding the origins of the German flag color scheme and its meaning. The most popular theory is that the black and gold combination relates to the colours on the semi-official coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire. When the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist these two colors were closely associated with Austria’s Habsburg Dynasty, which became known as the “Black and Gold Monarchy.”

In the radical 1840s the black-red-gold flag was used to symbolize the movement against the Conservative European Order that was established after Napoleon’s defeat. The movement fell apart within a year, but it had succeeded in drafting a constitution that declared “Basic Rights for the German People.”

The Frankfurt Parliament had declared the black-red-gold as the official colors of the German Confederation, with the red symbolized the Hanseatic League and the gold and black symbolizing Austria. These colours soon came to be regarded as the national colours of Germany during this brief period, and especially after their reintroduction during the Weimar period, they have become synonymous with liberalism in general.

The leaders of the 1848 Revolution adopted the tricolor flag in the National Assembly or Frankfurt Parliament

After the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 the South-German States aligned with Austria, including Bavaria, Baden are said to have flown the black-red-gold flag, further illustrating the distinctions between the present day colour scheme and the northern, Prussian tradition. On June 25, 1867 the coalition adopted a flag that blended the colours of its largest and smallest member Prussia (black and white) and the Hanseatic League (red and white) into a new black-white-red horizontal tricolour. This flag would also be the national flag for the subsequent German Empire from 1871 to 1918, which finally replaced the German Confederation.

After Germany’s defeat in World War I this German Imperial flag fell into disuse and the new Weimar Republic reinstated the black-red-gold sequence in 1919. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the black-red-gold flag was replaced with the black-white-red. And in 1935 they replaced all German governmental flags with designs based on the swastika flag that had been their Nazi party flag ( a red flag with a white disk in the centre containing a black swastika).

After the defeat of Germany in World War II, Germany was occupied by the Allies. The Allied Control Council banished the existing national flags.

After some debate, the black-red-gold flag was once again adopted as the German federal flag for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) on May 9,1949.

The German Democratic Republic (East Germany ) used the same flag, but on October 1, 1959 it introduced a communist emblem to the centre of the flag: a hammer (symbolizing the workers), and a pair of compasses (symbolizing the intellectuals) inside ears of grain (symbolizing the farmers). This remained until the territory of the former GDR was reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990.

In Germany there is a very modest public use of the flag and national symbols at all. The flag in Germany is used nearly only by official authorities on special occasions or by the public in sport events.




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Observers often describe political parties as critical stabilizing institutions in democratic systems of government. Because of the central role played by German political parties, many observers refer to Germany as a “party state.” The government of this type of state rests on the principle that competition among parties provides for both popular representation and political accountability for government action.

On the role of parties, Article 21 of the Basic Law stipulates that “the political parties shall participate in the forming of the political will of the people. They may be freely established. Their internal organization must conform to democratic principles. They must publicly account for the sources of their funds.” The 1967 Law on Parties further solidified the role of parties in the political process and addressed party organization, membership rights, and specific procedures, such as the nomination of candidates for office.

The educational function noted in Article 21 (“forming of the political will”) suggests that parties should help define public opinion rather than simply carry out the wishes of the electorate. Major parties are closely affiliated with large foundations, which are technically independent of individual party organizations. These foundations receive over 90 percent of their funding from public sources to carry out their educational role. They offer public education programs for youth and adults, research social and political issues, and facilitate international exchanges.

Party funding comes from membership dues, corporate and interest group gifts, and, since 1959, public funds. Figures on party financing from 1992 show that dues accounted for over 50 percent of SPD revenues and 42 percent of CDU revenues. Federal resources accounted for 24 percent of SPD revenues and 30 percent of CDU revenues; donations accounted for 8 percent and 17 percent, respectively. The parties must report all income, expenditures, and assets. The government substantially finances election campaigns. Any party that gains at least 0.5 percent of the national vote is eligible to receive a set sum. This sum has increased over time and, beginning in January 1984, amounted to DM5 from the federal treasury for every vote cast for a particular party in a Bundestag election. Parties at the Land level receive similar public subsidies. The political parties receive free campaign advertising on public television and radio stations for European, national, and Land elections. Airtime is allotted to parties proportionally based on past election performance. Parties may not purchase additional time.

