Why are there so many democrats in Germany?
January 12, 2010 1:43 AM   Subscribe

Help an American understand German politics.

I was reading Economist and I am utterly confuse by number of political party with democrat in their name.

So far I counted:

Christian Democrats(CDU)
Free Democrats (FDP)
Social Democratic Party (SPD)

I read this article in wikipedia and am still confuse.

Could you explain why there are so many political parties calling themselves democrats and what's the difference between them?

Thanks
posted by Carius to Law & Government (21 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is probably a better Wikipedia article to read for help in understanding.

"Democracy" means "rule by the people," more or less, and that's the source for the word "democrat." It's essentially just a populistic term used by all sorts of parties in all sorts of countries because (I suppose) it appeals to people's desire to have a voice. I have the feeling you're trying to connect the American sense of what a "democrat" is with a German one, but there really isn't this direct relationship.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 1:49 AM on January 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


More generally, everyone around the world calls themselves a democrat (ie, in favour of democracy) because it make them sound righteous. Democratic Republic of the Congo, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (ie North Korea), German Democratic Republic (former East Germany).

It's good to keep in mind that there is a HUGE difference between what politicians, political parties, and states name themselves and what they actually believe and do. Even in the US, most Republicans are at least nominally in favor of democracy and most Democrats are in favour republicanism. Funny how the most successful Republicans try to act like Monarchs (dynasites, rule by decree, claiming divine authority).

Anyway, like Dee says, even though in the US there is this idea that Democrat=Liberal, around the world Democrat basically doesn't mean anything, although it does tend to be used more often by socialist-leaning people. So you can interpret it as meaning Left-ish, but it could be anything from mildly liberal (or even right leaning) to the hardest of the hardcorest communist types.
posted by molecicco at 2:15 AM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


At least the social democrats have their roots in a time when democracy was basically forced on Germany after the defeat in WW I, and they competed with at least three directions that wanted to get away from the entire concept of a democratic multiparty system (monarchists, fascists and communists), so labelling yourself a "democratic" party wasn't just meaningless fluff back then.
posted by themel at 2:25 AM on January 12, 2010


Best answer: CDU are like the US Republican Party: fiscally liberal (free market ideals), socially conservative, anti-immigration, mostly found in the south, where many conservative Catholic Germans live.

SPD are like the US Democratic Party: fiscally moderate-to-socialist, socially liberal, mostly concentrated in northern Germany.

FDP are like US libertarians; like the CDU, they want a free market, but are more progressive on social policy, like the SPD.

Then you have Die Grünen, analogous with the US Green Party: fiscally socialist, socially liberal. They generally like pro-inclusion, pro-environmental and anti-war policies and as a smaller party within a larger parliamentary system will join with other parties to build voting blocs or coalitions to get their policies through.

The adjective demokratisch isn't applied with the same branding as it does in the US. As Dee Xtrovert notes, it has a more neutral, literal meaning.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:27 AM on January 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Disclaimer: Big political parties are usually "big tents", uniting a number of political viewpoints that don't fully agree or at least place different emphases on the different policies of the party. Also, parties do change. Also, any description of political parties will inevitably be biased by the political viewpoint of the writer.

That being said:

CDU: Believe that society's problems can be solved by traditional family and society structure, religious belief, etc. Somewhat economically liberal, though compared to US parties, pretty interventionist. Currently in power as the major partner in a coalition with the FDP. The CDU also includes the CSU, which is its (very conservative) equivalent in the federal state of Bavaria.

FDP: The direct descendant of 19th-century liberalism. Believe that free market economics can solve society's problems. Used to be big on civil rights and social liberalism, but as I understand has shed this somewhat in favour of a middle-of-the-road social policy.

SPD: Believe that economic equality will solve society's problems. Used to favour a lot of government intervention in, if not control of, the economy. Reinvented themselves in the 90s as more business-friendly and had a spell of ruling the country in a coalition with the green party. Believes in intervening in peoples' private lives for their own good.

Other parties of note (some 10% of the vote each):

Greens: Believe that society's problems can be solved by environmentalism and social liberalism. Wish to regulate economy to be more environmentally friendly and greatly oppose nuclear power.

