Germany in Comparative Context

Abstract

This book examines the phenomenon of party politics in the Federal Republic through comparison across time and space. In other words the book is both a diachronic and synchronic study and, as a result, draws upon two distinct literatures that crosscut the disciplines of political science, political sociology and political history. The first tradition is the German-language and Anglophone literature that focusses specifically on German politics and society. The second is a predominantly (but by no means exclusively) Anglophone comparative politics literature that eschews the depth and specific focus of the single country studies in favour of a broader lens that is capable of defining and explaining patterns of political development and behaviour across cases. By-and-large these cases are to be found in the advanced industrial democracies of Europe, North America and South-East Asia, but it will become apparent to the reader as the book unfolds that useful comparisons can also be drawn with political systems and phenomena in the developing world as well.