Several events, including a party-financing scandal in the early 1980s and an electoral campaign in Schleswig-Holstein marked by dirty tricks in the late 1980s, have contributed to increased public distrust of the parties. A 1990 poll showed that West Germans, in ranking the level of confidence they had in a dozen social and political institutions, placed political parties very low on the list.

Although only 3 to 4 percent of voters were members of a political party, all the major parties experienced a decrease in party membership in the early 1990s, possibly a result of the increased distrust of political parties. SPD membership fell by 3.5 percent in 1992 to 888,000. At the end of the 1970s, the party had had more than 1 million members. CDU membership fell by 5 percent in 1992 to 714,000, while that of the FDP fell by about one-fifth to 110,000.

Article 21 of the Basic Law places certain restrictions on the ideological orientation of political parties: “Parties which, by reason of their aims or the behavior of their adherents, seek to impair or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany, shall be unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court shall decide on the question of unconstitutionality.” This provision allowed for the banning of the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands–KPD) in 1956.

The decision to regulate the organization and activities of political parties reflects lessons learned from Germany’s experience during the post-World War I Weimar Republic, when a weak multiparty system severely impaired the functioning of parliamentary democracy and was effectively manipulated by antidemocratic parties. After World War II, many parties dotted the West German political landscape, but electoral laws allowed only parties with at least 5 percent of the vote to have representation in national and Land parliaments. Over time, the smaller parties faded from the scene. From 1962 to 1982, the Bundestag contained representatives from only four parties: the CDU, the CSU, the SPD, and the FDP. The Greens gained enough of the national vote to win seats in 1983, and unification brought additional parties into the Bundestag in late 1990. At the federal level, the CSU coalesces with the CDU, the largest conservative party. The SPD is the major party of the left. The liberal FDP is, typically, the critical swing party, which can form a coalition with either the CDU/CSU or the SPD to create the majority needed to pass legislation in the Bundestag.

Political Parties:
Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union
Social Democratic Party of Germany
Free Democratic Party of Germany
Green Party of Germany
The Republikaner and the German People’s Union
Party of Democratic Socialism

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The Basic Law guarantees the right to vote by secret ballot in direct and free elections to every German citizen eighteen years of age or older. To be eligible to vote, an individual must have resided in a constituency district for at least three months prior to an election. Officials who are popularly elected include Bundestag deputies at the federal level, Landtag representatives or senate members at the Land level, and council members at the district and local levels. Executive officials typically are not chosen in popular, direct elections; however, in a minority of municipalities the mayor is elected by popular vote. Elections usually are held every four years at all levels. Elections at the federal, Land, and local levels are not held simultaneously, as in the United States, but rather are staggered. As a result, electoral campaigns are almost always under way, and each election is viewed as a test of the federal government’s popularity and the strength of the opposition. All elections are held on Sunday.

Voter turnout, traditionally high–around 90 percent for national elections–has been decreasing since the early 1980s. Voters are most likely to participate in general elections, but even at that level turnout in western Germany fell from 89.1 percent in 1983 to 84.3 percent in 1987, and to 78.5 percent in 1990. The 1990 general election was the first following unification; turnout was the lowest since the first West German election in 1949. The most consistent participants in the electoral process are civil servants, and a clear correlation exists between willingness to vote and increasing social and professional status and income. Analysts had been predicting a further drop in turnout, the result of increasing voter alienation, for the national election in October 1994; in fact, turnout increased slightly to 79.1 percent.

In designing the electoral system, the framers of the Basic Law had two objectives. First, they sought to reestablish the system of proportional representation used during the Weimar Republic. A proportional representation system distributes legislative seats based on a party’s percentage of the popular vote. For example, if a party wins 15 percent of the popular vote, it receives 15 percent of the seats in the Bundestag. The second objective was to construct a system of single-member districts, like those in the United States. The framers believed that this combination would create an electoral system that would not fragment as the Weimar Republic had and would ensure greater accountability of representatives to their electoral districts. A hybrid electoral system of personalized proportional representation resulted.

