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The German party system

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Heinz Brandenburg argues that the German party system is unstable and unsettled, characterised by fragmentation, polarisation and volatility.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 20, 2024

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This video video discusses Germany's electoral system, particularly its evolution after World War II when a new mixed-member proportional representation system was implemented. This video video system includes two votes per citizen: the first for individual constituency candidates and the second for party lists. The objective was to achieve a balance between personalized representation and proportionality, aiming for a stable political environment that avoided the fragmentation experienced under the Weimar Republic's completely proportional system.

Over time, however, the system has led to increased fragmentation in the party landscape, with a rise in smaller parties and populist movements. This video video describes recent developments, including a growing number of parties in the Bundestag and the challenges of forming stable coalitions. The government has proposed electoral reforms to address concerns regarding the size of parliament and overhang seats, which occur when a party wins more constituencies than its overall share of votes would justify.

The author argues that past stability in German politics was largely due to voting behavior, with voters focusing on larger parties. However, this has shifted, contributing to the current dissatisfaction with mainstream parties and an increase in support for populist parties. This video video concludes that the proposed reforms do not effectively address the root causes of fragmentation and dissatisfaction, highlighting a broader crisis of trust in democratic institutions. The real solution lies in improving governance to enhance satisfaction with mainstream politics, rather than merely adjusting the electoral system.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Germany invented a new electoral system

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after the Second World War,

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and they didn't do that entirely on their own.

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So, so Germany was occupied, of course,

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after the Second World War.

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And in the western zones, which were administered

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by Americans, French and,

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and the British, there was a parliamentary council,

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which was, tasked with,

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with creating a new German constitution.

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And the, the allies had some Vito power,

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which they used in some things, but, but not in others.

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And it, it was basically only the British who were

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actually interested in the kind of electoral system

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that Germany would choose.

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And what the British try

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to convince the Germans is basically

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to adopt the first pastor post system,

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and they try to sell it on the basis that first pastor post,

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primarily that first pastor post provides

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with some per personalized form of representation.

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You have your local constituency, MP

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who represents you in parliament.

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Now that didn't necessarily, bow the Germans over,

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but there were other things that they had on their mind,

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which, which made them ultimately settle on a compromise

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that involved a first pastor host element

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in the German system.

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And basically that was that they wanted to stick

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with a proportional system,

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but they didn't want to have an extremely proportional

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system like Germany had under the Weimar Republic, which

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of course failed in the end.

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And while you cannot blame the complete disintegration

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of democracy in the bio republic,

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all on the electoral system, the very proportional system

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of course facilitated the high levels of fragmentation

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and polarization that you saw in Germany.

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So the German engineers of the new electoral system wanted

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to create a system that is a bit more stable.

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So what they settled on is, is then a, a compromise

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between first pass or post and, and pr.

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But it's not a compromise in the sense

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that it's a halfway house between first pass

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or post majoritarianism and,

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and proportional representation.

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It is a proportional system,

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and the name that is used in Germany emphasizes

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that it's a proportional system, it's called,

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which means personalized proportional representation.

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So the emphasis on proportional representation,

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there's a personalization element.

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So, so that makes it a bit clearer than the,

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the British term, which, which is mixed member proportional,

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which doesn't tell you that much about it.

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So how does this system work? Jones have two votes.

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So the first vote is for constituency cap,

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and Germany is divided into single member districts at the

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moment, that's 299 single member districts.

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Each of them sends one constituency MP with the same rules

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as in British elections.

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Simple first pass post to parliament,

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and then Germans have a second vote.

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And actually in Germany, they are known as first vote

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and second vote, which leads to a lot of confusion

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Because the second vote is actually

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more important than the first.

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But if you call something first vote,

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it sounds more important than than the second.

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And, and that makes people sometimes vote wrongly or so.

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But the second vote that they have is a party vote.

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So you vote for a party list

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and you also have to take into account that Germany

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as a federal system,

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so the Germany is divided into 16 federal states,

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and each of these states has a number

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of seats in parliament, which is proportional to,

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to their size in terms of electorate.

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So, so that goes from the smallest German federal state,

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which is the city state of Breman,

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which has about 450,000, voters.

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And they get four seats, two,

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two constituencies and two list seats.

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And the largest state is about 30 times bigger.

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North Rhine West failure has 30 million voters,

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and they get 136 seats, 63 constituencies,

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63 list seats.

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Now, what makes the system proportional is

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that the second vote that does not just

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allocate those 299 nominal list seats to parties,

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but all 598 seats.

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Now, how does that work? Basically, a party

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and any constituency seats that a party wins

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in a state are discounted from their total allocation

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of seats in that state.

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So as an example, Bavaria has one dominant party,

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which is the Christian social Union, the sister party

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of the Christian Democrats, which was Angela Merkel's party

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who operate in the 15 other states in the various,

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only the CSU.

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And the CSU has dominated that,

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that country throughout history since,

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since the second ward, they've won every single election

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and they tend to win pretty much every constituency in the

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various, so at the last election, they won 45

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constituencies, but they only won 32% of the vote share.

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So in previous elections it was never a problem

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because they were a 50% party.

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So if they win 45

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or 46 constituencies, which is half

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of the total seats in Bavaria,

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and they're 50% party,

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they just get their constituency seats,

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no list seats on top,

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and all the list seats go

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to the other parties proportional to their vote share.

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But in the last election, that also shows one

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of the problems with the German system,

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which creates an element of disproportionality, is

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that sometimes parties win more seats than,

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than they're entitled to through constituencies.

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And those are called overhang seats.

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So in the last election,

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the the CSU on their national vote share, which was 5.5%

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or something like that, they would've been entitled

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to 34 seats, but they won 45.

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So, so they won 11 overhang seats and overhang seats.

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More important now and, and more frequent now,

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and I'm going to get to that later

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'cause that's part of the really big problems in,

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in Germany previously there were fewer of them,

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but sometimes they actually helped stability of governments.

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So, so in 94, 98, 9 in 2002 governments of cool

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and shorter would've had very small majorities

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of just two or three seats.

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And through Ang seed they had more comfortable majorities.

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Now, the second element in the German system,

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which creates disproportionality, is that we operate

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with a 5% threshold.

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So parties need to get at least 5%

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of the vote to get any seats.

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That keeps us all the, the fringe parties,

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which in the old system in the Weimar Republic you had

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parties with, which won one

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or 2% of, of the votes, just like in the Netherlands now,

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who then get a couple of seats.

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So in Germany they don't, there's one back door solution,

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which is that if you win three constituencies outright,

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you also get into Parliament

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and not just with those three seats,

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but with your proportional number of seats.

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So in the last election, the left party fell short

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of the 5% hurdle, won just 4.9% of the vote,

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but they won three constituencies, two in Berlin

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and one in Saxony.

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And that meant that they didn't just get those three

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constituency nmps, but they, they got 69 nmps.

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So their 4.9% were translated into, into seats.

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So, so that's the electoral system as such.

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And what of course the in designers of,

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of the German electoral system, whatever, they expected

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that this electoral system would provide more stability.

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The more proportional in the Weimar Republic seemed

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to be born out in the first few decades.

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So from about the 1960s to the 1980s, Germany was,

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had the, the least fragmented party system of,

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of any country that uses proportion representation.

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Basically the German party system was

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almost the same as the British.

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You had two large parties, 40% parties

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or so, the, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats

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and a small liberal party.