Die Linke: ("The Left") Socialist-democratic party. Believe that society's problems can be solved with socialism. Emerged from the remains of the ruling party of eastern Germany combined with people who did not like the SPD cosying up to the business world.
posted by Zarkonnen at 2:36 AM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


SIDEBAR: I *love* this question. Thanks for asking it.

I'm in the same predicament. I can easily follow much of the German-language radio broadcasts I listen to, but when they start talking politics I'm left in the dust. It's not a language barrier -- I know the words -- I just lack the cultural context.
posted by RavinDave at 2:43 AM on January 12, 2010


Note that East Germany used to be called the German Democratic Republic, though it was neither a democracy nor a republic. Why shouldn't they all call themselves democratic? Democracy is a good thing, and they want to sound good. It's just a name. The American Democratic party doesn't necessarily believe in democracy any more than the Republican party -- it's just a name.

Also, as Themel pointed out, the SPD was around in the Weimar period when some parties, like the Nazis, were explicitly anti-democratic, so back then it was an accurate label.
posted by creasy boy at 2:48 AM on January 12, 2010


But what themel said is not entirely correct. The SPD has it's roots in the labour movement of the 1860's, and the name itself is from 1890.

Also "democracy was basically forced on Germany after the defeat in WW I"? A strange way to describe the November Revolution of 1918. Maybe you are forgetting that Germany wasn't occupied after WW1 like after WW2
posted by ts;dr at 3:05 AM on January 12, 2010


CDU are like the US Republican Party:

See, the problem with analogues like this, is that the viewpoints of many a conservative CDU politician would simply be considered to be a left leaning lunacy in the US.

And the whole law system is difference.

And the whole economical outlook differs dramatically [Rhine capitalism vs 'The Anglosaxon model'].

Which just goes to show you must never believe what a politician says, but regard how they act.
posted by ijsbrand at 4:26 AM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Carius: “Could you explain why there are so many political parties... ?”

This is a basic answer to part of your question, but I think it's the biggest essential difference between European and American democracy, so it should help: unlike the US, almost all the countries in Europe have "proportional" elections, rather than what some people call "first-past-the post" elections.

To put it very simply:

Here in the US, if 53% of the people in a district vote for the Republicans, and 47% of the people vote for the Democrats, then the Democrats just lose; they don't get anything at all, even though it was really close, because they didn't get the biggest chunk of the vote.

In Germany, and in most European countries, elections are proportional; that is, if 53% of the people vote for the Christian Democrats, and 47% of the people vote for the Free Democrats, then both parties get to hold offices, it's just that the Christian Democrats get to hold more offices.

That kind of system means that there will be more political parties, because you don't have to win everything to have a party that consistently gets elected. If 30% of people voted for your party in every election in the US, you'd just be a failed party, and you'd disappear. But if 30% of people vote for your party in Germany, you consistently hold around 30% of the elected offices, so, even if you're not the most popular, at least you're getting elected and representing people.

There are some people, myself included, who believe that the US ought to have proportional elections, too. It would certainly mean that two parties wouldn't be able to completely shut out all the other political voices.
posted by koeselitz at 4:29 AM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Agree with comments about the word Democratic, it doesn't have the same meaning as it has in the US.
That aside, it is good to realise that it is a multiparty-system. Sometimes more than two parties have to be in a government together in order to represent a majority of votes. So, you have more substantially large political parties than you have in the US. Differences between two parties are sometimes marginal.

This wiki is interesting, because it gives an overview of political movements/parties in the European Parliament. They reflect the most common political movements in Europe. As you can see, there is no democratic movement (perhaps christian-democratic, but again: that's merely a name)
posted by eau79 at 4:32 AM on January 12, 2010


Regarding the use of 'Democratic' in party names, it is perhaps notable that both the CDU and the FDP where founded post WW2, when there was a significant cultural imperative in West Germany to appear to be as committed to democracy as possible. This also manifests in other ways in the German institutional framework.
posted by biffa at 5:12 AM on January 12, 2010


"Christian Democratic" and "Social Democratic" are also generic names for a kind of center-right and center-left parties respectively. Wherever you go, a party that translates to Christian Democratic in English is very likely to be a moderate conservative party but with some real support for a welfare state; they're not Reaganite-Thatcherite parties. Wherever you go, a party that translates to Social Democratic is going to be moderate left (by global standards; flaming commie by US), favoring a strong welfare state, socially liberal, but unlikely to favor, even in theory, workers control of the means of production. In this respect, Christian democratic and social democratic are meaningful labels like "libertarian," not just names.