Under the German electoral system, each voter casts two ballots in a Bundestag election. The elector’s first vote is cast for a candidate running to represent a particular district. The candidate who receives a plurality of votes becomes the district representative. Germany is divided into 328 electoral districts with roughly 180,000 voters in each district. Half of the Bundestag members are directly elected from these districts. The second ballot is cast for a particular political party. These second votes determine each party’s share of the popular vote.

The first ballot is designed to decrease the anonymity of a strict proportional representation system–thus the description “personalized”–but it is the second ballot that determines how many Bundestag seats each party will receive. To ensure that each party’s percentage of the combined district (first ballot) and party (second ballot) seats equals its share of the second vote, each party is allocated additional seats. These additional party seats are filled according to lists of candidates drawn up by the state party organization prior to the election. Research indicates that constituency representatives in the Bundestag are more responsive to their electorate’s needs and are slightly more likely to follow their constituents’ preferences when voting than deputies chosen from the party lists.

If a party wins more constituency seats than it is entitled to according to its share of the vote in the second ballot, the party retains those seats, and the size of the Bundestag is increased. This was the case in both the 1990 and 1994 federal elections. After the 1990 election, the total number of seats in the Bundestag rose from 656 to 662. In 1994 sixteen extra seats were added, leading to a 672-member Bundestag; twelve of those seats went to Kohl’s CDU and accounted for Kohl’s ten-seat margin of victory.

One crucial exception to Germany’s system of personalized proportional representation is the so-called 5 percent clause. The electoral law stipulates that a party must receive a minimum of 5 percent of the national vote, or three constituency seats, in order to get any representation in the Bundestag. An exception was made for the first all-Germany election in December 1990, with the Federal Constitutional Court setting separate 5 percent minimums for the old and new Laender . Thus, a party needed only to win 5 percent of the vote in either western or eastern Germany in order to receive seats in the Bundestag.

The 5 percent clause was crafted to prevent the proliferation of small extremist parties like those that destabilized the Weimar Republic. This electoral hurdle has limited the success of minor parties and consolidated the party system. Often voters are reluctant to vote for a smaller party if they are unsure if it will clear the 5 percent threshold. Smaller parties, such as the FDP, encourage voters to split their ticket, casting their first ballot for a named candidate of one of the larger parties and their second ballot for the FDP.

Small parties rarely win the three constituency seats that automatically qualify a party for parliamentary representation according to its overall share of the national vote. This rarity occurred in the 1994 national election. The Party of Democratic Socialism (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus–PDS), the renamed communist party of the former East Germany, won 4.4 percent of the national vote, an insufficient total to clear the 5 percent hurdle. The PDS surprised seemingly everyone, however, by winning four districts outright (all in eastern Berlin), entitling it to thirty seats in the Bundestag.

Germany holds no by-elections; if Bundestag deputies resign or die in office, they are automatically succeeded by the next candidate on the party’s list in the appropriate Land. There are also no primary elections through which voters can choose party representatives. Rather, a small group of official party members nominates constituency candidates, and candidates appearing on the Land party lists are chosen at Land party conventions held six to eight weeks before the election. Party officials at the federal level play no part in the nominating procedure. Roughly two-thirds of the candidates run as both constituent and list candidates, thus increasing their chances of winning a legislative seat. If a candidate wins in a constituency, his or her name is automatically removed from the Land list. There is considerable jockeying among party factions and various interest groups as candidates are selected and placed on the Land lists. Placement near the top of the list is usually given to incumbents, party members of particular political prominence, or members who have the support of a key faction or interest group. Thus, aspiring politicians are quite dependent on their party, and successful candidates tend to evince loyalty to the party’s policy platform. Candidates must be at least twenty-one years old.