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The thing is just, and, and this also led

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to Germany becoming the poster boy of, of mixed systems,

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there was a book published in 2003 about mixed electoral

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systems, which had in the title that,

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whether this is the best of both worlds in the sense

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that it provides you with proportionality,

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but it also provides you with a lot of stability

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and very easy government formation.

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The problem with that is one we are becoming aware of now,

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that it was never the electoral system

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that created the stability in Germany.

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What created that stability,

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I think was was the voting behavior, how people use

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that system, that basically they tended

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to behave almost in a similar way to British voters,

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not waste your vote on small parties

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or so focus on the large parties

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that can win constituencies.

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So, so that made the two main parties so dominant

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and the only difference between Germany

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and Britain in that time would've been the liberal party,

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which one Seeds, not like the liberals in Britain

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by having some local strength

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and winning certain constituencies

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and targeting seats, they never won any constituencies

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after 57, they just got in, through the list vote,

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and they became sort of the king maker in,

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in the German system between the two parties.

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But, but that was the stable party system

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that Germany created.

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Only that unraveled then later.

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So at the moment, you, you actually have by now,

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and that's a very recent development of the last few weeks,

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you, you now have eight parties in the BUN stock, right?

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There's only one party in Germany, which has a history

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that stretches beyond the, the Second World War,

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and that's the social democrats who,

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who are classic old social democratic party part

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of the labor movement.

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And they were formed in the 1860s and,

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and have been around ever since.

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And, and after the second World War became one

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of the dominant parties together with, on the other hand,

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the center right party, the, the Christian Democrats,

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as I said, the Christian Democrats operate in,

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in all the states in Germany, outside the very end,

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the sister party, the CSU,

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the Christian Social Union operates in

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Bavaria in parliament.

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They, they have a joint parliamentary party.

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So whether you count them as separate parties

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or not, they, they really aren't, only the,

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the Bavarian CSU, they have fiercely dependent and,

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and want to to remain their their own party.

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The third party that that emerged then

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after the second World War were,

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was the small liberal party, the free Democrats,

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the the FDP.

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And they have been in parliament ever since

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with one brief interlude in 2009, they failed to,

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to get over the 5% threshold for the only time.

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And, but then they returned in, in, in 2013,

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and then they returned in in 2017

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and have been in parliament again now.

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So those were the three parties which survived the initial

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formation of the party system.

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In the first election you had 11 parties, but,

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but all of those small parties,

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more extreme parties disappeared.

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The first new party

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that emerged in the 1980s then were the Greens

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and Germany had one of the, the earliest

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and strongest green party.

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And what then happens with the emergence of the greens is

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that it developed into two blocks, sort

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of two center right parties, the the Christian Democrats

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and, and the the FDP

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and, two center left parties, the, the, the,

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the Social Democrats and the Greens,

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and they became natural coalition partners.

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The FDP had previously governed together with the c

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with the Christian Democrats

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and then the Social Democrats and back and forth.

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But basically from 1983 to nine to 2005, you had alternation

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and office between these parties, basically in,

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in Germany only had one real alternation in office ever.

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So from 1983 to to nine, to eight,

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you had a Christian Democrat and FDP coalition,

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and that was voted out and replaced by,

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by an SPD Green Coalition in 98.

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And that's really the only time in Germany

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that you had a government completely voted out

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and replaced by an entirely different coalition.

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Every other change in government has only ever involved the

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composition of, of the government.

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One of the, the parties that was in government previously

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remained in, in government in, in the next,

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the biggest event, I think for the development of the,

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the German party system was of course reunification in 1990.

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And that has, long-term effects,

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which we are still seeing Now.

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The, the immediate effect was that it added one new party

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to, to the party system, which was then known as the Party

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of Democratic socialism, the PDS, which was

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to follow an organization

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of the state socialist party in the GDR.

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They then, they, they were initially just

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an East German party,

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but they merged in 1998 with a small,

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spinoff of the social Democrats.

12:36.215 --> 12:37.765
Oscar Lafonte was one

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of the big figures in in social democracy.

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He lost the chancellor candidate in 1990,

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and then he was finance minister in 1998,

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when he was finance minister,

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the son actually had a headline about him being the most

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dangerous German since Adolf Hitler

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because he'd followed some Keynesian policies

12:54.385 --> 12:57.525
and he, he basically left the government of Schweder and,

12:57.545 --> 13:00.565
and was disillusioned with Blair right policies and,

13:00.565 --> 13:01.845
and formed his own little party.

13:02.065 --> 13:05.205
And they then merged with the left party in 2008.

13:06.065 --> 13:08.565
And that gave the left party more

13:08.565 --> 13:10.885
of a footing in West Germany as well.

13:11.515 --> 13:14.445
They've by now largely disappeared again in West Germany,

13:14.575 --> 13:17.645
apart from the city states like Bri and Hamburg and,

13:17.745 --> 13:18.845
and Berlin, where,

13:18.845 --> 13:20.845
where they're still in, in state parliament.

13:21.305 --> 13:25.925
And then you, you have the, the first radical right

13:25.965 --> 13:29.045
or populist right party with the a FD emerging in, in,

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in 2013 when they first stood for election, failed

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to get into parliament, fell short of the 5% threshold,

13:36.125 --> 13:39.685
but they got in in 2017 and, and again in 2021.

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And, and currently they are in opinion polls the second

13:43.195 --> 13:46.125
largest party in Germany after the CDU.

13:46.185 --> 13:49.845
And there's their power base is more in East Germany than

13:49.845 --> 13:52.525
West Germany as well, which wasn't initially the case when

13:52.525 --> 13:54.565
they were formed, but they have been since.

13:54.785 --> 13:57.965
So, so by now they're about a 30% party throughout the,

13:58.065 --> 13:59.685
the eastern states of Germany

13:59.745 --> 14:02.725
and about a 10 to 15% party in the west.

14:03.465 --> 14:05.765
And the most recent development is that one

14:05.765 --> 14:09.365
of the most prominent members of the left party, Zara Es

14:09.385 --> 14:12.005
who is incidentally also the wife of Oscar, Oscar Lafonte,

14:12.465 --> 14:13.685
she formed her new party

14:14.025 --> 14:16.365
and that was launched just in January this year.

14:16.595 --> 14:20.965
It's Carrie, her own name, the Zara Association,

14:21.075 --> 14:25.725
Zara Es, and, she got nine members of the

14:26.235 --> 14:30.205
parliamentary party of the left to also join her new party.

14:30.345 --> 14:33.445
So, so they're sitting in, in the Bundestag with 10 mps

14:33.865 --> 14:35.285
and in in opinion polls,

14:35.285 --> 14:37.205
they're pulling ahead of the left party.

14:37.275 --> 14:39.765
They're tend to be a left populist party.

14:40.155 --> 14:43.805
They have kind of the same economically left policies as,

14:43.825 --> 14:46.725
as the left has, but they are socially more conservative.

14:46.945 --> 14:50.805
So their potential is, is to take votes away from the left,

14:50.865 --> 14:53.325
who is most likely not to get into Parliament again,

14:53.345 --> 14:56.445
but they could also take away some votes from the A FD whose

14:56.445 --> 15:00.205
supporters tend to agree with the a FD on immigration policy

15:00.305 --> 15:01.725
and, and social conservatism,

15:01.725 --> 15:03.085
but don't necessarily agree

15:03.085 --> 15:04.645
with the a FD on their relatively

15:04.645 --> 15:06.125
rightwing economic policies.

