Germany Basic facts 2007 Population 82 266 372 GDP p.c. (US$) 40 467 Human development rank 22 Age of democracy in years (Polity) 58 Type of democracy Electoral system Party system Parliamentary Mixed: 299 members are elected under the plurality (firstpast-the post) system; the remaining seats are compensatory seats in order to establish a PR-like seat allocation based on the party list vote overall. Multi-party system The development of the quality of democracy in Germany The overall quality of democracy Germany's quality of democracy lies constantly above the average of all blueprint countries and varies only slightly over time. However, there is a slight decrease of its democratic quality in the early years of the 1990s and again during the first years of the new millennium. The reasons for these developments are discussed in the following paragraphs. 1
Freedom Germany scores slightly below the average on the principle freedom. Similar to the mean of all countries, Germany s development of the principle freedom remains quite stable. However, during the first years after the reunification one can observe a slight decrease. This development is foremost caused by the sharp decline of the function individual liberties during the respective period, which results from a decrease of one of the indicators measuring torture (politterr). During the early 1990s Amnesty International raised several accusations of torture or ill-treatment by the police (AI_d 1994). A second reason for the decrease of individual liberties lies in the decline of religious freedom from 1992 onwards that might be associated to some restrictions regarding non-recognised religious communities (indicator: freerelig). For example, members of the church of Scientology complained about discrimination in private and public life due to their religious believes (HRR 1994). For the remaining period under investigation the function individual liberties remains more or less stable. However, the generally very high level of individual liberties is worth noting. The pattern can mostly be explained by means of constitutional factors. The German constitution is comparatively new and modern. Therefore, in contrast to constitutions of other established democracies, the German constitution guarantees most provisions, which are seen as important for today s democratic regimes. The remaining two functions stay stable over time. While the function rule of law scores quite high (partly due to the modern constitution), the function public sphere could still be improved. The very low level of this function might be explained by some restrictions regarding the constitutional provisions for freedom of assembly, association, speech and the press (indicators: constfras, constass, constspeech, constpress). Furthermore, in Germany only a small and decreasing share of the population is organised in 2
trade unions, or business, environmental and humanitarian organizations, respectively (indicators: union, memproforg, memenviron and memhuman). Control Germany scores well above average on the principle control. However, there is again one function which achieves considerably lower values than the other two functions (yet, still above the average). In this case it is the function competition that stands apart. The lower level of competition can be explained by the relatively weak formal rules for competitiveness (indicators: meandistrict, gerryman) and the rather low number of parties in the electoral arena (indicators: enep). Furthermore, two minor increases can be observed. Competition increases slightly in 1994 and 2003 due to the elections of 1994 and 2002. These elections were marked by a closer electoral outcome and a higher number of effective parties, which positively affected various indicators. By contrast, governmental capability and mutual constraints display higher values. The graph of mutual constraints remains stable until 1994, when a small decline can be registered. This might be explained by the national elections in 1994. Due to the coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) which was formed in the aftermath of the elections, the number of seats from majority parties decreased drastically compared to the previous government (indicator seatgov). The function governmental capability varies more than the other two functions. It first decreased in 1992 due to a cabinet change and an exceptional high number of demonstrations and strikes (indicators cabchange and antigovact). Most of the demonstrations were directed against racism and xenophobia in Germany. In August 1992, right wing radicals attacked asylum seekers in Rostock for several days. As a consequence, thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations, which were directed against 3
racism and right wing extremism (Jüttner 2007; Lichterkette 2011). Furthermore, there was an important strike of the German public service in 1992 (Martens 1992), which also contributed to the decline of the mentioned indicator. The small downturn in 1998 can be explained by the national elections of 1998, which ended the era of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and, consequently, led to a major cabinet change (decrease of the indicator cabchange). From 1998 onwards the level of governmental capability constantly increased and reached its peak in 2001. This increase resulted from a declining degree of deviant behaviour by citizens and comparatively good conditions for the efficient implementation of government policies during these years (indicators: devbehav, govdec). After 2002, however, the trend was reversed due to lower levels of public confidence in the government, a less independent public service and problems with the implementation of government decisions (indicators: confgov, publser, govdec). This might even be an explanation for the early elections of 2005. These took place after Chancellor Gerhard Schröder lost a vote of no-confidence in the Federal Council and negatively affected the indicators govstab and cabchange. Hence, the improvement of this function in the subsequent years is due to the more stable development of the first Merkel government. Equality Germany s performance regarding the principle equality is rather unstable and varies considerably over time. This variance results mainly from changes in the function transparency, since the development of the other two functions neutralise each other. As for the function transparency, the variation is caused by small changes in several indicators. The fluctuations in 1993 and 1997 for example are due to more transparency in government communication and, in 1997, increased press freedom (indicators: transp, legmedia, polmedia). However, the introduction of some restrictions of internet media content (access to dangerous, obscene or violent content is 4
blocked) (HRR 1997), seems to have thrown transparency back to its previous level in 1998. The most important increase in transparency occurs in 2006 due to new laws regulating the freedom of information and the access to official information (indicators: RestricFOI and EffFOI). More specifically, in September 2005 the federal government of Germany passed a freedom of information law, which grants each individual the right to access official federal information without any justifications (Federal Act 2005). In contrast to transparency, the function representation increases constantly over time. The most important change occurs between 1997 and 1999 due to a higher number of women in parliament (womrep), more issue congruence (as a consequence of the 1998 elections) and less political discrimination of minorities (indicator poldismin). The latter development can be explained by the introduction of special laws protecting and acknowledging traditional minorities in Germany (e.g., Sorbs, Danes, Roma, Sinti, and Frisians) (HRR 1999). Likewise, the function participation remains stable for the first years under investigation, but then, decreases from 2000 onwards. This observation might be explained by lower levels of turnout and, related to this, less equal participation in terms of gender and age as well as of income and education (indicators: meanpart, repturnined and repturngeag). Furthermore, less people signed petitions or took part in demonstrations (indicators: petition and demons). The democracy profile of Germany Legend: (Principles and Functions) Principle: Freedom: RL (Rule of Law), IL (Individual Liberties), PS (Public Sphere). Control: GC (Governmental Capability), MC (Mutual Constraints), CO (Competition). Equality: TR (Transparency), PAR (Participation), REP (Representation). Consistent with the first line chart above, the spider diagrams show little variation over time. Neither the forms nor the expanses of the spiders change much. The only exceptions are the functions representation, participation and transparency. As explained above, the former constantly increases over time, while the latter two fluctuate. 5
A last glance at the spiders shows that Germany cannot be clearly classified into the egalitarian or libertarian group, because none of the principles stands out. Rather, some functions, such as individual liberty, rule of law, participation, governmental capability or mutual constraints score very high, whereas others score rather low. What can be said, however, is that Germany achieves higher values on freedom than on equality, indicating that this principle is somewhat more important in Germany s democracy. 6