In countries where all the parties exist in an electorally meaningful way, the social democrats will be substantially to the left of the Christian democrats, but to the right of the socialists, and the socialists will be to the right of the communists. (I am sure that at least one election in at least one European country will exist where this ordering is not true)
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:30 AM on January 12, 2010


The "Christian" in Christian Democrat also had, and still retains to some extent, a literal implication of support for (and by) the major Christian denomination in a jurisdiction and their continued integration into state and public welfare functions, when the Social Democratic parties tended to be in passive or even active opposition to the same. Particularly important in Italy in the post-war decade.
posted by MattD at 8:16 AM on January 12, 2010


"post-war decades" I should have said.
posted by MattD at 8:17 AM on January 12, 2010


Best answer: Some resources if you'd like to go into further detail:

Western European Studies Section (Wiki-type page) - German Politics and Government

American Institute for Contemporary German Studies
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:17 AM on January 12, 2010


Almost completely unrelated comment.

But if you're into 20th c. European history you can't neglect the Spanish Civil War, which I found mighty confusing until I realized that the Republicans in that conflict are the opposite of US Republicans.
posted by Rash at 8:30 AM on January 12, 2010


TV Tropes, of all places, sometimes has good basic information on things such as these in its Useful Notes section, often at a more basic level and with a touch more humor than the corresponding Wikipedia article. (From the "American Political System" article: "There are two major parties in the US today. The general feeling among Americans about these parties is that one of them is evil, and the other is incompetent. Which is which depends on who you ask.") Anyway, here's their Political System of Germany article, which briefly describes the major parties.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:56 AM on January 12, 2010


If you're interested in books,

http://www.amazon.com/German-Polity-8th-David-Conradt/dp/0321159217

was one of the standard textbooks in our German politics class, undergrad. It's very comprehensive.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:17 AM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


The American Democratic party doesn't necessarily believe in democracy any more than the Republican party -- it's just a name.

While in some senses this may be true, there are numerous members of both parties who would say otherwise. The Democrats do tend more toward populist and participatory programs, while the Republicans tend to worry about the same. In explicit terms, the 2000 election -- when the popular vote winner lost -- became a cause celebre split along these lines, with Republicans saying that the country is a republic and not a democracy (as such, nonsense, by dictionary definition it is both, but try arguing with a wall sometime), and Democrats calling for a constitutional reform to abolish the electoral college. So it isn't really just a name.

Back to Germany. It's telling that in the last pre-Weimar election, only one party -- the SPD of course -- had Democratic in its name. Seven years later, three parties representing 65% of the voters did. Notably, other names used for parties -- "People's", "Nationalist", even "Social Democratic" -- were tarnished by association with Communism and Nazism respectively. (Following the end of the Cold War, almost all of Europe and even Warsaw Pact Communist Parties changed their names.) In general, nationalism survives as a political force in Europe, but rarely dares speak its name.

Ultimately I think it is important not to come to a subject like this with an American bias. The US is in many ways a political anomaly, with its heavily two-party system and two party names dating from the early to middle 19th century. The names are certainly not a global definition of "left" and "right" politics. People building a bias on a name basis are also more easily confused than those who understand political history and its ebbs and flows: I once completely confused a libertarian message board by pointing out that Chomsky is a libertarian socialist and his views conform more closely to original 19th century "libertarianism" than modern Ayn Randians'. (Some of them suspected I was pulling a Jedi mind trick.) By the same token, the American sobriquet "liberal" tends to mean not "leftist" but "capitalist" in the rest of the world.
posted by dhartung at 12:09 PM on January 12, 2010


creasy boy: “The American Democratic party doesn't necessarily believe in democracy any more than the Republican party -- it's just a name.”

dhartung: “While in some senses this may be true, there are numerous members of both parties who would say otherwise.”