15:06.545 --> 15:10.165
So that's kind of the increasingly fragmented party system

15:10.165 --> 15:11.245
that we have in Germany.

15:11.445 --> 15:13.765
I may have to use a little detour at the beginning

15:13.765 --> 15:17.565
because the debate in Germany is at a point

15:17.565 --> 15:19.845
where pretty much everyone agrees that the,

15:19.865 --> 15:22.445
the electoral system in, in Germany is no longer fit

15:22.445 --> 15:25.485
for purpose, but the whole debate is focusing

15:26.225 --> 15:28.565
on a symptom rather than the actual cause

15:28.585 --> 15:31.205
or the actual problem that that should be dealt with.

15:31.425 --> 15:33.645
And the symptom is the overblown size

15:33.645 --> 15:34.765
of the German parliament.

15:35.305 --> 15:37.005
So the German parliament, as I said,

15:37.515 --> 15:40.525
nominally has 598 mps,

15:40.665 --> 15:44.045
but currently we have 736 mps in.

15:44.785 --> 15:48.565
And, I I need to briefly explain how that happened.

15:48.795 --> 15:51.725
What took place was that over three elections ago,

15:52.025 --> 15:54.445
the constitutional court in Germany,

15:54.845 --> 15:57.205
declared certain elements of the electoral law in Germany,

15:57.425 --> 16:00.725
unconstitutional, and basically forced the legislature

16:00.725 --> 16:02.405
to change the electoral law.

16:03.145 --> 16:05.605
And part of the changes, the most important part

16:05.605 --> 16:07.925
of the changes that were made, the electoral reform

16:07.925 --> 16:12.285
that were made was to basically compensate for all overhead.

16:12.545 --> 16:13.685
So the example I used

16:13.685 --> 16:18.005
before in Bavaria, where the CSU wins 45 constituencies,

16:18.025 --> 16:20.325
so almost half of the seats that Bavaria should have,

16:20.785 --> 16:22.885
but has only 32% of the vote.

16:23.425 --> 16:25.085
And, and that means they have five

16:25.085 --> 16:27.485
and a half percent of, of the national vote share,

16:27.485 --> 16:30.365
which would only entitle them to 34 seats or so.

16:30.595 --> 16:32.885
Basically, you, you compensate for

16:32.885 --> 16:35.245
that in making the, the parliament bigger.

16:35.705 --> 16:38.005
So you had a parliament size of 598,

16:38.005 --> 16:39.485
they should only have 34 seed.

16:39.945 --> 16:43.085
If you have a parliament size of 736,

16:43.355 --> 16:44.645
they can be accommodated.

16:44.805 --> 16:47.205
I mean, three of their overhang seats are not,

16:47.205 --> 16:49.845
being compensated that that was a new law to,

16:49.945 --> 16:53.245
to keep it a bid in check, before the last election.

16:53.305 --> 16:56.485
But, but basically you need to expand parliament in order

16:56.545 --> 16:59.125
to allow proportionality to still work.

16:59.345 --> 17:02.365
So other parties need to get more seeds for, for the seeds

17:02.365 --> 17:04.765
that, that these over seeds overhang seeds

17:04.765 --> 17:05.845
that are, are being created.

17:06.385 --> 17:08.645
And the problem behind all of that is, of course,

17:09.245 --> 17:12.925
fragmentation, overhang seats were not a problem

17:13.025 --> 17:14.085
for decades in Germany

17:14.235 --> 17:16.645
because those large parties

17:16.825 --> 17:20.045
who won all the constituencies in particular states and,

17:20.065 --> 17:23.045
and the CDU and CSU win, all of them in some states

17:23.045 --> 17:25.005
and the social Democrats in some other states,

17:25.335 --> 17:26.525
those were not a problem.

17:26.875 --> 17:29.605
When these were large parties, 40% parties,

17:30.195 --> 17:33.725
then they would be 50% parties in certain areas of Germany

17:33.785 --> 17:35.045
and would have a right to half

17:35.045 --> 17:37.405
of the seats if they win all constituencies.

17:37.865 --> 17:41.525
Now, all of the large parties have been cut down to

17:41.745 --> 17:43.885
to size basically in the last election,

17:43.905 --> 17:47.645
the largest party were the social Democrats with 25.7%,

17:48.305 --> 17:52.305
and the Christian Democrats are on 23%, and CDUC is u

17:52.845 --> 17:56.265
but they still win almost all of the constituencies.

17:56.765 --> 17:59.425
So that creates more and more overhang seats

18:00.005 --> 18:02.665
and that then creates the, the symptom that

18:02.665 --> 18:06.065
that Germans are all up about in, in, in debate and,

18:06.125 --> 18:07.785
and want to to change.

18:08.285 --> 18:09.585
But fragmentation

18:09.605 --> 18:12.425
and with it polarization is the real problem that

18:12.425 --> 18:13.825
that is happening in, in Germany.

18:14.005 --> 18:15.985
And, and there are reasons for that,

18:16.405 --> 18:18.945
and part of the reasons are that

18:19.565 --> 18:22.825
we no longer have ideologically coherent governments.

18:23.135 --> 18:25.825
It's kind of a vicious circle because of fragmentation.

18:25.845 --> 18:27.465
We can't anymore. Uh,

18:27.465 --> 18:29.945
basically government formation has become very difficult.

18:30.245 --> 18:34.465
And basically it started in 2005 when Angela America became

18:34.485 --> 18:35.545
German chancellor

18:35.645 --> 18:38.225
and she formed a grant coalition,

18:38.225 --> 18:40.265
which should be an emergency government,

18:40.365 --> 18:42.785
but basically of her four governments, three

18:42.785 --> 18:44.345
of them were grant coalitions

18:44.345 --> 18:46.665
between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats.

18:46.845 --> 18:49.345
So you have the two largest party together in

18:49.345 --> 18:50.465
coalition in 2005.

18:50.465 --> 18:52.305
They together had 70% of the votes,

18:52.565 --> 18:54.545
but basically there's a cost to governing

18:54.545 --> 18:56.065
and the literature knows about that.

18:56.125 --> 18:58.465
And usually the cost of governing means

18:58.465 --> 18:59.585
that governing parties lose.

18:59.585 --> 19:01.265
And then there's alternation in office.

19:01.615 --> 19:03.065
What happened in Germany is

19:03.265 --> 19:05.345
that the parties in government lose,

19:05.355 --> 19:07.305
which means large parties get smaller,

19:07.805 --> 19:10.745
but they twice again, had to form a grant coalition

19:10.745 --> 19:13.665
because there was no other opportunity, no other option

19:13.665 --> 19:15.105
to form a two party coalition.

19:15.245 --> 19:16.825
So you create this vicious circle

19:16.825 --> 19:18.425
where the parties are forced

19:18.425 --> 19:20.785
to form awkward coalition, the, the most.

19:20.925 --> 19:23.225
Now the coalition is between the social Democrats,

19:23.225 --> 19:25.825
the greens, and, and the, the FDP, which is

19:25.825 --> 19:27.025
between two center left

19:27.025 --> 19:29.665
and the center right party who on a number

19:29.665 --> 19:31.105
of issues can't really agree

19:31.105 --> 19:32.865
with each other on basically every issue.

19:32.865 --> 19:34.105
There's one of the three parties

19:34.215 --> 19:35.985
that doesn't even agree with the other two.

