A year in German politics

[Louisistan]

Welcome, welcome everyone.

In this year-long course we will learn about Germany's political system and discuss German politics.

2017 will see the election of a new Federal President in February and elections for state legislatures in Saarland (March), Schleswig-Holstein and Nordrhein-Westfalen (both in May). The biggest event will be the elections for the Federal Diet in September. We will cover how the elections work and discuss their results along with any other interesting poltical tidbits that come along.

As this is a year-long course, anybody is welcome to jump in and out mid-course. I just ask that you tell me when you want to join/leave. There will be no grades, exams or credits, since the university doesn't have a graduation scheme of any sort.

Disclaimer: Although I will try to be as neutral as I can when explaining stuff, my views may be biased. Also when I join in on a discussion that will most definitely be biased

[Tuga Nation's Dragon]

That sounds interesting... Count me in!

[Ater Nox]

Sounds interesting Louis.

[Klopstock]

I'm in for this as well.

[Baden-Wuerttemberg]

This is a good idea.

I’ll at least read, even if I don’t know yet how much I’ll participate. On the one hand, usually when I post on the forum here, I seek silly creative free time enjoyment, and don’t find real world politics source of much happiness. On the other hand, running, reading and contributing serious dicussions on this forum is a very good thing. Having people from so many parts of the world together in a civilised and friendly virtual environment is an unusual and fortunate constellation.

[Tanzoria]

I'll participate

[Louisistan]

Alright, we will start with a basic overview of Germany's political system.

The Federal Republic of Germany is comprised of 16 states. The Basic Law, Germany's constitution, divides up the responsibilities of the States and the Federation and also defines some areas where states and the Federation share responsibility. Both on a state and on a federal level, a separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicative branches is in place. We will dive into the political systems of some of the states later in this course.

Fig. 1: Overview over Germany's political system [1]

The legislative branch on the federal level is a bi-cameral legislature. The large chamber, called the Federal Diet (Bundestag) is elected every four years. The small chamber, the Federal Council (Bundesrat) is not elected. Each state has a number of seats in the council proportional to their population. The seats are usually filled by representatives from the state governments based on the subject matter to be discussed. The Federal Council ensures that the states are aedequatly represented in the legislative process. Certain actions, laws and executive orders require the consent of the Federal Council while others do not.

Formally the highest office in Germany is that of the Federal President (Bundespräsident). The president serves as Head of State, but has mostly representative powers. His actual executive powers are limited. He signs treatys on behalf of the Republic, but they only come into effect after ratification by the Federal Diet. The most prominent power is the power to sign bills into law after they have been passed by the Federal Diet (and if necessars the Federal Council). While the president has no formal veto powers he may refuse to sign a bill into law if the legislative process has not been adhered to or if he believes the law to be unconstitutional. This is a rare occurence. Even rarer are the instances in which the President may exercise his power to dissolve the Federal Diet. This is only possible after the Federal Diet rejects a motion of confidence in the Federal Chancellor. If the Federal Diet is dissolved, a new one has to be elected.
The Deputy to the Federal President is the President of the Federal Council which is the Head of one of the states rotating on an annual basis.

The most powerful office in Germany is the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler). The Chancellor is the head of Government and is elected by the Federal Diet, usually following an election of the Federal Diet. The Federal Diet may recall the Federal Chancellor by electing a new one (this happened in 1982, when Helmut Kohl was elected and thus Helmut Schmidt was recalled). This is called a "constructive vote of no confidence". The Federal Chancellor chooses the cabinet ministers and recommends them to the President for appointment. The President formally appoints them and the Chancellor. The Chancellor and all of the ministers are sworn in with an oath of office.

The ministers of the cabinet head their respective ministries which in turn administer the numerous federal agencies.

The federal judicative branch consists of several federal courts. The most prominent one is the Federal Constitutional Court. One half of the hudges are elected by the Federal Council, the other half by the Federal Diet.

I hope you all have a rough idea of how our political system works. I may have skipped over some of the details in order to make it easier to get an overview. So feel free to ask all the questions you have. The next lesson will introduce you to the most relevant political parties.

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[1] By 111Alleskönner - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22057638

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Tuga Nation's Dragon,Ater Nox,Klopstock,Baden-Wuerttemberg,Tanzoria,

[Tanzoria]

One small question
You say the president has powers to veto a bill if the legislative process has not been adhered to. How exactly could the bill have made it to the president's desk if this had not happened?

[Louisistan]

Jan 29, 2017 7:23:41 GMT -5 Tanzoria said:

One small question
You say the president has powers to veto a bill if the legislative process has not been adhered to. How exactly could the bill have made it to the president's desk if this had not happened?

