Tendency politics
The word tendency politics was coined by Otto von Bismarck , the first Reich Chancellor of the German Reich , in the dispute with the parties .
Tendency politics describes the uncompromising representation of special partial interests by class or interest parties vis-à-vis other class or interest parties. Popular parties as they are today did not exist in the German Reich at that time. There were no coalitions in what was then the Reichstag in the German Bundestag. The Chancellor was appointed by the king and not elected by parliament, so that coalitions or alliances between the parties were not necessary.
Parties in the German Reich only felt obliged to represent their own clientele, so that they always wanted to enforce their maximum demands. Compromise and pragmatism were made more difficult. The "alliances" that Bismarck made with the parties were time-related and dependent on the respective political goal. Bismarck's style of politics came to be known as rocking politics .
In Bismarck's eyes, the parties represented in parliament were only useful as a means of helping state interests to succeed. For Bismarck, the parties were only a “means to an end”.
This also explains Bismarck's self-image, who saw the Reich Chancellor as having the ultimate responsibility for asserting German interests.