19:36.365 --> 19:40.985
So you have unpopular parties which cost the center votes.

19:40.985 --> 19:43.025
Basically it's the four mainstream parties

19:43.535 --> 19:45.265
that are always involved in government

19:45.285 --> 19:46.785
and they are continuously losing.

19:46.845 --> 19:51.465
And by now we are looking at a situation where about 63%

19:51.465 --> 19:54.425
of the votes only go to in, in opinion polls

19:54.425 --> 19:55.785
to the four mainstream parties

19:56.365 --> 19:58.545
and over a third of the votes go to,

19:58.765 --> 20:00.065
to these populous parties.

20:00.725 --> 20:03.345
And one of the things you also find in Germany,

20:03.395 --> 20:05.225
which which is quite interesting and

20:05.245 --> 20:06.705
and a bit overlooked, is that

20:07.255 --> 20:12.225
this 5% threshold no longer has this, his deterrent effect.

20:12.485 --> 20:13.545
So basically in the eighties

20:13.545 --> 20:16.265
and nineties, you, you had only less than 1%

20:16.265 --> 20:18.465
of the population voting for fringe parties.

20:19.205 --> 20:23.105
In the most recent election, we had 9% of, of German voters.

20:23.205 --> 20:25.945
That's 4 million people voting for parties

20:26.015 --> 20:28.065
that never had a chance of winning a seat.

20:28.605 --> 20:30.385
So they're kind of wasting their vote,

20:30.605 --> 20:33.865
but they, they don't seem to care much about voting

20:33.965 --> 20:36.265
for a party that will not get them any

20:36.265 --> 20:37.665
representation in parliament.

20:38.325 --> 20:41.665
So in that sense, I think the, the system is unraveling

20:41.805 --> 20:43.225
and we do see that

20:44.085 --> 20:46.465
the electoral system has never actually

20:46.465 --> 20:47.565
created the stability.

20:47.635 --> 20:49.765
What created it was how people voted.

20:49.945 --> 20:54.045
And basically, while German voters may have behaved almost

20:54.045 --> 20:56.565
like first pass the post voters in, in the sixties

20:56.625 --> 20:59.645
and seventies, they now just behave like normal voters

20:59.645 --> 21:00.685
under a PR system.

21:00.745 --> 21:04.365
And Germans never make a difference between a big difference

21:04.365 --> 21:07.365
between their, their constituency vote

21:07.365 --> 21:08.525
and their their party vote.

21:08.665 --> 21:11.845
If I may briefly, I, an interesting comparison would be

21:11.845 --> 21:15.285
with New Zealand, New Zealand introduced the same electoral

21:15.285 --> 21:18.125
system as Germany had in the 1990s.

21:18.125 --> 21:19.605
They had a referendum in 92.

21:19.705 --> 21:23.085
So they came from a first pastor post tradition Anglo-Saxon

21:23.085 --> 21:27.165
country, and they basically, the, the public demanded change

21:27.305 --> 21:29.885
and they moved to a mixed system, which is very similar

21:29.945 --> 21:31.125
to this German system.

21:31.945 --> 21:34.125
And what happens in in New Zealand is

21:34.125 --> 21:36.845
that people vote very, very differently.

21:37.315 --> 21:39.445
They're really keen on constituencies

21:39.445 --> 21:42.005
and you have very specific constituency races in,

21:42.345 --> 21:44.765
in different areas of, of New Zealand.

21:45.105 --> 21:49.285
Um, and on election night in New Zealand, you will have

21:50.025 --> 21:52.565
of course, just like in the first pastor post edition,

21:52.585 --> 21:55.605
you will have, the declaration of constituency results.

21:55.865 --> 21:56.885
In Germany you never do.

21:57.145 --> 22:00.405
So in Germany, you, you, you basically on election night,

22:00.405 --> 22:03.045
you, you have a folk on what are the vote shares for each

22:03.045 --> 22:06.405
of the parties and what are the likely coalition partners

22:06.405 --> 22:07.645
who is a winner and loser.

22:08.065 --> 22:10.645
And you never hear anything about constituency.

22:10.645 --> 22:13.365
So Germans don't even know whether they live in a marginal

22:13.685 --> 22:15.845
constituency or so, and, and their voting behavior doesn't

22:15.845 --> 22:17.485
show that, that they care about that.

22:17.785 --> 22:20.485
So in that sense that the electoral system

22:21.135 --> 22:24.725
never fulfilled the promise that the electoral engineers are

22:24.725 --> 22:25.925
so put in it,

22:26.025 --> 22:28.565
and now it's, it's, it's just as responsible for,

22:28.905 --> 22:31.765
for fragmentation or allows fragmentation just as much

22:31.945 --> 22:35.125
as it's kept fragmentation from happening in earlier.

22:35.485 --> 22:37.485
I did look recent at the most recent wave

22:37.505 --> 22:39.165
of the Germany election study

22:39.165 --> 22:41.045
with which came out in last year.

22:41.105 --> 22:43.965
And, and if you look at that, you, you find

22:43.965 --> 22:45.485
that the supporters of

22:45.485 --> 22:48.445
of the mainstream parties in Germany are still in a majority

22:49.205 --> 22:50.885
satisfied with how democracy works.

22:51.155 --> 22:56.085
They're not massively satisfied, they're just, just about,

22:56.105 --> 22:58.525
and, and it's only small majorities that are,

22:58.585 --> 23:00.405
and of course there's, there's always the effect

23:00.405 --> 23:03.045
that if you are supporter of a governing party, you are,

23:03.045 --> 23:05.325
you're more happy with democracy than,

23:05.395 --> 23:07.165
than if you are on the losing side.

23:07.545 --> 23:09.805
And that works certainly for the social Democrats

23:09.805 --> 23:13.045
and the greens, they have the, the most satisfied voters.

23:13.265 --> 23:16.085
But, but even among them, it's, it's only 60%

23:16.145 --> 23:19.485
who say they're clear very or or somewhat satisfied.

23:19.785 --> 23:21.925
The CDU voters are a lot less,

23:21.985 --> 23:24.165
but the least satisfied of, of the supporters

23:24.165 --> 23:26.445
of mainstream parties are supporters of the FDP,

23:26.445 --> 23:28.045
which is one of the coalition partners.

23:28.185 --> 23:31.205
Uh, and they also had a, a membership vote about whether

23:31.305 --> 23:33.125
to continue the coalition or not.

23:33.185 --> 23:36.805
And that only passed with 51% of the vote of the men.

23:36.805 --> 23:38.485
So they are very unhappy about their

23:39.125 --> 23:40.325
participation in this coalition.

23:40.475 --> 23:43.525
What is more troubling is that if you look at the supporters

23:43.525 --> 23:47.725
of populist parties, they're extremely dissatisfied

23:47.725 --> 23:48.885
with how democracy works.

23:48.985 --> 23:53.245
So 80% of a FD voters, are very or

23:53.245 --> 23:54.325
or somewhat dissatisfied,

23:54.325 --> 23:56.845
50% are very dissatisfied with democracy.

23:57.385 --> 23:59.085
The numbers are not as dramatic,

23:59.145 --> 24:02.365
but going in sort of the same direction work for supporters

24:02.365 --> 24:07.005
of the left party or so among a FD voters, what we don't

24:07.005 --> 24:09.965
yet find is that they come anti-system vote.

