Paragraph 1: I put it down mainly to voter stupidity - sorry. But it can be rationalised this way: in the upper chamber of the German federal parliamentary system (whose members are delegated by the state governments), the CDU/CSU gained a large majority - so lately, the two chambers block each other, and some people want that resolved. But what may really be behind for many people is an ideology-less longing for unity, the belief that all would go fine if only politicians wouldn't bicker (something I noticed in a part of the people both during my residence in Germany and in the German media since).
Paragraph 2: That's a good idea you had. Yes, this is part of the explanation, tough not all of it - after all, there is a much smaller pool of non-voters than in the USA.
Paragraph 3: People used to say it's undemocratic because most voters of either party preferred something else in polls - but that's not true this time for SPD voters. But it's certainly bad: it takes away the identity of the two participants, blocks reform policies of both, and empowers extremists. But, I don't know, but I feel it may be the lesser evil this time.
Paragraph 4: Nothing. Parties still count more than sides.
Paragraph 5: I wouldn't characterise Bliarism as centrist christian democracy - that definition belongs to the old CDU; Bliarism is market-liberal spinocracy parading as social liberalism (indeed a poor man's Thatcherism combined with the poor man's Keynesianism). There is no democracy when there is a 'natural' party of government, and I most certainly don't want one to appear in any country with a proportional election system (not to speak of having to vote for one). Differing opinions must be there to compete, more than two of them, and in case one party gets too corrupted there has to be a replacement. Schröder was once put in the same rubric with Bliar as "Third Wayists", and indeed their policies and methods have striking similarities, but the Iraq war made people forget that. What Germany does need in my opinion is a move back to 'boring' argument-based politics and discourse, away from the yellow press and spin and leaders' machoism. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I guess I just differ with you on the idea of competing parties. I think this is something I filter through the US and Canadian context. The US used to be characterized by consensual politics: not since the New Right started gathering steam 40 years ago. Bush is the culmination of a rejection of consensual politics on the part of the right, and it is a major reason me (and many others) so strongly dislike Bush. He has "Italianized" American politics, although the process began before Bush - he has pushed it to an extreme.
Canada is a study in contrast, as the Liberal Party (a centrist party) is the natural party of government and it is very hard to dislodge them from power at the national/federal level. This has its problems, but the Liberal Party quite closely mirrors my own belifes about politics - basically social liberal, pro-welfare state capitalist, technocratic, averse to ideology. This certainly has its problems, but right now, I would take this system - by a long shot - over what American politics has become.
I also think conflictual politics no longer benefits the left. Frankly, if you put a gun to the head of voters, particularly relatively affluent voters, who now mostly see themselves as consumers, not producers, they are going to choose the free market fundamentalist over the unreconstructed social democrat more often. I don't know if the British model is relevant or not, but Margaret Thatcher basically dominated British politics - while never winning close to a majority of the popular vote, or being personally popular - by playing this game of "chicken" with the British voters for 10 years. I see this process now repeating itself - potentially - in both Germany and France.
Ben P
Hm, maybe you meant "Berlusconized"? Italian politics, the partitocracy, was long characterised by the established parties slicing up the landscape as their own turf, and cooperating in ensuring the continuation of the system - no real confrontation.
This has its problems, but the Liberal Party quite closely mirrors my own belifes about politics
You see, that's the point. (Hooray for the New Democratic Party! They got 15.7% despite FPTP.)
they are going to choose the free market fundamentalist over the unreconstructed social democrat more often.
Or not. Polls in Britain I saw showed most of the population way to the left of New Labour on issues involving public services and taxation.
The problems with your British-German comparison are several; a central one is that Britain has a first-past-the-post system like you in the USA (and most of Canada) - and the left vote was split for most of the time Thatcher was in. If the election system had been like in Germany, she wouldn't have been PM: a Labour/Liberal coalition in 1979 and a Labour/Alliance one in the eighties would have had majority.
In France, what I see is a shift to the left, not right - unless the left undercuts itself with internal divisions again. (Even Chirac's victory was the result of a catastrophic miscalcualtion both on the part of Left politicians and voters, who assumed the first round's result is a given and they only need to concentrate on the runoff - and then some people gave the benefit of the doubt to the Right and wanted to avoid cohabitation, but quickly regretted it.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Perhaps. It wasn't the best analogy, maybe. What I mean is that Bush's strategy is based on a zero-sum analysis of the American body politic. Divide the electorate to your advantage by stigmatizing and marginalizing large segments when it suits you. Do whatever you have to do to get just enough votes, then govern in such a way that completely ignores the constituencies who didn't vote for you and even many those who did vote in fact vote for you insofar as you can get away with it. Then pursue a rigidly ideological agenda. When the next election comes around, don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do but just use attack and polarization to force just enough voters to your side.
In this sense, I see the New Right version of the Republican Party as kind of like a Communist or Fascist Party - hence my Italian analogy, because both groups have been very strong and have essentially fought a kind of "cold civil war" since at least WWII - not ideologically, but in that it thinks its agenda is more important than governing the country in an effective way. Its premised on a vision of the country that excludes many if not a majority of its inhabitants.
Yes, and this was true when Thatcher was in power too. But these polls don't vote. People do. And the voter on election day tends to take a much more cynical view of affairs. Again, this is perhaps not true in Germany. But I do see some analogies.