Fraud?

In theory, there could be a scenario in which the Federal Diet tries to cut corners and submit a bill to the president even though it should be sent to the Federal Council first. Maybe they'd argue the council needn't be involved. In any case, I don't think that has ever happened (I'd have to check though). It's more of a due diligence formality, but the. President has to check that the process has been followed.

[Dominion of Compassion]

Is there any chance I can still attend?

[Louisistan]

Jan 29, 2017 13:25:27 GMT -5 Dominion of Compassion said:

Is there any chance I can still attend?

sure thing

[Tuga Nation's Dragon]

Nice overview. It has some similarities with the portuguese system... A difference I found is the existence of the Federal Council... One question, you said that the members of the Federal Council are not elected, so they are nominated? How?

[Tanzoria]

Also you might have mentioned it and I just missed it, but the President is elected right?

[Louisistan]

Jan 29, 2017 16:25:16 GMT -5 Tuga Nation's Dragon said:

Nice overview. It has some similarities with the portuguese system... A difference I found is the existence of the Federal Council... One question, you said that the members of the Federal Council are not elected, so they are nominated? How?

The Federal Council does not have a fixed membership. The seats belong to the states as opposed to selective councilmember. States usually dispatch members of their respective government when the council convenes.

For example, let's say that the agenda for that day lists a traffic law bill, the selection of a judge for the constitutional court and a tax bill. Then a state with three seats might choose to send their Prime Minister, their Minister of transportation and their Finance Minister to the council that day. When the council next convenes, they might send someone else entirely.

[Louisistan]

Jan 29, 2017 17:54:58 GMT -5 Tanzoria said:

Also you might have mentioned it and I just missed it, but the President is elected right?

Oh dear. I skipped over too much there.

Yes. The president is elected, but not directlt by the people. He or she is elected by the Federal Convention (Bundesversammlung). The Federal Convention exists and convenes for the sole purpose of electing the President. The convention consists of all the members of the Federal Diet and an equal number of electors, selected by the states. We will go over the specifics of the convention soon, because the next president will be elected on February 12th.

[Markanite]

Sign me up too Louisistan

[Tuga Nation's Dragon]

Jan 30, 2017 1:26:08 GMT -5 Louisistan said:

Jan 29, 2017 16:25:16 GMT -5 Tuga Nation's Dragon said:

Nice overview. It has some similarities with the portuguese system... A difference I found is the existence of the Federal Council... One question, you said that the members of the Federal Council are not elected, so they are nominated? How?

The Federal Council does not have a fixed membership. The seats belong to the states as opposed to selective councilmember. States usually dispatch members of their respective government when the council convenes.

For example, let's say that the agenda for that day lists a traffic law bill, the selection of a judge for the constitutional court and a tax bill. Then a state with three seats might choose to send their Prime Minister, their Minister of transportation and their Finance Minister to the council that day. When the council next convenes, they might send someone else entirely.

Got it... that's really a good way to not centralize the power too much... We could learn something there...

[Louisistan]

Alright. Time to go over Germany's most relevant political parties.

Germany has a myriad of different politicals parties, reaching from the far-right to the far-left and including some satiric or otherwise exotic choices. For now, we're only going to focus on those parties that have a shot at seats in the Federal Diet according to current polls:

The Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (Christian Democratic Union of Germany; CDU) is considered the conservative party, although in recent years they have made a push for the middle and have even implemented policies which have previously been considered left-wing, such as the current refugee policy and the decision to shut of all nuclear power plants by 2022. The current Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel is a member of the CDU, as are six of her cabinet ministers. The CDU was the ruling party in the early days of the republic. The first three Chancellors, from 1949 to 1969 were all CDU members, as was Helmut Kohl, who's government oversaw the German reunification of 1990. More recently, the CDU has been in power again since 2005 with changing coalitions. Currently the CDU is in a so-called "great coalition". The term "great coalition" is used when the two largest parties in the parliament form a coalition.

The Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern (Christian Social Union in Bavaria; CSU) is a party which runs exclusively in the State of Bavaria. The CSU is the conservative party in Bavaria and generally considered to be more conservative than the CDU, which does not stand for election in Bavaria. The CSU has been the ruling party since 1957. On a Federal level, the CSU forms a symbiosis with the CDU. Because the CDU does not stand for election in Bavaria while the CSU does only stand for election in Bavaria, they do not compete against each other. In the Federal Diet, CDU and CSU form a joint caucus. When referring to both parties, the term "the Union" is commonly used.

The Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democrat Party of Germany; SPD) is the second "Volkspartei" next to the CDU, meaning that CDU and SPD have historically been the largest parties, both in terms of membership and in terms of parliament mandates. The SPD dates back to 1863. Since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949, the SPD has been in power from 1969 to 1982, and again from 1998 to 2005. It was also part of the government from 2005 to 2009 and again since 2013 as the smaller party in the "great coalition". As the name indicates, SPD members are social democrats, putting them on the left side of the political spectrum, but closer to the centre than other left-wing parties.

Die Linke (The Left) is - as the name rightly indicates - a left-wing party. It identifies its political standpoint as "democratic socialism". The Left has been criticized because it partly descends from the former ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; the socialist East Germany until 1990). While some members are former members of the SPD, others identify themselves as communists, which is why The Left covers a wide spectrum of left-wing politics.

Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen (Alliance 90 / The Greens, or The Greens for short), was founded as a merger between Bündnis 90, a party which stemmed from the civil rights movement in the former GDR and The Greens, a party founded in West Germany in the 1970s. With these parties as its roots, The Greens have historically placed an emphasis on civil rights, environmental policy and pacifism. Yet, when the party was part of the ruling coalition of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, it supported German involvement in the peacekeeping missions in former Yugoslavia. This caused massive frictions in the party. In more recent times, some have criticized The Greens for suggesting policies that seem to overreach government mandates, such as suggesting all public cafeterias should designate one day per week as "Veggie-Day" where no meat will be served (actual part of their party platform in the 2013 elections).

The Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party; FDP) is the liberal party in Germany. As such, they place an emphasis on liberal economic and social policies, although the focus has been on economic policies at times. Before the emergence of The Greens, the FDP was the third largest party of Germany and as such was part of Federal government coalitions from 1949 to 1966 (Chancellors Adenauer and Erhard, both CDU), 1979 to 1998 (Chancellors Brandt and Schmidt, both SPD and Kohl, CDU) and 2009 to 2013 (Chancellor Merkel, CDU). In 2013, the FDP did not win any seats in the Federal Diet for the first time since 1949.

The Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany; AfD) is a right-wing populist party founded in 2013. Originally, it was founded by Academics criticizing the European Union and the Euro in particular. However, the party quickly became a pool for those who felt disenfranchised by what they perceived to be a political elite disconnected from the needs of the people. As such, it quickly tried to position itself as a conservative party to the right of the CDU. When more and more members of the party went on record in support of right-wing or extreme right-wing policies and in support of the right-wing movement "PEGIDA", one of their founders left the party in 2015. Since then, the party has provoked several scandals by repeatedly pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable in the political debate. The AfD continouusly claims to be underrepresented in the German media, accusing the media of deliberately disadvantaging the AfD. After the AfD narrowly missed winning seats for the Federal Diet in 2013, it currently is a about 14% in the polls, which would place it firmly inside the parliament.

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Tuga Nation's Dragon,Ater Nox,Klopstock,Baden-Wuerttemberg,Tanzoria,Dominion of Compassion,Markanite,

[Tuga Nation's Dragon]

Very well explained... Just one question, is there any party in Germany with the extreme-right ideology? Like the party of Marine Le Pen in France, and with the EU contestation rising in various countries, it is known that those parties are gaining more followers... Is this happening in Germany as well?

[Louisistan]

Yeah, that's the AfD. They're even partnering up with France's Front National anf everything. There's also a few outright Neo-Nazi parties, such as the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany; NPD) or Die Republikaner (The Republicans). But unlike the AfD they're currently nowhere near gaining any seats.

[Tanzoria]

The federal die has a proportional representation system, right

[Baden-Wuerttemberg]

Feb 1, 2017 3:58:23 GMT -5 Tanzoria said:

The federal die has a proportional representation system, right

In the federal diet, it's proportional representation, with a qualification. There's an election threshold of five percent. It's popularly called die Fünf-Prozent-Klausel or die Fünf-Prozent-Hürde, the five percent clause / hurdle. Any party must receive at minimum 5% of votes in total to obtain any seats.

[Louisistan]

In fact, it's mixed-proportional representation. More on that when we near the election. But Ba-Wue is right. Unless you win a direct mandate from an electoral district, you need 5% minimum to get any seats.

[Baden-Wuerttemberg]

Ah, that's right, I'd forgotten about the direct mandates which can overrule the 5 percent hurdle.

[Witchcraft and Sorcery]

I'm down for this too! Thanks for the explanations so far - I have a fairly working knowledge of the political scene in Germany but some of the details still escape me. Thanks for doing this Louis!

