Paralysis Über Alles
Harold's List
Wall Street Journal
By HAROLD JAMES
September 20, 2005; Page A16
The German elections have produced a dramatic break with the consensus that has dominated the country's cozy postwar politics. The result shattered the mold of the Federal Republic, once marked by a rather boring degree of stability. In almost all previous elections, results were easily anticipated, and in all cases there was no doubt about the emergence of a stable government. Yet this time, the character and composition of the government is completely unclear, and will remain so for a long spell of convoluted negotiations over coalitions. It is extremely unlikely that whatever government emerges can last the four-year parliamentary term.
***
In the 1980s, a book by the chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, was called "The Japan That Can Say No." Germany, too, has now thought hard and said "no" to the old government -- of Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens. But the electors have also said "nein" to the proposed alternative, under Angela Merkel, of a Christian Democrat (CDU) and Liberal coalition which was widely expected to form the new government. Both major parties lost a significant share of the vote from the last elections in 2002, the SPD falling from 38.5% to 34.3% and the CDU from 38.4% to 35.2%.
Both parties are uncomfortably aware that the most obvious political way out of the crisis, a so-called Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, is problematical, and likely to extend rather than end the political malaise. Ms. Merkel repeatedly suggested during the campaign that it would produce only immobility in a society and economy that desperately needs far-ranging reform. Both the SPD and the CDU contain reform wings that recognize the need for deregulation of the labor market -- in other words, for a continuation of the reforms which Chancellor Schröder began -- as well as of a simplification and reduction of the tax burden. An optimistic view sees a chance for cooperation between these reform wings. But there are also wings that are opposed, and they are strong.
The premature calling of elections came in large part because Mr. Schröder felt that his own party's support for his plans was feeble. And in the course of the campaign, Ms. Merkel needed to step back because of the paranoia unleashed among her party's supporters by her appointment of an advocate of radical tax simplification, Paul Kirchhof. A decisive moment in the campaign came in the televised debate between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Schröder, when a journalist addressed Frau Merkel as "Frau Kirchhof." It was the Kirchhof bogey that allowed Mr. Schröder to make a big dent in the CDU lead in opinion polls in the weeks before the elections.
Electoral strategists will make an obvious, and depressing, deduction from the 2005 campaign -- that advocacy of radical reform at a time of economic stagnation is likely to make for a reduced vote in any future election (which may come soon). With five million unemployed, they will look for opportunities to make a populist case against reform.
In addition, the formation of a Grand Coalition will put an enormous strain on a party system that is already fragmented, by encouraging more radical small parties to formulate ever more outrageous alternatives to existing policies. The Federal Republic was stable in the past largely because it relied on the alternation of the two big parties that competed with each other but also needed to engage with centrist voters. When the parties instead try to compete for the votes of the extremes, the political signals are set to danger. The previous experience of a Grand Coalition -- in the late 1960s, when the economy was much stronger -- seems to bear out this political hazard. That coalition drove voters to the extremes, to a neo-Nazi movement that did well enough to break into state-level parliaments, while the radical left formed a " Extra-Parliamentary Opposition" that midwifed a left-wing terrorist movement.
German interwar political experience is much more terrifying. Germany was ruled by a Grand Coalition between 1928 and 1930, just as the Great Depression began to bite. The move to the political extremes -- to the Nazis and the Communists -- and away from democratic politics, was very rapid. The government was paralyzed by inaction, as any step to tackle the problems of the Depression alienated some group of voters or interest lobby. By the end, it was impossible to form a democratic coalition that commanded a parliamentary majority. It was this self-destruction of democracy that set the stage for Hitler.
At that time, and today, Germany presents an unsettling model of the way a complex and divided industrial society responds to globalization. Only a small group in the political center now -- as then -- really sees globalization as a chance. On the left, there is anxiety and hostility, as there is on the right, but the "no" views have little in common. For many workers, globalization undermines labor standards and employment. They are attracted as a result to the new party formed by the former communists from East Germany, which gained over 8% of the vote and whose leaders presented the new movement as the real victor of the election. Others, on the political right, see globalization as threatening small businesses or farmers. It is likely that the right fringe will also begin to grow, and that the new party of the far left, led by "Red Oskar" Lafontaine, will have an equivalent on the right.
The result of the new polarization is already visible in the absence of consensus behind any reform. As conventional politics fails, the push to the extremes becomes more powerful, but the extremes also affect the existing parties.
According to the logic of the new German politics, the best chance of mobilizing support lies not in addressing real problems, but in conducting blame campaigns. During the election, the Social Democrats started to attack foreign, primarily American, capital as "locusts" descending on Germany; it portrayed the hike in gas prices as the _expression of the profit drive of multinationals; and it replayed the anti-Americanism that had given the party a narrow victory in 2002. The Christian Democrats indulged in a fair measure of populism as well, though it was directed less against the U.S. than in mobilizing opinion to keep Turkey out of the European Union. But on both sides this was very mild populism compared to the stereotypes that will be mobilized as the consensus disintegrates.
A Germany that is not capable of reform, and where economic weakness leads to an increasing schism in society and politics -- and which turns the country against the world -- is a frightening specter. A great deal of the postwar security architecture was designed to prevent the reemergence of a loose German cannon, as was the framework of European integration. The Germans themselves wanted to be held down, but that desire is receding into history. A Germany that attaches itself to obstruction, to the domestic political attractions of blame politics, and to the desire to say "no," will be a destabilizing force both in Europe, and the world beyond.
Mr. James, professor of history and international affairs at Princeton, is author of "Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000" (Longman, 2003).
