The Chancellor and Her Party

Abstract

For years, discussion of leadership in the Federal Republic centred on claims that it was a chancellor democracy, dominated by a constitutionally powerful head of government. Writing in 1981, William Paterson (1981, pp. 3–4) helped broaden the debate by shifting focus to a key variable: interaction between chief executives and their own parties. Since then, far more has been written on this dimension of German politics. Surveying that literature, the current article identifies the key factors seen as affecting a chancellor’s party support. It then applies this analysis to Angela Merkel’s effort at heading a ‘government of equals’, a Grand Coalition between her Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).