24:10.225 --> 24:13.325
So there was a question whether under certain certain

24:13.325 --> 24:15.005
circumstances would they think that

24:15.725 --> 24:17.205
dictatorship is a better form of government

24:17.345 --> 24:20.725
and 20% of a FD supporters say yes to that question,

24:20.895 --> 24:22.245
which is a bit worrying,

24:22.425 --> 24:25.805
but it's a, it's an underswell of non Democrats that,

24:25.805 --> 24:26.965
that are supporting this party,

24:27.025 --> 24:28.645
but it's certainly not the majority yet.

24:28.705 --> 24:30.565
But I think that, as I said, there,

24:30.565 --> 24:33.125
there is this vicious circle in Germany.

24:33.285 --> 24:35.245
I mean in general Germany just faces what,

24:35.245 --> 24:38.645
what most Western democracies face decreasing turnout,

24:39.055 --> 24:40.765
lower trust in institutions,

24:41.215 --> 24:42.805
lower satisfaction with democracy.

24:42.995 --> 24:45.605
What what happens in Germany, I think is partly this,

24:45.635 --> 24:48.765
this vicious circle that you have this fragmentation which

24:48.765 --> 24:51.645
makes government formation ever more difficult and,

24:51.665 --> 24:55.205
and puts, awkward coalitions together between parties

24:55.235 --> 24:56.925
that don't really want to govern together.

24:56.985 --> 24:59.925
And, and that further erodes, first of all,

25:00.055 --> 25:01.405
trust in government, which,

25:01.455 --> 25:04.285
which is much lower still than trust in parliament,

25:04.305 --> 25:06.965
but also it, it decreases trust in institutions.

25:07.065 --> 25:10.885
So in that sense, Germany is facing a a bit of a crisis.

25:10.945 --> 25:14.645
And, and the problem is that, given the, the difficulty

25:14.705 --> 25:15.965
of forming coalitions

25:16.265 --> 25:18.005
and the level of support

25:18.005 --> 25:20.565
that anti-system parties are gaining, that is,

25:20.635 --> 25:22.205
it's gonna become even more difficult

25:22.205 --> 25:23.525
to form coalitions in the future.

25:23.665 --> 25:27.045
And, and that may further erode trust in institutions and,

25:27.065 --> 25:29.005
and support and satisfaction with democracy.

25:29.345 --> 25:30.645
My main point is I think

25:30.645 --> 25:33.005
that there's an electoral form underway in Germany,

25:33.005 --> 25:34.925
which I think is completely misguided.

25:35.035 --> 25:37.845
What is happening is that the government in Germany, the,

25:37.915 --> 25:40.965
they, they have agreed on, on an electoral reform package,

25:41.025 --> 25:43.725
and that has passed parliament last year.

25:44.145 --> 25:46.405
So it's on the books, it's supposed to happen, it's,

25:46.405 --> 25:47.925
it's still gonna be challenged in front

25:47.925 --> 25:49.165
of the constitutional court.

25:49.265 --> 25:52.285
And what it basically does, the, the main aim of

25:52.305 --> 25:57.125
of this reform is to, to create a fixed size parliament so

25:57.125 --> 25:59.445
that there will be no overhang seats anymore.

26:00.065 --> 26:03.005
But the way they're doing that is, is very, very strange

26:03.005 --> 26:06.525
because it basically means that if we go back to,

26:06.665 --> 26:09.085
to the example of the CSU in Bavaria

26:09.155 --> 26:13.245
with the 45 seats they won, but only 32% of the votes.

26:13.385 --> 26:16.565
So, so that gives them only a right to 30 odd seats.

26:16.795 --> 26:18.325
Basically under the new system,

26:18.355 --> 26:20.325
they would only get those 30 odd seats.

26:20.705 --> 26:21.805
So the, the dozen

26:21.945 --> 26:24.645
or so of their constituency winners

26:24.645 --> 26:26.765
with the lowest vote share would simply

26:26.785 --> 26:27.845
not get into parliament.

26:28.025 --> 26:30.845
So that basically does weigh with the concepts

26:30.845 --> 26:33.765
or the idea of constituency mps,

26:33.955 --> 26:37.205
because if not every constituency has an mp,

26:37.275 --> 26:39.525
then basically none has, I mean,

26:39.595 --> 26:43.815
basically winning a constituency from now on would only mean

26:43.815 --> 26:46.135
that it increases your chances of,

26:46.195 --> 26:48.735
of getting into parliament compared to people who don't,

26:48.735 --> 26:50.855
who stand in constituencies and don't win them.

26:51.395 --> 26:54.375
But you no longer have in that sense, a mixed member system

26:54.385 --> 26:55.455
where, where half

26:55.455 --> 26:57.935
of them are constituency mps and the others aren't.

26:58.155 --> 27:01.135
So that's problematic. Um, the second part of the,

27:01.355 --> 27:04.975
of the reform is you keep the 5% threshold,

27:04.995 --> 27:07.735
but you get rid of the backdoor solution, which was this,

27:07.735 --> 27:09.855
that if you win three constituencies, you,

27:09.875 --> 27:11.295
you also get into parliament.

27:11.835 --> 27:14.775
And that makes sense in a way, if individual

27:15.775 --> 27:18.935
constituency winners are not guaranteed a seat in

27:18.935 --> 27:21.255
parliament, then why should a party be

27:21.575 --> 27:22.615
guaranteed seats in parliament?

27:22.615 --> 27:24.615
Because it wins individual constituencies.

27:24.705 --> 27:27.695
Makes perfect sense. The problem with it is just that,

27:28.115 --> 27:30.175
as I said, that CSU in Bavaria,

27:30.225 --> 27:32.095
which is the dominant party in Bavaria,

27:32.125 --> 27:33.815
wins almost all constituencies.

27:34.075 --> 27:36.655
In the last election on national vote, they were down

27:36.655 --> 27:37.815
to 5.2%.

27:38.515 --> 27:40.975
So they would only have to decline a little bit more

27:41.115 --> 27:43.255
and they would not get into parliament

27:43.715 --> 27:45.335
and they could still win almost

27:45.395 --> 27:46.775
all constituencies in Bavaria.

27:46.995 --> 27:48.615
And suddenly you would have a situation

27:48.615 --> 27:50.255
where the dominant party in,

27:50.275 --> 27:52.895
in a state would be excluded from Parliament,

27:52.895 --> 27:54.055
which is highly problematic.

27:54.355 --> 27:59.175
So what I don't understand is why Germans also given that

27:59.565 --> 28:03.015
that Germans have, that these constituency races mean

28:03.155 --> 28:06.415
so little to Germans, why hold onto them?

28:06.805 --> 28:09.495
Because also, as I, as I try to explain, the,

28:09.595 --> 28:11.415
the electoral system never kept

28:11.735 --> 28:13.015
fragmentation in check as such.

28:13.275 --> 28:14.495
It was voting behavior.

28:14.675 --> 28:17.095
So, so basically if you were to switch,

28:17.685 --> 28:19.215
keep the 5% threshold

28:19.215 --> 28:21.935
and switch to a PR system, get rid

28:21.935 --> 28:23.655
of these single member districts, which,

28:23.705 --> 28:25.415
which don't mean anything anymore.

28:25.435 --> 28:27.695
In the white paper of the government, they basically said,

28:27.715 --> 28:30.255
we, we can do with the guarantee of for,

28:30.275 --> 28:32.535
for constituency winners to get into parliament

28:32.645 --> 28:36.575
because so many of them win with less than 30% of the vote.