For electoral lawmaking the most difficult part in terms of constitutional principles is the equality of the election. On the one hand, certain inequalities are unavoidable as the constituencies can not be of exactly equal size and the turnout, too, is not homogenous. On the other hand, the “Überhangmandate” (the “overhang”, or extra seats in Parliament a party gets due to gaining more constituency seats than it is entitled to according to Parliament’s proportional seating principle) and a “negatives Stimmgewicht” (negative vote value: an unwanted outcome changing an elector’s vote to the opposite of their intended political will expressed with that vote) might influence the “one man, one vote” principle. On 3 July 2008, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the paradox of the “negatives Stimmgewicht”, which is still in effect, to be unconstitutional. For this reason election law has to be changed by 30 June 2011 so that a negative vote value will no longer be possible.

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The second legislative chamber, the Bundesrat, is the federal body in which the sixteen Land governments are directly represented. It exemplifies Germany’s federalist system of government. Members of the Bundesrat are not popularly elected but are appointed by their respective Land governments. Members tend to be Land government ministers. The Bundesrat has sixty-nine members. The Laender with more than 7 million inhabitants have six seats (Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia). The Laender with populations of between 2 million and 7 million have four seats (Berlin, Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia). The least populous Laender, with fewer than 2 million inhabitants, receive three seats each (Bremen, Hamburg, and the Saarland). This system of representation, although designed to reflect Land populations accurately, in fact affords greater representation per inhabitant to the smaller Laender. The presidency of the Bundesrat rotates annually among the Laender. By law, each Land delegation is required to vote as a bloc in accordance with the instructions of the Land government.

Because the Bundesrat is so much smaller than the Bundestag, it does not require the extensive organizational structure of the lower house. The Bundesrat typically schedules plenary sessions once a month for the purpose of voting on legislation prepared in committee. In comparison, the Bundestag conducts about fifty plenary sessions a year. Bundesrat representatives rarely attend committee sessions; instead, they delegate that responsibility to civil servants from their ministries, as allowed for in the Basic Law. The members tend to spend most of their time in their Land capitals, rather than in the federal capital.

The legislative authority of the Bundesrat is subordinate to that of the Bundestag, but the upper house nonetheless plays a vital legislative role. The federal government must present all legislative initiatives first to the Bundesrat; only thereafter can a proposal be passed to the Bundestag. Further, the Bundesrat must approve all legislation affecting policy areas for which the Basic Law grants the Laender concurrent powers and for which the Laender must administer federal regulations. The Bundesrat has increased its legislative responsibilities over time by successfully arguing for a broad, rather than a narrow, interpretation of what constitutes the range of legislation affecting Land interests. In 1949 only 10 percent of all federal laws, namely, those directly affecting the Laender, required Bundesrat approval. In 1993 close to 60 percent of federal legislation required the upper house’s assent. The Basic Law also provides the Bundesrat with an absolute veto of such legislation.

The political power of the absolute veto is particularly evident when the opposition party or parties in the Bundestag have a majority in the Bundesrat. When this is the case, the opposition can threaten the government’s legislative program. Such a division of authority can complicate the process of governing when the major parties disagree, and, unlike the Bundestag, the Bundesrat cannot be dissolved under any circumstances.

This bicameral system also has advantages. Some observers emphasize that different majorities in the two chambers ensure that all legislation, when approved, has the support of a broad political spectrum–a particularly valuable attribute in the aftermath of unification, when consensus on critical policy decisions is vital. The formal representation of the Laender in the federal government through the upper chamber provides an obvious forum for the coordination of policy between the Laender and the federal government. The need for such coordination, particularly given the specific, crucial needs of the eastern Laender, has become only more important.

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The Bundestag is the principal legislative chamber, roughly analogous to the United States House of Representatives. The Bundestag has grown gradually since its creation, most dramatically with unification and the addition of 144 new representatives from eastern Germany, for a total of 656 deputies in 1990. A further expansion in 1994 increased the number to 672. Elections are held every four years (or earlier if a government falls from power). Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public. All candidates must be at least twenty-one years old; there are no term limits.

