Electoral Law Politics in West Germany
| Author | David P. Conradt |
| Published date | 01 September 1970 |
| Date | 01 September 1970 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1970.tb00438.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ELECTORAL LAW POLITICS
IN
WEST GERMANY
DAVID
P.
CONRADT’
University
of
Florida
As the Bonn democracy begins its third decade of ‘provisional’ existence,
the question of how West Germans are to elect their representatives remains
one of the few controversial constitutional issues in German politics.
Although in the past two decades increasing support at both elite and mass
levels for the representative institutions created by the Basic Law has devel-
oped,2 proposals for major changes in the electoral system have been and
remain an important item on the political agenda.
This article attempts to delineate the political and sociological factors
which continue to make the question of the electoral law an unsettled one
in
West Germany.
No
normative prescriptions will be made in this account,
nor
will
the pros and cons of various proposals be debated. Our concern is
more with the manner
in
which this issue has interacted with other political
and social questions facing the Bonn democracy. Rather than simply to
consider the electoral system as a force that moulds the party system,3 we
will seek to demonstrate that the relationship between the structure of a
party system and the electoral law is, at least in the West German case, more
complex than traditional studies have assumed. Also, while this report
presents no new empirical data on the probable consequences
of
different
types of electoral systems, the several attempts that have been made within
this area by German social scientists, together with the political effects
of
these empirical analyses, will also be evaluated.
1
The research for this article was supported by
a
grant from the Foreign Area Fellowship
Program.
2
In a trend analysis
of
public opinion data covering the
1949-1967
period, Elisabeth Noelle-
Neumann reports a steady rise among mass publics of support for Bonn’s institutions. See
Institut fur Demoskopie,
Das
politische Bewusstsein der wesrdeutschen Berolkerung
(Allensbach
am Bodensee,
14-20,31-37.
In
a
recent survey of Germanelites Rudolf Wildenmann
found that over two-thirds of his respondents regarded the present political system of the Federal
Republic as ‘stable’. Rudolf Wildenmann, ‘Eliten in der Bundesrepublik‘, unpublished manu-
script, Mannheim University,
1968,
p.
58.
3
This has been the traditional interpretation of the electoral law-party system relationship.
See
V.
0.
Key,
Polirical Parties and Pressure Groups
(New York,
1952).
pp.
224-5
and M.
Duverger,
Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State
(New York.
1963,
Wiley Science Edition). This interpretation is challenged by John
G.
Grumm, ‘Theories
of Electoral Systems’,
Midwest Journal
of
Political Science,
November
1958,
pp.
357-76.
See
also
Douglas
W.
Rae,
The Polifical Consequences
of
Electoral Laws
(New Haven,
1967).
Rae has
sought to test the traditional hypotheses about electoral systems with voting data from post-war
elections
in
twenty democracies.
Political Studiei,
Vol.
XVIII,
No.
3
(1970,
341-356)
342
ELECTORAL LAW POLITICS IN WEST GERMANY
THE
EXISTING
SYSTEM
The question of the electoral system has been a subject of debate in West
Germany ever since party politics were resumed following the war. The
present electoral law was the product of a compromise reached between the
Social Democrats (SPD), Free Democrats (FDP), Communist and
Zentrum
delegates to the Parliamentary Council in 1948-9.1 The Christian Demo-
crats (CDU), who desired a single-member district system, reluctantly
accepted a ‘personalized’ proportional law according to which 60 per cent
of the deputies were to be elected by plurality from single-member districts
with the remaining 40 per cent chosen from
Land
(state) lists. But the seats
won in district contests were to be deducted from the total due a party under
proportional representation (computed according to the d’Hondt pro-
cedure). Thus the more district mandates a party wins, the less list seats it will
receive.2 At the insistence of the Occupation authorities, a limiting clause
was also added which required a party to receive a minimum of 5 per cent
of
the vote in at least one
Land,
or
one direct mandate, in order to be propor-
tionally represented in the Bundestag. In 1953 these minimum requirements
were raised.
To
secure Bundestag representation, a party must now average
at least 5 per cent of the national vote or win at least three direct mandates.
Also
since 1953 there has been a 50-50 division of district and list seats. But
in order to ensure that there was no absolute reduction
of
district mandates,
the total number of seats has also been increased from 400 to 496.3
In practice this system has functioned like proportional representation,
modified mainly by the 5 per cent clause.4 This is because the party vote
(second vote) is used to proportionally allot the total number of seats a party
receives in
a
given
Land.
Victories in the single-member districts are then
subtracted from this total when the mandates are distributed. Thus if a party
is entitled to twenty seats from a given
Land
according to proportional
representation and has won sixteen single-member districts, it would receive
only four list mandates.
1
See
Peter Merkl,
The Origins
of
the West German Republic
(New York,
1963),
pp.
82-9.
2
This procedure
can
sometimes have unforeseen consequences for party strategy. In the
1966
Landtag
elections in North Rhine-Westphalia the Social Democrats put five of their ‘shadow
ministers’
in
top list positions in order to spare them the ordeal of
a
district campaign. Ordinarily
these
candidates would be certain to secure seats. But the SPD was
so
successful in the district
contests, that it received no list seats. The five experts were thus lost to the party when it formed
a
government with the Free Democrats later in the
year.
3
The two vote system (first vote for
a
district candidate, second vote for
a
party list) was also
introduced at the
1953
election. For
a
description and analysis of the
1953
amendments see
James
K.
Pollack, ‘The West German Electoral Law
of
1953’,
American Political Science
Review,
4
There is one further exception to ‘pure’ proportionality: if
a
party wins more direct mandates
than it would beentitled to under proportional representation, it is allowed to retain these ‘extra’
seats.
1955,
pp.
107-30.
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