Good points. I would add that the splits between Labour and the Liberals was/is more significant than it may seem on the surface. A coalition was never on the cards. Even more so with the Alliance in the context of 1983.
In France, what I see is a shift to the left, not right - unless the left undercuts itself
Yes, and this is a prospect I see a very likely. What with the aftermath of the Euro referendum and the splits within the Socialist Party. I see a good chunk of the Socialist Party lining up behind some "popular front" anti-liberal left with the various Communist and Trotskyite groups. I don't know if the social liberals (PS tendance droite) have large enough numbers to get into a second round under such circumstances. It could well be Le Pen and Sarkozy in the run off.
Well DUH - they had FPFP. Proportional elections force coalition thinking. (BTW, historically, there has been a Liberla-Labour coalition.)
I don't know if the social liberals (PS tendance droite) have large enough numbers to get into a second round
Well, maybe this time the social socialists get a candidate into the second round, and PS tendance droite will refrain from sabotage! *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It's a major problem, but it is no more sabotage for people like myself to oppose the hard left than it is for you to oppose people like Blair. But cheer up, it could be worse - think of the old divide between the Communists and the Socialists.
Well that's true, but as far as I know, their deaths weren't due to anything Ebert & co did :-) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
What I mean is that the modern Republican Party (essentially what used to be known as the "New Right" or sometimes now called "movement conservatism," in institutional form), particularly the Republican Party run by Karl Rove, defines dissent or disagreement from its policy choices as "un-American." Sometimes this claim is subtle, sometimes it is explicit. But nevertheless, today's Republican Party in many cases defines views disagreeing within its agenda as being outside an acceptable definition of the American nation.
This, IMO, is a sinister development and reminds me of the kind of thinking of Communist Parties around the world, democratic and not - ie if you aren't a friend of the revolution, you are its enemy. Accordingly, you will play no role in a country governed by a Communist government, and in a non-democratic Communist take over, you either "get with the program," or go to jail. The same is true of many far right parties as well. And because Italy has a strong Fascist and Communist traditions which have effectively played out a kind of "cold civil war" even when the Christian Democratic Party was dominant, I make the analogy.
However, in Italy's partitocracy, both post-fascists and communists were marginalised (the system wasn't just the Christian Democrats, but the Socialists too); and as far as I know, Italian communists were of a different tradition from what we had here in Central-Eastern Europe, not one aiming for non-democratic takeover. (Quite the contrary: Western intelligence services had a grand operation after WWII - e.g. Gladio et al - to prevent a democratic victory of the party, quite nasty tough less nasty than what went on in Greece.)
Meanwhile, what Rove does has a US tradition too, anti-Vietnam-war protesters and earlier those leftists witch-hunted by McCarthy and even earlier by the FBI (and the media and the public going along with authorities) had to feel it. Or, even further back, there is Rove's role model, that was a certain Mark Hanna, spinmeister for the founder of the US Empire, President McKinley (who rates higher than Bush on my personal list of worst US Presidents). Going yet again earlier, tough not fully relevant (no explicit "un-American" quote here), the following description of a Republican campaign when Gorver Cleveland was elected, from Cuban poet José Martí, is hauntingly familiar:
"It's brutal, and nauseating, a presidential campaign in the United States. The mud comes up to the chairs. The white beards of the newspapers forget all about the decorum of old age. They dump buckets of mud on all our heads. They knowingly lie and exaggerate. They stab each other in the belly and the back. Any defamation is treated as legitimate. Every blow is good, as long as it staggers the enemy. He who invents an effective slander proudly struts ... . A good faith observer has no idea how to analyze a battle in which everyone considers it legitimate to campaign in bad faith. ...The evil was very grave: the Republicans, entrenched in power, cynically abused it; they subverted the integrity of the vote, and of the press; they mocked the spirit of the Constitution through partisan legislation, and copying the tactics of tyrants, used overseas wars to deflect attention from their actions. Who had a chance to compete against them? Defeat them? -- if elections are won by the force of money, if the Republicans have a free hand with the national coffers?
...The evil was very grave: the Republicans, entrenched in power, cynically abused it; they subverted the integrity of the vote, and of the press; they mocked the spirit of the Constitution through partisan legislation, and copying the tactics of tyrants, used overseas wars to deflect attention from their actions. Who had a chance to compete against them? Defeat them? -- if elections are won by the force of money, if the Republicans have a free hand with the national coffers?
There is a solid base of around forty percent for both left and right in Germany. The left has been in power for two terms and have not done an outstanding job, nothing strange about their problems. Also, in 2002 the elections were very close, the vote for the SPD and CDU/CSU were virtually identical. If it weren't for the creation of the Linkspartei this election would be shaping up as quite similar since the SPD would be looking at about 3-4% more in the polls. As for Ben's question - well that answers it. The solid 40% of the electorate which is on the right doesn't have a problem with liberal reforms - many want more. Many on the middle are sympathetic as well. The SPD's base on the other hand is quite upset leading some among them to think of voting for the LP. No voter stupidity here.
I will dispute that. This is true of the party elite and supportive media, but not such strong bases as conservative public workers or the rural population.
Moreover, the dissatisfaction with the SPD/Greens government is from a time that government tried economic-liberal reforms itself. I don't see popular support for these reforms. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
