Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figure and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany
- Introduction: A Democratic Paradox?
- 1 The Puzzle of CDU Policy Making on Women's Issues
- 2 The Corporatist Catch-All Party Model
- 3 The Postwar CDU: Origins of a Corporatist Catch-All Party
- 4 The Emergence of the Women's Union, 1969–1982
- 5 The Women's Union in the Dominant Coalition, 1982–1989
- 6 Looking Eastward: The Women's Union and Cobbled Coalitions, 1989–1998
- 7 The Rise of Angela Merkel: Policy and Personnel Decisions of the CDU in Unified Germany
- 8 Christian Democracy With and Without Corporatism: Policy Making on Women's Issues in Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands
- 9 Conclusion
- Appendix: List of Cited Interviews
- List of References
- Index
2 - The Corporatist Catch-All Party Model
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figure and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany
- Introduction: A Democratic Paradox?
- 1 The Puzzle of CDU Policy Making on Women's Issues
- 2 The Corporatist Catch-All Party Model
- 3 The Postwar CDU: Origins of a Corporatist Catch-All Party
- 4 The Emergence of the Women's Union, 1969–1982
- 5 The Women's Union in the Dominant Coalition, 1982–1989
- 6 Looking Eastward: The Women's Union and Cobbled Coalitions, 1989–1998
- 7 The Rise of Angela Merkel: Policy and Personnel Decisions of the CDU in Unified Germany
- 8 Christian Democracy With and Without Corporatism: Policy Making on Women's Issues in Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands
- 9 Conclusion
- Appendix: List of Cited Interviews
- List of References
- Index
Summary
This chapter accomplishes three goals. It begins by developing the corporatist catch-all party model through a comparison with Kirchheimer's vision of a catch-all party. I call Kirchheimer's version of a catch-all party a “classic” catch-all party. The chapter goes on to explicate the policy-making dynamics in a corporatist catch-all party. Finally, it offers a preliminary explanation of the CDU's behavior on women's policy, based on this new model of party organization.
My concept of the corporatist catch-all party differs from the concept of the classic catch-all party in four ways: 1) party organization, 2) leadership, 3) membership, and 4) party policy making. These differences are summarized in Table 2.1.
A classic catch-all party has the following features. First, the primary internal party division is horizontal. In other words, the party has a leadership and a membership. Second, in a classic catch-all party, leadership is unified. Third, the membership of a classic catch-all party can only affect the party negatively by forcing leadership to follow a losing strategy. Fourth, a correct, i.e. winning strategy exists and the leadership knows what it is. The important question is whether or not the membership can prevent the leadership from pursuing this correct strategy.
A corporatist catch-all party differs from a classic catch-all party on all four dimensions. First, the party is organized both horizontally and vertically. Corporatist catch-all parties are divided into leaders and members, but also into internal party groups.
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- The CDU and the Politics of Gender in GermanyBringing Women to the Party, pp. 40 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010