Bifurcated and Integrated Parties in Parliamentary Federations: The Canadian and German Cases
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Authors
Renzsch, Wolfgang
Date
2001
Type
working paper
Language
en
Keyword
Alternative Title
Abstract
Canada and Germany are parliamentary federations with multi-party systems in which there is a governing core (majority party or coalition) and a fragmented opposition at the federal level. The Canadian House of Commons as well as the German Bundestag embrace five caucuses each. In Canada, the traditional bipolarity between the Liberals and the Tories has given way to a more complex structure. The Liberal majority caucus is currently opposed by two essentially conservative parties, the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Party, which is now known as the Canadian Alliance; by the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP); and by a party limited to a single province, the separatist Bloc Québécois. In the Bundestag there is a centre-left majority formed by a coalition of the Social Democrat and the Green caucuses. The "red-green" government is opposed by the caucuses of the Christian Democrats and the Liberals on the political right, and by the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), nominally a party of the left. The caucus of the PDS, the former East German "Socialist Unity Party" (SED), is difficult to characterize in ideological terms: it is partly inclined to traditional socialist or communist positions, and its perception of politics is largely moulded by a dichotomy of capitalism and socialism. To a large extent it also represents the deeply conservative interests of the former ruling and administrative classes of German Democratic Republic (DDR) as well as of East German social protest.
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© IIGR, Queen's University
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Publisher
Queen's University Institute of Intergovernmental Relations