28:36.955 --> 28:38.095
So they're basically saying

28:38.095 --> 28:41.415
that winning a constituency means so little,

28:41.485 --> 28:44.695
that we can do away with, with giving a price for it.

28:45.035 --> 28:46.455
So why hold onto it?

28:46.875 --> 28:50.215
The problems are not prevented by, by holding onto

28:50.395 --> 28:52.775
to the first pass to post element in the system.

28:53.355 --> 28:56.095
The real problem is, is this level of fragmentation

28:56.755 --> 29:00.535
and no electoral design can stop that.

29:00.965 --> 29:03.775
Certainly not if you want to have a proportional system.

29:04.155 --> 29:07.415
You cannot stop fragmentation other than the what the 5%

29:08.255 --> 29:10.815
threshold does, which keeps out fringe parties.

29:11.275 --> 29:15.055
But to challenge this trend towards fragmentation

29:15.055 --> 29:18.695
and polarization would really require better governing,

29:18.785 --> 29:22.095
which is very difficult with, with the kind of awkward,

29:22.095 --> 29:23.495
governments that, that you create.

29:23.635 --> 29:26.375
But, but basically you need to deliver for people in a way

29:26.375 --> 29:30.415
that that makes them more satisfied with mainstream politics

29:30.435 --> 29:32.815
and, and makes them come back from the center.

29:32.835 --> 29:36.815
And, and I have no idea how German parties, are meant

29:36.815 --> 29:38.695
to accomplish that, but their ideas

29:38.875 --> 29:42.495
for electoral reform are not addressing this problem at all.

29:42.695 --> 29:42.935
I think.

Germany's Post-War Electoral System Reformation

00:00:00 - Germany invented a new electoral system after the Second World War, and they didn't do that entirely on their own. So, so Germany was occupied, of course, after the Second World War. And in the western zones, which were administered by Americans, French and, and the British, there was a parliamentary council, which was, tasked with, with creating a new German constitution. And the, the allies had some Vito power, which they used in some things, but, but not in others. And it, it was basically only the British who were
00:00:36 - that Germany would choose. And what the British try to convince the Germans is basically to adopt the first pastor post system, and they try to sell it on the basis that first pastor post, primarily that first pastor post provides with some per personalized form of representation. You have your local constituency, MP who represents you in parliament. Now that didn't necessarily, bow the Germans over,
00:01:07 - which, which made them ultimately settle on a compromise that involved a first pastor host element in the German system. And basically that was that they wanted to stick with a proportional system, but they didn't want to have an extremely proportional system like Germany had under the Weimar Republic, which of course failed in the end. And while you cannot blame the complete disintegration of democracy in the bio republic, all on the electoral system, the very proportional system
00:01:40 - and polarization that you saw in Germany. So the German engineers of the new electoral system wanted to create a system that is a bit more stable. So what they settled on is, is then a, a compromise between first pass or post and, and pr. But it's not a compromise in the sense that it's a halfway house between first pass or post majoritarianism and, and proportional representation. It is a proportional system, and the name that is used in Germany emphasizes
00:02:12 - which means personalized proportional representation. So the emphasis on proportional representation, there's a personalization element. So, so that makes it a bit clearer than the, the British term, which, which is mixed member proportional, which doesn't tell you that much about it. So how does this system work? Jones have two votes. So the first vote is for constituency cap, and Germany is divided into single member districts at the moment, that's 299 single member districts.
00:02:46 - as in British elections. Simple first pass post to parliament, and then Germans have a second vote. And actually in Germany, they are known as first vote and second vote, which leads to a lot of confusion Because the second vote is actually more important than the first. But if you call something first vote, it sounds more important than than the second. And, and that makes people sometimes vote wrongly or so. But the second vote that they have is a party vote.

Germany's Federal Electoral System Overview

00:03:14 - and you also have to take into account that Germany as a federal system, so the Germany is divided into 16 federal states, and each of these states has a number of seats in parliament, which is proportional to, to their size in terms of electorate. So, so that goes from the smallest German federal state, which is the city state of Breman, which has about 450,000, voters. And they get four seats, two, two constituencies and two list seats.
00:03:46 - North Rhine West failure has 30 million voters, and they get 136 seats, 63 constituencies, 63 list seats. Now, what makes the system proportional is that the second vote that does not just allocate those 299 nominal list seats to parties, but all 598 seats. Now, how does that work? Basically, a party and any constituency seats that a party wins
00:04:18 - of seats in that state. So as an example, Bavaria has one dominant party, which is the Christian social Union, the sister party of the Christian Democrats, which was Angela Merkel's party who operate in the 15 other states in the various, only the CSU. And the CSU has dominated that, that country throughout history since, since the second ward, they've won every single election and they tend to win pretty much every constituency in the
00:04:48 - constituencies, but they only won 32% of the vote share. So in previous elections it was never a problem because they were a 50% party. So if they win 45 or 46 constituencies, which is half of the total seats in Bavaria, and they're 50% party, they just get their constituency seats, no list seats on top, and all the list seats go to the other parties proportional to their vote share. But in the last election, that also shows one of the problems with the German system,
00:05:19 - that sometimes parties win more seats than, than they're entitled to through constituencies. And those are called overhang seats. So in the last election, the the CSU on their national vote share, which was 5.5% or something like that, they would've been entitled to 34 seats, but they won 45. So, so they won 11 overhang seats and overhang seats. More important now and, and more frequent now, and I'm going to get to that later 'cause that's part of the really big problems in,
00:05:49 - but sometimes they actually helped stability of governments. So, so in 94, 98, 9 in 2002 governments of cool and shorter would've had very small majorities of just two or three seats. And through Ang seed they had more comfortable majorities. Now, the second element in the German system, which creates disproportionality, is that we operate with a 5% threshold. So parties need to get at least 5% of the vote to get any seats.

Evolution of Germany's Electoral System Explained

00:06:21 - which in the old system in the Weimar Republic you had parties with, which won one or 2% of, of the votes, just like in the Netherlands now, who then get a couple of seats. So in Germany they don't, there's one back door solution, which is that if you win three constituencies outright, you also get into Parliament and not just with those three seats, but with your proportional number of seats. So in the last election, the left party fell short of the 5% hurdle, won just 4.9% of the vote,
00:06:54 - and one in Saxony. And that meant that they didn't just get those three constituency nmps, but they, they got 69 nmps. So their 4.9% were translated into, into seats. So, so that's the electoral system as such. And what of course the in designers of, of the German electoral system, whatever, they expected that this electoral system would provide more stability. The more proportional in the Weimar Republic seemed to be born out in the first few decades.
00:07:27 - had the, the least fragmented party system of, of any country that uses proportion representation. Basically the German party system was almost the same as the British. You had two large parties, 40% parties or so, the, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats and a small liberal party. The thing is just, and, and this also led to Germany becoming the poster boy of, of mixed systems, there was a book published in 2003 about mixed electoral
00:07:55 - whether this is the best of both worlds in the sense that it provides you with proportionality, but it also provides you with a lot of stability and very easy government formation. The problem with that is one we are becoming aware of now, that it was never the electoral system that created the stability in Germany. What created that stability, I think was was the voting behavior, how people use that system, that basically they tended
00:08:28 - not waste your vote on small parties or so focus on the large parties that can win constituencies. So, so that made the two main parties so dominant and the only difference between Germany and Britain in that time would've been the liberal party, which one Seeds, not like the liberals in Britain by having some local strength and winning certain constituencies and targeting seats, they never won any constituencies after 57, they just got in, through the list vote,
00:08:59 - in the German system between the two parties. But, but that was the stable party system that Germany created. Only that unraveled then later. So at the moment, you, you actually have by now, and that's a very recent development of the last few weeks, you, you now have eight parties in the BUN stock, right? There's only one party in Germany, which has a history that stretches beyond the, the Second World War, and that's the social democrats who,

