Coalition politics as a factor weakening the intermediary function of political parties (the case of Germany)

Traditional reasons of the current crisis of political parties include changes in the social structure of society: the erosion of social classes that determine the ideological preferences of voters, which results in a decrease in their number. In an attempt to compensate these losses, the parties begin to hunt for a mass voter, going beyond the narrow ideological niche. However, the practice of coalition governments deteriorates the positioning of political parties and complicates their identification for voters. An important role in the transformation of political parties was played not only by social and economic changes - the blurring of borders between social classes, the changes in the values of citizens and the demographic and ethnic composition of societies, the development of information and communication technologies, but also by the reform of the electoral system. Proportional representation elections favour the representation in legislatures of all political and social groups in proportion to their strength in the electorate. At the same time this system leads to the creation of coalition governments, which require some compromises from partners at the expenses of their election promises. Thus, the absence of a convincing winner of the parliamentary elections, which is regular in many countries of the world with proportional and mixed electoral systems, led to a government crisis that lasted for more than four months in one of the most developed democracies. As the example of Germany shows, the logic of coalition negotiations contributes to the decline of the popularity of large parties, which the extreme and populist parties will certainly take advantage of in the event of extraordinary parliamentary elections. The further withdrawal of likely coalition partners from the provisions of their electoral programmes in search of an elusive compromise causes growing dissatisfaction among their supporters.

Keywords

Authors

References