[Hahiha / USSR]

I seem to have missed the sign-up phase but I'd still like to join.

[Louisistan]

Election of the Federal President

On February 12th, the 16th Federal Convention will convene in the chamber of the Federal Diet in order to elect the next Federal President. The sitting President Joachim Gauck will not be running for re-election. The Convention will consist of the 630 members of the Federal Diet and another 630 members which were chosen by the state legislatures.

The Convention will most likely have these parties:
CDU/CSU: 539 seats
SPD: 384 seats
Greens: 174 seats
Lefts: 95 seats
FDP: 36 seats
Pirates: 11 seats
FW: 10 seats
SSW: 1 seat
BVB/FW: 1 seat
AfD: 35 seats
Independent: 1 seat

The Piratenpartei (Pirate Party) is part of a movement which was founded in scandinavia. It aims at reforming intellecual property laws and reducing government surveillance. The Freie Wähler (Free Voters) are different movements in different states. In the list above "FW" refers to the Free Voters from Bavaria, while BVB/FW are those from Brandenburg. The SSW is the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (South Schleswig Voter's Association), a party representing the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein. The one independent seat belongs to Erika Steinbach, a conservative former CDU member and member of the Federal Diet, who recently left her party and caucus.

The Electors selected by the states are usually mostly state politicians, but also include a few celebrities. The German National Soccer Team's Coach Joachim Löw will be representing The Greens from Baden-Württemberg.

The Federal Convention will be chaired by the President of the Federal Diet, Norbert Lammert (CDU). In order to be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of votes (631 votes) on either the first or second ballot. If that doesn't happen a simple majority is needed on the third ballot.

CDU, CSU, FDP and the Greens have nominated former Foreign Minister Dr. Frank Walter Steinmeier (pictured left) for the office. The AfD has nominated Albrecht Glaser, a former city treasurer from Frankfurt. Prof. Dr. Christoph Butterwege from Cologne has been nominated by The Lefts and Judge Alexander Hold (a judge both on TV and in real life) has been nominated by the FW. Comedian Martin Sonneborn (founder of the satire party "Die PARTEI" and member of the European Parliament) who has been sent to the Federal Convention by the Pirate Party has announced that he will nominate his father because "he's the only one that hasn't done anything wrong".

Normally, all (or almost all) members of the Convention vote along party lines, which makes it very likely that Dr. Steinmeier will be elected on the first ballot.

The election will be broadcast via a live stream on the Federal Diet website.

[Hahiha / USSR]

I know this is off-topic but it's been making me curious. How did Prussia turn into Germany?

[Louisistan]

Short version: It did not.

Long version: Until 1803 what we now call Germany was a veritable patchwork of small principalities and states. They were banded together in the Holy Roman Empire, but enjoyed wide sovereignty.

In 1803, the empire was reorganised and the number of states was severely reduced. Prussia gained large portions of northern Germany and becomes the largest state. Under the influence of Napoleon, the empire formally ceased to exist in 1806. The smaller states did not. The ones that supported Napoleon came together in the Rheinbund. But ultimately, Napoleon was defeated.

Fast forward to 1848: After a short period of revolution, Democratic forces try to found a new German Empire as a constitutional monarchy. When deciding on a monarch, they choose the King of Prussia. He declines. For multiple reasons, the revolution is unsuccessful.

In 1871 the German Empire is founded. The driving force behind this is the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The King of Prussia becomes Emperor of Germany.

The Nazis ultimately abolished the states (including Prussia). After the war, allied forces declared Prussian militarism as one of the things that helped the Nazis rise to power. Thus, Prussia was not revived.

[Witchcraft and Sorcery]

I've been reading around - Merkel's numbers have slipped even further. There was an article on Tagesschau recently about fractures growing between CDU and CSU that could cause problems for Merkel. Horst Seehofer (head of the CSU) seems to favor stronger positions on certain issues than Merkel and I wouldn't be surprised if other parties begin to leverage that, particularly the rebounding SPD and the expanding AfD. I read a couple of articles that said the polling gap between SPD and CDU shrank to 4% since Martin Schulz was appointed. That's the closest the two biggest parties have been in several years.

It's also noteworthy that the outcome of France's national elections in April/May could play a huge role in how Germany's turn out. Marine Le Pen announced her candidacy under a very Trump/AfD-like banner and immediately became a frontrunner, though currently the race is wide open between three or four candidates.

It's probably inevitable that they gain some seats. I just hope that the other parties can maintain enough seats to ignore the AfD.