The Role of Party and Coalition Politics in Federal Reform

Abstract:

The article analyses the role of the German political parties as actors of federal change. Parties perceive federal processes through their own organizational lenses, giving priority to electoral logics, programmatic ideas or territorial interests. Each of the three reform steps in the German case was shaped by a specific blend of the three logics. Looking at the sequences of reform, the analysis shows that parties have remained central for organizing federal processes but have become less capable of arriving at cohesive and unified party positions. There have been struggles over which of the strategies was to prevail both within individual parties and across the party divide.

The territorial power balances within parties, the timing of the reform, that is, the constellation of political majorities at federal and regional levels in the moment of reform, and the policy issues in question are important framing conditions for the choice of particular party strategies.