Evolution of Germany's Post-War Party System

00:09:29 - of the labor movement. And they were formed in the 1860s and, and have been around ever since. And, and after the second World War became one of the dominant parties together with, on the other hand, the center right party, the, the Christian Democrats, as I said, the Christian Democrats operate in, in all the states in Germany, outside the very end, the sister party, the CSU, the Christian Social Union operates in Bavaria in parliament. They, they have a joint parliamentary party.
00:09:59 - or not, they, they really aren't, only the, the Bavarian CSU, they have fiercely dependent and, and want to to remain their their own party. The third party that that emerged then after the second World War were, was the small liberal party, the free Democrats, the the FDP. And they have been in parliament ever since with one brief interlude in 2009, they failed to, to get over the 5% threshold for the only time. And, but then they returned in, in, in 2013,
00:10:32 - and have been in parliament again now. So those were the three parties which survived the initial formation of the party system. In the first election you had 11 parties, but, but all of those small parties, more extreme parties disappeared. The first new party that emerged in the 1980s then were the Greens and Germany had one of the, the earliest and strongest green party. And what then happens with the emergence of the greens is that it developed into two blocks, sort
00:11:03 - and, and the the FDP and, two center left parties, the, the, the, the Social Democrats and the Greens, and they became natural coalition partners. The FDP had previously governed together with the c with the Christian Democrats and then the Social Democrats and back and forth. But basically from 1983 to nine to 2005, you had alternation and office between these parties, basically in, in Germany only had one real alternation in office ever.
00:11:34 - you had a Christian Democrat and FDP coalition, and that was voted out and replaced by, by an SPD Green Coalition in 98. And that's really the only time in Germany that you had a government completely voted out and replaced by an entirely different coalition. Every other change in government has only ever involved the composition of, of the government. One of the, the parties that was in government previously remained in, in government in, in the next,
00:12:04 - the German party system was of course reunification in 1990. And that has, long-term effects, which we are still seeing Now. The, the immediate effect was that it added one new party to, to the party system, which was then known as the Party of Democratic socialism, the PDS, which was to follow an organization of the state socialist party in the GDR. They then, they, they were initially just an East German party, but they merged in 1998 with a small,

Fragmentation in Germany's Political Landscape

00:12:36 - Oscar Lafonte was one of the big figures in in social democracy. He lost the chancellor candidate in 1990, and then he was finance minister in 1998, when he was finance minister, the son actually had a headline about him being the most dangerous German since Adolf Hitler because he'd followed some Keynesian policies and he, he basically left the government of Schweder and, and was disillusioned with Blair right policies and, and formed his own little party. And they then merged with the left party in 2008.
00:13:08 - of a footing in West Germany as well. They've by now largely disappeared again in West Germany, apart from the city states like Bri and Hamburg and, and Berlin, where, where they're still in, in state parliament. And then you, you have the, the first radical right or populist right party with the a FD emerging in, in, in 2013 when they first stood for election, failed to get into parliament, fell short of the 5% threshold,
00:13:39 - And, and currently they are in opinion polls the second largest party in Germany after the CDU. And there's their power base is more in East Germany than West Germany as well, which wasn't initially the case when they were formed, but they have been since. So, so by now they're about a 30% party throughout the, the eastern states of Germany and about a 10 to 15% party in the west. And the most recent development is that one of the most prominent members of the left party, Zara Es
00:14:12 - she formed her new party and that was launched just in January this year. It's Carrie, her own name, the Zara Association, Zara Es, and, she got nine members of the parliamentary party of the left to also join her new party. So, so they're sitting in, in the Bundestag with 10 mps and in in opinion polls, they're pulling ahead of the left party. They're tend to be a left populist party.
00:14:43 - as the left has, but they are socially more conservative. So their potential is, is to take votes away from the left, who is most likely not to get into Parliament again, but they could also take away some votes from the A FD whose supporters tend to agree with the a FD on immigration policy and, and social conservatism, but don't necessarily agree with the a FD on their relatively rightwing economic policies. So that's kind of the increasingly fragmented party system
00:15:11 - I may have to use a little detour at the beginning because the debate in Germany is at a point where pretty much everyone agrees that the, the electoral system in, in Germany is no longer fit for purpose, but the whole debate is focusing on a symptom rather than the actual cause or the actual problem that that should be dealt with. And the symptom is the overblown size of the German parliament. So the German parliament, as I said, nominally has 598 mps,

Electoral Law Changes and Political Fragmentation

00:15:44 - And, I I need to briefly explain how that happened. What took place was that over three elections ago, the constitutional court in Germany, declared certain elements of the electoral law in Germany, unconstitutional, and basically forced the legislature to change the electoral law. And part of the changes, the most important part of the changes that were made, the electoral reform that were made was to basically compensate for all overhead.
00:16:13 - before in Bavaria, where the CSU wins 45 constituencies, so almost half of the seats that Bavaria should have, but has only 32% of the vote. And, and that means they have five and a half percent of, of the national vote share, which would only entitle them to 34 seats or so. Basically, you, you compensate for that in making the, the parliament bigger. So you had a parliament size of 598, they should only have 34 seed. If you have a parliament size of 736,
00:16:44 - I mean, three of their overhang seats are not, being compensated that that was a new law to, to keep it a bid in check, before the last election. But, but basically you need to expand parliament in order to allow proportionality to still work. So other parties need to get more seeds for, for the seeds that, that these over seeds overhang seeds that are, are being created. And the problem behind all of that is, of course, fragmentation, overhang seats were not a problem for decades in Germany
00:17:16 - who won all the constituencies in particular states and, and the CDU and CSU win, all of them in some states and the social Democrats in some other states, those were not a problem. When these were large parties, 40% parties, then they would be 50% parties in certain areas of Germany and would have a right to half of the seats if they win all constituencies. Now, all of the large parties have been cut down to to size basically in the last election, the largest party were the social Democrats with 25.7%,
00:17:52 - but they still win almost all of the constituencies. So that creates more and more overhang seats and that then creates the, the symptom that that Germans are all up about in, in, in debate and, and want to to change. But fragmentation and with it polarization is the real problem that that is happening in, in Germany. And, and there are reasons for that, and part of the reasons are that
00:18:23 - It's kind of a vicious circle because of fragmentation. We can't anymore. basically government formation has become very difficult. And basically it started in 2005 when Angela America became German chancellor and she formed a grant coalition, which should be an emergency government, but basically of her four governments, three of them were grant coalitions between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. So you have the two largest party together in coalition in 2005.