The most important organizational structures within the Bundestag are parliamentary groups (Fraktionen ; sing., Fraktion), which are formed by each political party represented in the chamber. The size of a party’s Fraktion determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Bundestag. The head of the largest Fraktion is named president of the Bundestag. The Fraktionen, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities.

The leadership of each Fraktion consists of a parliamentary party leader, several deputy leaders, and an executive committee. The leadership’s major responsibilities are to represent the Fraktion, enforce party discipline, and orchestrate the party’s parliamentary activities. The members of each Fraktion are distributed among working groups focused on specific policy-related topics such as social policy, economics, and foreign policy. The Fraktion meets once a week to consider legislation before the Bundestag and formulate the party’s position on it.

The Bundestag’s executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Bundestag leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each Fraktion, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the party in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on party representation. The council also serves as an important forum for interparty negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chamber’s president and vice presidents (one from each Fraktion).

Most of the legislative work in the Bundestag is the product of standing committees. Although this is common practice in the United States Congress, it is uncommon in other parliamentary systems, such as the British House of Commons and the French National Assembly. The number of committees approximates the number of federal ministries, and the titles of each are roughly similar (e.g., defense, agriculture, and labor). Between 1987 and 1990, the term of the eleventh Bundestag, there were twenty-one standing committees. The distribution of committee chairs and the membership of each committee reflect the relative strength of the various parties in the chamber. In the eleventh Bundestag, the CDU/CSU chaired eleven committees, the SPD eight, the FDP one, and the environmentalist party, the Greens (Die Gruenen), one. Unlike in the United States Congress, where all committees are chaired by members of the majority party, the German system allows members of the opposition party to chair a significant number of standing committees. These committees have either a small staff or no staff at all.

Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility. The Bundestag concentrates much of its energy on assessing and amending the government’s legislative program. The committees play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered. The Bundestag allots each Fraktion a certain amount of time, based on its size, to express its views.

Other responsibilities of the Bundestag include selecting the federal chancellor and exercising oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Fragestunde), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent’s problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 1987-90 Bundestag term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.

One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the United States Congress is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. In part, that difference results from the fact that only 50 percent of Bundestag deputies are directly elected to represent a specific geographic district; the other half are elected as party representatives. The political parties are thus of great importance in Germany’s electoral system, and many voters tend not to see the candidates as autonomous political personalities but rather as creatures of the party. Interestingly, constituent service seems not to be perceived, either by the electorate or by the representatives, as a critical function of the legislator. A practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag deputies.

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The heart of any parliamentary system of government is the legislature. Germany has a bicameral parliament. The two chambers are the Bundestag (Federal Diet or lower house) and the Bundesrat (Federal Council or upper house). Both chambers can initiate legislation, and most bills must be approved by both chambers, as well as the executive branch, before becoming law. Legislation on issues within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, such as international treaties, does not require Bundesrat approval.

The federal government introduces most legislation; when it does so, the Bundesrat reviews the bill and then passes it on to the Bundestag. If a bill originates in the Bundesrat, it is submitted to the Bundestag through the executive branch. If the Bundestag introduces a bill, it is sent first to the Bundesrat and, if approved there, forwarded to the executive. The Joint Conference Committee resolves any differences over legislation between the two legislative chambers. Once the compromise bill that emerges from the conference committee has been approved by a majority in both chambers and by the cabinet, it is signed into law by the federal president and countersigned by the relevant cabinet minister.

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The federal government consists of the chancellor and his or her cabinet ministers. As explained above, the Basic Law invests the chancellor with central executive authority. For that reason, some observers refer to the German political system as a “chancellor democracy.” The chancellor’s authority emanates from the provisions of the Basic Law and from his or her status as leader of the party or coalition of parties holding a majority of seats in the Bundestag. Every four years, after national elections and the seating of the newly elected Bundestag members, the federal president nominates a chancellor candidate to that parliamentary body; the chancellor is elected by majority vote in the Bundestag.