Wall Street Journal
By HAROLD JAMES
September 20, 2005; Page A16
The German elections have produced a dramatic break with the consensus that has dominated the country's cozy postwar politics. The result shattered the mold of the Federal Republic, once marked by a rather boring degree of stability. In almost all previous elections, results were easily anticipated, and in all cases there was no doubt about the emergence of a stable government. Yet this time, the character and composition of the government is completely unclear, and will remain so for a long spell of convoluted negotiations over coalitions. It is extremely unlikely that whatever government emerges can last the four-year parliamentary term.
In the 1980s, a book by the chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, was called "The Japan That Can Say No." Germany, too, has now thought hard and said "no" to the old government -- of Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens. But the electors have also said "nein" to the proposed alternative, under Angela Merkel, of a Christian Democrat (CDU) and Liberal coalition which was widely expected to form the new government. Both major parties lost a significant share of the vote from the last elections in 2002, the SPD falling from 38.5% to 34.3% and the CDU from 38.4% to 35.2%.
Both parties are uncomfortably aware that the most obvious political way out of the crisis, a so-called Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, is problematical, and likely to extend rather than end the political malaise. Ms. Merkel repeatedly suggested during the campaign that it would produce only immobility in a society and economy that desperately needs far-ranging reform. Both the SPD and the CDU contain reform wings that recognize the need for deregulation of the labor market -- in other words, for a continuation of the reforms which Chancellor Schröder began -- as well as of a simplification and reduction of the tax burden. An optimistic view sees a chance for cooperation between these reform wings. But there are also wings that are opposed, and they are strong.
The premature calling of elections came in large part because Mr. Schröder felt that his own party's support for his plans was feeble. And in the course of the campaign, Ms. Merkel needed to step back because of the paranoia unleashed among her party's supporters by her appointment of an advocate of radical tax simplification, Paul Kirchhof. A decisive moment in the campaign came in the televised debate between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Schröder, when a journalist addressed Frau Merkel as "Frau Kirchhof." It was the Kirchhof bogey that allowed Mr. Schröder to make a big dent in the CDU lead in opinion polls in the weeks before the elections.
Electoral strategists will make an obvious, and depressing, deduction from the 2005 campaign -- that advocacy of radical reform at a time of economic stagnation is likely to make for a reduced vote in any future election (which may come soon). With five million unemployed, they will look for opportunities to make a populist case against reform.
In addition, the formation of a Grand Coalition will put an enormous strain on a party system that is already fragmented, by encouraging more radical small parties to formulate ever more outrageous alternatives to existing policies. The Federal Republic was stable in the past largely because it relied on the alternation of the two big parties that competed with each other but also needed to engage with centrist voters. When the parties instead try to compete for the votes of the extremes, the political signals are set to danger. The previous experience of a Grand Coalition -- in the late 1960s, when the economy was much stronger -- seems to bear out this political hazard. That coalition drove voters to the extremes, to a neo-Nazi movement that did well enough to break into state-level parliaments, while the radical left formed a " Extra-Parliamentary Opposition" that midwifed a left-wing terrorist movement.
German interwar political experience is much more terrifying. Germany was ruled by a Grand Coalition between 1928 and 1930, just as the Great Depression began to bite. The move to the political extremes -- to the Nazis and the Communists -- and away from democratic politics, was very rapid. The government was paralyzed by inaction, as any step to tackle the problems of the Depression alienated some group of voters or interest lobby. By the end, it was impossible to form a democratic coalition that commanded a parliamentary majority. It was this self-destruction of democracy that set the stage for Hitler.
At that time, and today, Germany presents an unsettling model of the way a complex and divided industrial society responds to globalization. Only a small group in the political center now -- as then -- really sees globalization as a chance. On the left, there is anxiety and hostility, as there is on the right, but the "no" views have little in common. For many workers, globalization undermines labor standards and employment. They are attracted as a result to the new party formed by the former communists from East Germany, which gained over 8% of the vote and whose leaders presented the new movement as the real victor of the election. Others, on the political right, see globalization as threatening small businesses or farmers. It is likely that the right fringe will also begin to grow, and that the new party of the far left, led by "Red Oskar" Lafontaine, will have an equivalent on the right.
The result of the new polarization is already visible in the absence of consensus behind any reform. As conventional politics fails, the push to the extremes becomes more powerful, but the extremes also affect the existing parties.
According to the logic of the new German politics, the best chance of mobilizing support lies not in addressing real problems, but in conducting blame campaigns. During the election, the Social Democrats started to attack foreign, primarily American, capital as "locusts" descending on Germany; it portrayed the hike in gas prices as the _expression of the profit drive of multinationals; and it replayed the anti-Americanism that had given the party a narrow victory in 2002. The Christian Democrats indulged in a fair measure of populism as well, though it was directed less against the U.S. than in mobilizing opinion to keep Turkey out of the European Union. But on both sides this was very mild populism compared to the stereotypes that will be mobilized as the consensus disintegrates.
A Germany that is not capable of reform, and where economic weakness leads to an increasing schism in society and politics -- and which turns the country against the world -- is a frightening specter. A great deal of the postwar security architecture was designed to prevent the reemergence of a loose German cannon, as was the framework of European integration. The Germans themselves wanted to be held down, but that desire is receding into history. A Germany that attaches itself to obstruction, to the domestic political attractions of blame politics, and to the desire to say "no," will be a destabilizing force both in Europe, and the world beyond.
Mr. James, professor of history and international affairs at Princeton, is author of "Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000" (Longman, 2003).
posted by Marko at 9/20/2005 07:43:00 AM
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