Well, that's half true. There are numerous members of one party who would say otherwise. I've never met a Republican who actually claimed they believed in democracy less than Democrats. You're right that lots of Republicans had a tendency in those times to tendentiously pontificate on the significance of the US being a 'Republic,' but not one of them I've ever talked to claimed it wasn't a democracy. They wanted badly to claim, in the moment, that its democraticness was limited, and of course it is in certain ways; but Americans, even the worst of them, are inveterate lovers of democracy, and little could be done to cure them of this unfortunately.

eau79: “... it is good to realise that it is a multiparty-system. Sometimes more than two parties have to be in a government together in order to represent a majority of votes.

Indeed, most of the time. I think the multi-party nature of such systems is the most essential difference; and the only reason European democracies are multiparty rather than two-party is because they hold proportional elections.

Take the 2000 election in the US as an example. Almost 3% of voters cast a vote in that election for the Green Party candidate. Thought that meant almost three million people voted Green – no small feat for that party – in the final equation it meant absolutely nothing, because in our system elections are not proportional. You have to win the most votes to win any power at all, and the top dog gets all the power.

If the US system were proportional, that would have meant that the Green Party got to take 3% of the representation, 3% of the power in that situation. Given that the Democrats had already taken a majority proportion of the popular vote, and given that the Green Party probably would not have objected too strongly to a limited partnership with the Democrats, in a proportionally-electing system the 2000 election would have been a decisive victory for the Democrats on almost all fronts.

Now, that sounds nice to those who feel strongly that that election was decisively unfortunate; and there are a lot of people who feel that way. But even more important from the standpoint of democracy, I think, is this fact: the Green Party would have then been a partner to government, and an important part of it. In that situation, there would have been Republicans, for example, who spent a lot of time trying to woo Green Party support, and hoping to convince the Greens not to form an alliance with the Democrats. That would still have been an understated effect, but it would have meant that people whose ideals are best met by the Green Party would have had decisive and definitive representation in government. And that power would have provided a stepping-stone for the party to increase its popularity if it so chose.

But as it is in our system now, people hated the Greens. The Democrats hated the Greens because they viewed them as 'spoilers,' as thieves who had taken decisive votes away from the coalition which must form any successful party. The Republicans simply loathed their ideals, but they certainly enjoyed and encouraged whatever benefit they could get from the Greens' ability to draw voters away from the Democratic ticket. As a result, in general, the not insignificant number of people who feel that their ideals are best represented by the Green Party are alienated, disliked, and most importantly not represented in any direct way whatsoever. And one notices that in the next election, very few people voted for the Green Party, because to vote for the Green Party is in a certain way to actually act against the very ideals of the Green Party. The situation is not sensible at all, in my mind, and it leads to a system where third parties have almost a negative kind of status, and remarkable and nearly impossible circumstances must arise before a third party can ever take any kind of prominence.

Whereas, in European democracies, anyone who wants to start a party with any name at all may try to lay claim to a proportion of the vote, and if they succeed, they have legitimacy, no matter what their provenance. People who believe in democracy and have the electoral boost of being affiliated with a particular Christian sect (or perhaps people who are just playing lip service to democracy and/or Christianity) are free to set up a Christian Democratic party; and, given the general popularity of Christianity and Democracy in Europe, a Christian Democratic Party is likely to have a certain amount of success, in a purely abstract context. And it usually plays out that way practically. Now, if someone wasn't a Christian, and believed that Christianity is rather rigid and unfree and wanted to express the opposite in a democratic government, they would be free to found a Free Democratic Party; and so it is. And that can happen over and over again, several times; whether any of these parties get along with each other, whether they form alliances against or with each other, is a matter that's played out in a more specific way, but the fact that so many such parties are able to proliferate is down to proportional, rather than 'first-past-the-post,' elections.
posted by koeselitz at 12:59 PM on January 13, 2010


« Older Best baseball team to not make playoffs.   |   Please recommend for me, an inexpensive all-in-one... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.