The German Greens in the 1980s: Short-term Cyclical Protest or Indicator of Transformation?
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1989.tb00269.x |
| Date | 01 March 1989 |
| Published date | 01 March 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1989),
XXXVII,
114-122
The German Greens in the
1980s:
Short-term Cyclical Protest
or
Indicator
of Transformation?
FERDINAND
MULLER-ROMMEL*
University
of
Luneberg
The
Research
Question
In the West German general election of
1983
the newly formed Green Party
received
5.6
per cent of the popular vote and was (at only its second attempt) able
to send 27 delegates to the federal Parliament (Bundestag). It was the first time
since the
1950s
that a new party had joined the three major parties (SPD,
CDU-
CSU,
FDP) in the federal Parliament. In the
1987
federal election the Green
Party achieved an even better result: it received
8.3
per cent of the popular vote
and
42
seats in the federal Parliament. Because
of
this remarkable success the
analysis of the Green Party in Germany has become a major research object in
political science.
Several studies have described the development of the Green Party, its social
bases, its organizational structure and its ideology. However, these findings
have not been related to the role as well as the function of the Green Party in the
West German party system. This research note represents such an attempt. The
debate on ‘realignment’ and ‘dealignment’
of
West European party systems is the
most useful in this respecL2 Is the Green Party vulnerable and consequently likely
to disappear from the political scene or will it become a stable component of the
party system? It is hypothesized that the Green Party will consolidate its position
as the fourth party in the German party system because it
is
a ’new type of party’
that differs significantly from the established parties and hence can mobilize its
own voter clientele.
*
I
should like to thank Thomas Poguntke, Elim Papadakis, and two anonymous referees for
comments and criticisms.
I
am also grateful to the Department
of
Sociology at the University of New
England, Australia, for awarding me a visiting fellowship in spring 1988, when
I
was able
to
complete
the final draft of this paper.
W. Biirklin,
Grune Politik
(Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984);
E.
Kolinsky, ‘The Greens in
Germany’,
Parliamentary Affairs,
37 (1984), 43447; G. Langguth,
The Green Factor
(Boulder/
London, Westview Press, 1986);
E.
Papadakis,
The Green Movement in Western Germany
(London,
Croom Helm, 1984).
I.
Crewe and
D.
Denver (eds),
Electoral Change in Western Democracies
(London, Croom Helm,
1985);
R.
Dalton,
S.
Fianagan and
P.
Beck (eds),
Electoral Change
in
Advanced industriot
Democracies
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984).
0032-3217/89/01/0114-9
$03.00
Q
1989
Political Studies
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