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Selection, Voting and Adjudication: The Politics of Legislative Membership in the Federal Republic of Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Geoffrey K. Roberts
Geoffrey K. Roberts*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

There Has Been Much Concern In The Past Few Years About the ‘decline of parliament’ in West European democracies. In the United Kingdom, criticism of the New Labour government has included its apparent neglect of Parliament demonstrated by the style and strategies of the government, ranging from reduction in the time allotted to prime minister's question-time and the utilization of the mass media rather than Parliament as the forum for important policy statements, to the government's refusal to accept reforms to the method of appointments to House of Commons select committees, as recommended by the House of Commons Liaison Committee. Strong party discipline, coupled with sanctions which can affect the political careers of MPs for failure to obey the edicts of the party leadership, have limited the autonomy of MPs in Britain, and, to a varying degree, in other West European countries also. Certainly the German Bundestag has been criticized for being too much under the control of the leaderships of the political parties, in terms of voting on legislation, the stage-management of debates and the choice of leaders of the parliamentary parties (the removal by Chancellor Schröder of Scharping as leader of the SPD parliamentary party in 1998 at the instigation of Lafontaine, the then party chairman, is a notorious instance).

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2002 , pp. 231 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2002

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References

1 von Beyme, Klaus, ‘The Bundestag — Still the Centre of Decision-Making?’, in Helms, Ludger (éd.), Institutions and Institutional Change in the Federal Republic of Germany, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 2000, p. 34.Google Scholar

2 Schiittemeyer, Suzanne S., ‘Manager des Parlaments zwischen Effizienz und Offenheit. Parlamentarische Geschäftsführer im deutschen Bundestag’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage: Das Parliament, 36–7 (29 08 1997), p. 13.Google Scholar

3 There have been several instances of ministers holding office without being MdBs. In the Schroder government at present this is true of the Economics Minister, Muller. Other instances include Kiesinger as Chancellor of the grand coalition 1966–69 and Brandt, Foreign Minister in that coalition; Stoltenberg, Kohl’s Minister of Finance in 1982 and Bangemann, Economics Minister from 1984. In some cases such ministers have been appointed because of their extra-parliamentary expertise and experience, which may include holding a senior position in the civil service (e.g. Kinkel, FDP Minister of Justice 1990–92). Ministers are sometimes appointed who hold a position in a Land government or Land parliament. These often seek election to the Bundestag at the next opportunity.

4 Civil servants can stand for election to the Bundestag normally without difficulty. They are granted indefinite leave if they are elected, and can return to their civil service positions on leaving the Bundestag. Details are provided in the Law on the Legal Status of Members of the Bundestag 1977.

5 K. von Beyme, ‘The Bundestag’, op. cit., pp. 41–2.

6 In cities such as Cologne or Hamburg, where several constituencies are included within the boundaries of the city-wide party organization, one party meeting may select candidates for the whole set of city constituencies.

7 A notorious breach of these provisions arose in Hamburg in 1993, when the Hamburg constitutional court ruled that the CDU had not abided by the law in its selection procedures for the Land election of 1991, and a new election had to be held.

8 Zeuner, Bodo, Kandidatenaufstellung zur Bundestagswahl 1965, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1970, p. 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Very occasionally, mention is made of influence from party headquarters. For example, in 1961, the CDU tried to ensure that a candidate (Hahn) was given a safe place on the Baden-Württemberg CDU list because of his expertise as a theologian and his status as a professor (see Vogel, Bernhard and Haungs, Peter, Wahlkampf und Wãhlertradition, Cologne/Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1965, p. 249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). However, this amounts to little more than expression of a preference, and one which did not seem to run counter to the wishes of the Land party or the selection conference delegates.

10 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 October and 26 November 1985.

11 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 December 1982.

12 Kaufmann, Karlheinz, Kohl, Helmut and Molt, Peter, Kandidaten zum Bundestag, Cologne/Berlin, Kiepenhauer und Witsch, 1961, pp. 162–3Google Scholar; B. Zeuner, Kandidatenaufstellung, op. cit., p. 67.

13 B. Zeuner, ibid., pp. 176–95.

14 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 September 1986.