Germany's Electoral System and Governance Challenges

00:18:52 - but basically there's a cost to governing and the literature knows about that. And usually the cost of governing means that governing parties lose. And then there's alternation in office. What happened in Germany is that the parties in government lose, which means large parties get smaller, but they twice again, had to form a grant coalition because there was no other opportunity, no other option to form a two party coalition. So you create this vicious circle where the parties are forced to form awkward coalition, the, the most.
00:19:23 - the greens, and, and the, the FDP, which is between two center left and the center right party who on a number of issues can't really agree with each other on basically every issue. There's one of the three parties that doesn't even agree with the other two. So you have unpopular parties which cost the center votes. Basically it's the four mainstream parties that are always involved in government and they are continuously losing. And by now we are looking at a situation where about 63%
00:19:54 - to the four mainstream parties and over a third of the votes go to, to these populous parties. And one of the things you also find in Germany, which which is quite interesting and and a bit overlooked, is that this 5% threshold no longer has this, his deterrent effect. So basically in the eighties and nineties, you, you had only less than 1% of the population voting for fringe parties. In the most recent election, we had 9% of, of German voters.
00:20:26 - that never had a chance of winning a seat. So they're kind of wasting their vote, but they, they don't seem to care much about voting for a party that will not get them any representation in parliament. So in that sense, I think the, the system is unraveling and we do see that the electoral system has never actually created the stability. What created it was how people voted. And basically, while German voters may have behaved almost
00:20:56 - and seventies, they now just behave like normal voters under a PR system. And Germans never make a difference between a big difference between their, their constituency vote and their their party vote. If I may briefly, I, an interesting comparison would be with New Zealand, New Zealand introduced the same electoral system as Germany had in the 1990s. They had a referendum in 92. So they came from a first pastor post tradition Anglo-Saxon country, and they basically, the, the public demanded change
00:21:29 - to this German system. And what happens in in New Zealand is that people vote very, very differently. They're really keen on constituencies and you have very specific constituency races in, in different areas of, of New Zealand. and on election night in New Zealand, you will have of course, just like in the first pastor post edition, you will have, the declaration of constituency results. In Germany you never do. So in Germany, you, you, you basically on election night,

Fragmentation and Trust Issues in German Democracy

00:22:03 - of the parties and what are the likely coalition partners who is a winner and loser. And you never hear anything about constituency. So Germans don't even know whether they live in a marginal constituency or so, and, and their voting behavior doesn't show that, that they care about that. So in that sense that the electoral system never fulfilled the promise that the electoral engineers are so put in it, and now it's, it's, it's just as responsible for, for fragmentation or allows fragmentation just as much
00:22:35 - I did look recent at the most recent wave of the Germany election study with which came out in last year. And, and if you look at that, you, you find that the supporters of of the mainstream parties in Germany are still in a majority satisfied with how democracy works. They're not massively satisfied, they're just, just about, and, and it's only small majorities that are, and of course there's, there's always the effect that if you are supporter of a governing party, you are,
00:23:05 - than if you are on the losing side. And that works certainly for the social Democrats and the greens, they have the, the most satisfied voters. But, but even among them, it's, it's only 60% who say they're clear very or or somewhat satisfied. The CDU voters are a lot less, but the least satisfied of, of the supporters of mainstream parties are supporters of the FDP, which is one of the coalition partners. and they also had a, a membership vote about whether to continue the coalition or not.
00:23:36 - So they are very unhappy about their participation in this coalition. What is more troubling is that if you look at the supporters of populist parties, they're extremely dissatisfied with how democracy works. So 80% of a FD voters, are very or or somewhat dissatisfied, 50% are very dissatisfied with democracy. The numbers are not as dramatic, but going in sort of the same direction work for supporters of the left party or so among a FD voters, what we don't
00:24:10 - So there was a question whether under certain certain circumstances would they think that dictatorship is a better form of government and 20% of a FD supporters say yes to that question, which is a bit worrying, but it's a, it's an underswell of non Democrats that, that are supporting this party, but it's certainly not the majority yet. But I think that, as I said, there, there is this vicious circle in Germany. I mean in general Germany just faces what, what most Western democracies face decreasing turnout,
00:24:41 - lower satisfaction with democracy. What what happens in Germany, I think is partly this, this vicious circle that you have this fragmentation which makes government formation ever more difficult and, and puts, awkward coalitions together between parties that don't really want to govern together. And, and that further erodes, first of all, trust in government, which, which is much lower still than trust in parliament, but also it, it decreases trust in institutions. So in that sense, Germany is facing a a bit of a crisis.

Challenges of Germany's Electoral Reform Debate

00:25:14 - of forming coalitions and the level of support that anti-system parties are gaining, that is, it's gonna become even more difficult to form coalitions in the future. And, and that may further erode trust in institutions and, and support and satisfaction with democracy. My main point is I think that there's an electoral form underway in Germany, which I think is completely misguided. What is happening is that the government in Germany, the, they, they have agreed on, on an electoral reform package,
00:25:44 - So it's on the books, it's supposed to happen, it's, it's still gonna be challenged in front of the constitutional court. And what it basically does, the, the main aim of of this reform is to, to create a fixed size parliament so that there will be no overhang seats anymore. But the way they're doing that is, is very, very strange because it basically means that if we go back to, to the example of the CSU in Bavaria with the 45 seats they won, but only 32% of the votes.
00:26:16 - Basically under the new system, they would only get those 30 odd seats. So the, the dozen or so of their constituency winners with the lowest vote share would simply not get into parliament. So that basically does weigh with the concepts or the idea of constituency mps, because if not every constituency has an mp, then basically none has, I mean, basically winning a constituency from now on would only mean
00:26:46 - of getting into parliament compared to people who don't, who stand in constituencies and don't win them. But you no longer have in that sense, a mixed member system where, where half of them are constituency mps and the others aren't. So that's problematic. the second part of the, of the reform is you keep the 5% threshold, but you get rid of the backdoor solution, which was this, that if you win three constituencies, you, you also get into parliament. And that makes sense in a way, if individual
00:27:18 - parliament, then why should a party be guaranteed seats in parliament? Because it wins individual constituencies. Makes perfect sense. The problem with it is just that, as I said, that CSU in Bavaria, which is the dominant party in Bavaria, wins almost all constituencies. In the last election on national vote, they were down to 5.2%. So they would only have to decline a little bit more and they would not get into parliament and they could still win almost all constituencies in Bavaria.
00:27:48 - where the dominant party in, in a state would be excluded from Parliament, which is highly problematic. So what I don't understand is why Germans also given that that Germans have, that these constituency races mean so little to Germans, why hold onto them? Because also, as I, as I try to explain, the, the electoral system never kept fragmentation in check as such. It was voting behavior. So, so basically if you were to switch,

Rethinking Germany's Electoral System and Fragmentation

00:28:19 - and switch to a PR system, get rid of these single member districts, which, which don't mean anything anymore. In the white paper of the government, they basically said, we, we can do with the guarantee of for, for constituency winners to get into parliament because so many of them win with less than 30% of the vote. So they're basically saying that winning a constituency means so little, that we can do away with, with giving a price for it. So why hold onto it? The problems are not prevented by, by holding onto
00:28:53 - The real problem is, is this level of fragmentation and no electoral design can stop that. Certainly not if you want to have a proportional system. You cannot stop fragmentation other than the what the 5% threshold does, which keeps out fringe parties. But to challenge this trend towards fragmentation and polarization would really require better governing, which is very difficult with, with the kind of awkward,
00:29:42 - But, but basically you need to deliver for people in a way that that makes them more satisfied with mainstream politics and, and makes them come back from the center. And, and I have no idea how German parties, are meant to accomplish that, but their ideas for electoral reform are not addressing this problem at all. I think.

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