ON I DECEMBER 1966 THE BUNDESTAG ELECTED THE CHRISTIAN democrat leader Kurt Georg Kiesinger as head of a government formed by Christian democrats (CDU) and social democrats (SPD), by a majority of 340 (out of 496) members. The liberals (FDP), with 49 members, were pushed aside into opposition. For the first time since 1930 the social democrats entered a German central government, not as the result of an electoral victory but at the conclusion of an inner Crisis within the hitherto existing majority. The CDU whose prestige was badly damaged by this crisis continued to provide the chancellor. This helps to explain why some 60 members of the coalescing parties voted against the candidate. Public opinion oscillated between feelings of relief because of the end of a period of insecurity, and feelings of discomfort in view of an experiment which seemed unorthodox and hazardous. The disputes around the grosse Koalition (great coalition) thus revealed the ambiguity of conceptions of parliamentary government as they had developed since the establishment of the Federal Republic.

EVERY POLITICAL SYSTEM, WHETHER IT IS PREDEMOCRATIC, DEMOcratic, or postdemocratic totalitarian, has both leaders and followers. All those who are leaders – in other words, all those who exercise power over followers – can be grouped together under the category of the ruling class. Any ruling class, to be such, obviously must be accepted by those who are ruled. Human beings are followers only if they choose to follow. Leaders must have recognition and at least some degree of consent from followers to be leaders. This is the necessary condition for possession of power by the ruling class. If the ruling class does not provide those elements which are necessary for the survival of the political system, both its power and that system are in peril. In return for the security which it provides its followers, the ruling class gives the tone to politics. It does not, however, have to occupy the actual administrative posts to be the ruling class, but it must possess a prestige position.

HISTORIANS AND POLITICAL SCIENTISTS HAVE CLEARLY ESTABLISHED that party as an institution developed slowly, and thus the term took in a wide variety of social forms. We also know that the acceptance of party competition and constitutional opposition was an equally gradual process, aided, but certainly not secured, by the writings of Bolingbroke or Burke. Throughout the 18th century, most references to party as such were unfavourable, although some echoed Bolingbroke's judgement that the efforts of a virtuous opposition were vita until, and only until, it triumphed. But before Burke, even before Bolingbroke, there was a theory of party nonetheless incisive because of its discontinuity with most writings of the time.

The general disrepute of party needs no elaboration. There has also been some valuable research into the much rarer genre of literature that showed a limited appreciation of the virtues of party conflict. A number of these sources were limited to the fleeting expression of an attitude rather than a coherent theory.