Elections in the Länder
chap 9 27/5/03 11:57 am Page 289 9 Elections in the Länder Introduction Five phases can be distinguished in the development of political parties in the Länder. The first phase, from 1945 to 1953, was the period during which older parties were reestablished, e.g., SPD, and new parties were founded, e.g., the refugee party (BHE), CDU, and FDP (although the CDU has its roots in the old Center Party [Zentrum] and the FDP could be traced back to liberal parties of the Empire and Weimar Republic). The second phase, from 1953 to 1969, saw the developing concentration of 1 parties culminating in the three- (or “2 ⁄2”)-party system of CDU/CSU, SPD, and FDP. The third phase, from 1969 to 1983, was the period of three-party dominance, while in the fourth phase, from 1983 to 1990, the Greens emerged as a fourth party. Finally, following a reorientation after unification in 1990, a five-party system has developed at the national level with the rise of the PDS which, however, has a special regional character, and in Land elections has been confined to the new Länder and Berlin in the East just as the Greens and FDP have been successful only or mostly in the West.1 In order to provide the reader with some of the flavor and spice of Landtag elections, and to assess better some of the hypotheses about Land elections and parties that were mentioned in the previous chapter (pp. 267–273), a very brief overview of political developments in the Länder since 1945 is presented below.
[Show full text]