15 Hoffmann, Jürgen, Die doppelte Vereinigung. Vorgeschichte, Verlauf und Auswirkungen des Zusammenschlusses von Grilnen und Bilndnis ‘90, Opladen, Leske & Budrich, 1998, p. 298.Google Scholar

16 Boll, Bernhard and Römmele, Andrea, ‘Strakturelle Vorteile der Amtsinhaber? Wahlchancen von Parlamentariern im international Vergleich’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 25:4 (1994), pp. 544–5.Google Scholar

17 Saalfeld, Thomas, Fraktionen im Deutschen Bundestag 1949–1990, Opladen, Leske & Budrich, 1995, p. 205.Google Scholar

18 Kathleen Bawn, ‘Voter responses to electoral complexity: ticket splitting, rational voters and representation in the Federal Republic of Germany’ (unpublished manuscript), 1998, p. 21.

19 B. Zeuner, Kandidatenaufstellung, op. cit., pp. 33, 38, 92.

20 Staisch, Peter, ‘Die Kandidatenaufstellung zur Bundestagswahl 1969’, in von Beyme, K., Pawelka, P., Staisch, P. and Seibt, P. (eds), Wahlkampf und Parteiorganisation, Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1974, pp. 216–7, 223.Google Scholar

21 K. Kaufmann et al., Kandidaten, op. cit., pp. 155–62.

22 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5 August 1986.

23 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 June 1986.

24 Bayernkurier, 23 April and 22 October 1994 and 19 September 1998.

25 Bayernkurier, 23 April 1994, 19 September 1998.

26 Statistisches Bundesamt, Bevölkerung und Erwerbstãtigkeit. Wahl zum 14. Deutschen Bundestag am 27 September 1998 (Fachserie 1. Sonderheft: Die Wahlbewerber für die Wahl zum 14 Deutschen Bundestag 1998), Wiesbaden, Statistiches Bundesamt, 1998.

27 Roberts, Geoffrey K., ‘By Decree or by Design? The Surplus Seats Problem in the German Electoral System: Causes and Remedies’, Representation, 37:4 (2000), pp. 196–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Wahlen, Forschungsgruppe, Politbarometer, 09 1998, Mannheim, Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, 1998.Google Scholar

29 Schoen, Harald, ‘Stimmensplitting bei Bundestagswahlen: eine Form taktischer Wahlentscheidung?’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 29:2 (1998), pp. 234–43.Google Scholar

30 It is rare now for the SPD or CDU to have many constituency candidates not insured on the list. The SPD had only ten such ‘uninsured’ candidates in 1998, the CDU only 58 (of which 28 were in Baden-Wiirttemberg and 11 in North Rhein-Westphalia, indicating special policies of the Land party in those cases). The CSU in Bavaria is a special case. Because it has so many ‘safe’ constituency seats, it only had 17 constituency candidates insured on the list, but 28 who were not also on the list.

31 Kommers, Donald P., The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2nd (revised) edn, Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press, 1997, pp. 186–98.Google Scholar

32 The Electoral Law requires the total number of seats for each party to be calculated, using the Hare-Niemeyer formula (Stage I). This formula is then used to calculate how many seats each party in each Land should receive (Stage II). In each Land, the constituency seats won by a party are deducted from its total, with the remaining seats filled from the Land list. A party with more constituency seats in a Land than its Stage II allocation has to retain all those seats, of course: hence ‘surplus seats’. If the constituency seats won by a party were deducted from its national total before the Stage II allocation of seats to Land lists was made, then surplus seats could not arise, except where a party presented a list only in a single Land (e.g. the CSU in Bavaria).

33 G. Roberts, ‘By Decree or by Design?’, op. cit., pp. 199–200.

34 A particular problem will arise because, as a consequence of population movement from East Germany to West Germany, at least 26 of the 56 seats to be eliminated will be from the ‘new’ Lander, and more, should turnout in those Lander continue to be significantly lower than in Western Lander, since this will produce fewer list seats in eastern Germany (Blickpunkt Bundestag, 4 (April 2000), p. 8). This will mean much-reduced representation of East German MdBs on parliamentary committees.