Five party system

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A five-party system is generally a party system in which five parties play an important role. In political science, one sometimes thinks of certain constellations, for example in German history. In the media, the term is mainly used for the situation in the German Bundestag from 1990 to 2013.

Classifications according to five parties

Party researcher Dieter Nohlen speaks of two approaches to evaluating party systems. Maurice Duverger said that politics was pushing for dualism, a two-party system in which two solutions were chosen. Klaus von Beyme, however, rejects this dichotomy. In his opinion, one can often see a rudimentary five-party system , for example in the English and French revolutions. In addition to left and right , he also observes the development of a center.

Five-party system according to Klaus von Beyme
left Left center center Center right right
English Revolution (mid 17th century) Digger Leveler Classic Republicans Royalists Follower of the divine right of the king
French Revolution (late 18th century) Hébertists Jacobin Girondins aristocratic constitutionalists Followers of the ancien régime

Ernst Rudolf Huber looks for the time since the pre-March (1830) the "basic structure of the German party system in a five-party system". A party is not necessarily to be understood as a single organization or faction, but “the essential and lasting part of the German party structure until 1918 was this number of five […].” If one disregards the extremist parties of the Weimar Republic , the system could be used extend until 1933. The history of German parties differs from that of many other countries because of the existence of political Catholicism . Nevertheless, there is a difference between Christian Democrats and Conservatives in France, for example .

German five-party system
left Left center center Center right right
Terms at Huber Proletarian Socialism Democratic radicalism Political Catholicism Moderate liberalism Conservatism
Parties of the German Empire 1871–1918 Social democracy (left-liberal) progress center (right-wing liberal) national liberals German Conservatives and Free Conservatives
Modern equivalents 1990–2017 Left , SPD SPD, Greens Parts of the SPD, Greens, CDU / CSU , FDP FDP, CDU / CSU CDU / CSU

Simplify such overviews. The Catholic center, for example, had a position in the political center in economic and social policy and with its constitutional demands . In cultural and social politics, however, the center was clearly to the right, including on the topics of divorce and denominational school .

Situation in the Bundestag

From 1990 to 2013 there were six parties in the German Bundestag, but the sister parties CDU and CSU are often grouped together due to the common faction in the Bundestag , and in the media and political science they usually talk about one or the five-party system: CDU / CSU, SPD, FDP (each since 1949), Green (since 1983) and Die Linke (since 1990; under different names). It is emphasized that forming a coalition in this system was much more difficult than in the three-party system of the 1970s.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen : Suffrage and party system . 3. Edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, p. 72.
  2. ^ Klaus von Beyme 1984, based on: Dieter Nohlen: Wahlrecht und Partyensystem . 3. Edition. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, p. 72.
  3. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber : German constitutional history since 1789. Volume II: The struggle for unity and freedom 1830 to 1850. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1960, p. 318.
  4. ↑ See for example Karl-Rudolf Korte : Changes in political parties , bpb.de , May 20, 2009, accessed on October 8, 2010.