The Basic Law limits parliament’s control over the chancellor and the cabinet. Unlike most parliamentary legislatures, the Bundestag cannot remove the chancellor simply with a vote of no-confidence. In the Weimar Republic, this procedure was abused by parties of both political extremes in order to oppose chancellors and undermine the democratic process. As a consequence, the Basic Law allows only for a “constructive vote of no-confidence.” That is, the Bundestag can remove a chancellor only when it simultaneously agrees on a successor. This legislative mechanism ensures both an orderly transfer of power and an initial parliamentary majority in support of the new chancellor. The constructive no-confidence vote makes it harder to remove a chancellor because opponents of the chancellor not only must disagree with his or her governing but also must agree on a replacement.

As of 1995, the Bundestag had tried to pass a constructive no-confidence vote twice, but had succeeded only once. In 1972 the opposition parties tried to replace Chancellor Willy Brandt of the SPD with the CDU party leader because of profound disagreements over the government’s policies toward Eastern Europe. The motion fell one vote shy of the necessary majority. In late 1982, the CDU convinced the FDP to leave its coalition with the SPD over differences on economic policy and to form a new government with the CDU and the CSU. The constructive no-confidence vote resulted in the replacement of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt with Helmut Kohl, the CDU party leader. Observers agree that the constructive no-confidence vote has increased political stability in Germany.

The chancellor also may make use of a second type of no-confidence vote to garner legislative support in the Bundestag. The chancellor can append a simple no-confidence provision to any government legislative proposal. If the Bundestag rejects the proposal, the chancellor may request that the president dissolve parliament and call new elections. Although not commonly used, this procedure enables the chancellor to gauge support in the Bundestag for the government and to increase pressure on the Bundestag to vote in favor of legislation that the government considers as critical. Furthermore, governments have employed this simple no-confidence motion as a means of bringing about early Bundestag elections. For example, after Kohl became chancellor through the constructive no-confidence vote in August 1982, his government purposely set out to lose a simple no-confidence provision in order to bring about new elections and give voters a chance to validate the new government through a democratic election.

Article 65 of the Basic Law sets forth three principles that define how the executive branch functions. First, the “chancellor principle” makes the chancellor responsible for all government policies. Any formal policy guidelines issued by the chancellor are legally binding directives that cabinet ministers must implement. Cabinet ministers are expected to introduce specific policies at the ministerial level that reflect the chancellor’s broader guidelines. Second, the “principle of ministerial autonomy” entrusts each minister with the freedom to supervise departmental operations and prepare legislative proposals without cabinet interference so long as the minister’s policies are consistent with the chancellor’s larger guidelines. Third, the “cabinet principle” calls for disagreements between federal ministers over jurisdictional or budgetary matters to be settled by the cabinet.

The chancellor determines the composition of the cabinet. The federal president formally appoints and dismisses cabinet ministers, at the recommendation of the chancellor; no Bundestag approval is needed. According to the Basic Law, the chancellor may set the number of cabinet ministers and dictate their specific duties. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard had the largest cabinet, with twenty-two ministers, in the mid-1960s. Kohl presided over seventeen ministers at the start of his fourth term in 1994.

The power of the smaller coalition partners, the FDP and the CSU, was evident from the distribution of cabinet posts in Kohl’s government in 1995. The FDP held three ministries–the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, and Ministry for Economics. CSU members led four ministries–the Ministry of Finance, Ministry for Health, Ministry for Post and Telecommunications, and Ministry for Economic Cooperation.

The staff of a cabinet minister is managed by at least two state secretaries, both of whom are career civil servants responsible for the ministry’s administration, and a parliamentary state secretary, who is generally a member of the Bundestag and represents the ministry there and in other political forums. Typically, state secretaries remain in the ministry beyond the tenure of any one government, in contrast to the parliamentary state secretary, who is a political appointee and is viewed as a junior member of the government whose term ends with the minister’s. Under these top officials, the ministries are organized functionally in accordance with each one’s specific responsibilities. Career civil servants constitute virtually the entire staff of the ministries.




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