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Did electoral competition shape the policies of the fourth Merkel government? We answer this question in five steps. First, we theoretically discuss under which conditions electoral competition affects public policies. Only in publicly salient issue areas in which opposition parties advocate credible alternatives and only if policy satisfaction influences voting intention will the government modify its policies. Next, we identify the two most salient issue areas, climate change and the Corona pandemic. Third, opposition parties offered credible alternatives, the Greens (and the Left) in climate policy and the FDP (and the AfD) regarding Corona management. Fourth, governing parties could not be certain to participate in the next government. Furthermore, voting intention for the Christian democrats as leading party of the government was related to policy success, while the Greens (and the Left) and the FDP (and the AfD) could benefit from dissatisfaction with climate change policy and Corona management, respectively. Finally, only regarding climate change did the government respond to electoral pressure by an increase in press releases, while communication about Corona was driven by voters' problem perception. These findings are corroborated by brief case studies of policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue first describes the cumbersome process of forming the fourth and final Merkel government. Both coalition partners experienced severe electoral losses in 2017 and were not particularly close to one another programmatically. This made the formation of a new coalition difficult. Next, the to-do-list is discussed. It turns out that, as a response to the Fridays-for-Future protests, voters considered climate change to be the most important problem in 2019, while the Corona pandemic dominated the agenda from early 2020. Interestingly, none of the coalition parties 'owned' either of these issues and this could have made policy-making even more intricate. In the third part, we summarise the policy profile of the fourth Merkel government, based mostly on the contributions to this special issue. It turns out that the policies of the fourth Merkel government mirrored those of its predecessor. In the socio-economic dimension a gentle de-liberalisation continued, while the policies on the social dimension followed a moderately liberal path. In the final section, the plan of the special issue is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classic partisan theory posits that political parties translate their electorates' preferences into policies. Accordingly, the recent changes in left parties' voter base, from predominantly working-class to middle-class voters, should have resulted in changing policy positions and policy effects of left parties. We test this expectation for economic policies (i.e., subsidies, product market regulation, and privatization) in 16 European countries between 1980 and 2012. We find the expected relationships for subsidies but not for regulation and privatization. This can be explained by the fact that only with regard to subsidies, preferences substantially differ between the working- and the middle-class. Thus, economic policy preferences of voters of left parties diverge less than could be expected. Methodologically, the study suggests that empirically testing the complete causal mechanism of classic partisan theory, assessing voters' preferences and investigating more than one issue area, are promising ways to study partisan effects on public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses German politics, the third coalition formed by the cabinet of Angela Merkel of the political parties Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU and CSU). It also discusses the macroeconomic situation, growing economy, and declination of unemployment and soaring employment.

How did electoral competition during the second grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel affect policy-making? By examining opinion polls and the outcomes of Länder elections, the article shows that on the demand side party competition was (potentially) intense. On the supply side, it discusses the major opposition parties' policy positions and reviews whether the voters regarded them as credible and competent. Then it assesses the effects of this actor constellation for the two most salient policy areas, the euro crisis and the refugee crisis. It finds that the grand coalition partially revoked its initially liberal migration policy as the AfD gained strength and became a credible alternative for CDU/CSU (as well as SPD) voters. In contrast, euro rescue policy was largely unaffected by party competition because the issue was less salient and the CDU/CSU was regarded as the most credible party in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While numerous indicators have been suggested in the scholarly literature on the determinants of privatization, they have mostly been treated as equivalents without much attention to how closely they are matched. This paper compares five prominent operationalizations of privatization. It finds that correlations between these indicators are worryingly low. Moreover, it shows that results of otherwise identical regressions differ immensely depending on which indicator of privatization is used. As a way forward, seeing the various indicators not as equivalents but as measuring different aspects of the phenomenon under study is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses how institutions can be introduced into the Multiple Streams Framework. While the existing literature does not systematically integrate political institutions that structure the decision-making process into the Multiple Streams Framework, the article suggests distinguishing two coupling processes, one for agenda setting and one for decision making. During the latter coupling, the main issue is the adoption of proposals – and formal institutions play an important role here. Political entrepreneurs can ensure the adoption of their bills under conditions of institutional pluralism by conceding concessions, proposing package deals or manipulating the severity or salience of problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding party competition as a ‘political market’, we explore its characteristics during the second Merkel government, 2009–13. On the demand side, analysing opinion polls and the Länder election results, we find that the outcome of the next Bundestag election was uncertain. Thus, electoral competition was likely to be intense. On the supply side, opposition parties presented credible alternatives to government policies with regard to social as well as environmental policy. Regarding the Euro crisis, however, a consensus across the established parties existed. Studying three of the most salient policy issues, we identify party competition as a crucial determinant of decision-making. While the debate on minimum wages was substantially shaped by party competition, resulting in ‘anticipatory obedience’, nuclear energy only became affected by electoral considerations after the ‘Fukushima shock’ which resulted in a major policy shift. Regarding the response to the Euro crisis, however, party competition was essentially suspended. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introduction connects some of the main themes covered in this special issue on Chancellor Merkel's second coalition cabinet, which was formed in October 2009 and ended with the electoral collapse of the FDP in the Bundestag election of September 2013. It starts by setting out an interesting ‘puzzle’: the parties forming the coalition of 2009–2013 (CDU, CSU and FDP) had expressed a strong preference for this coalition in the run-up to the election of 2009. Despite their seeming agreement in many policy areas, the coalition formed in 2009 faced tough negotiations and conflicts between the parties from the beginning. The economic crisis the preceding government faced between 2005 and 2009 and unforeseen events during the course of the CDU/CSU–FDP coalition 2009–2013 (e.g. the Euro crisis and the Fukushima environmental disaster) had altered the policy agenda in important ways and rendered the former ‘Christian–Liberal reform project’ obsolete. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the debate on welfare politics replacement rates have been hailed as a measure far more appropriate to identify retrenchment than expenditure. However, this contribution demonstrates that there is a considerable dependent variable problem on the entitlement side as well. By means of a comparison between replacement rates for three major programmes from the two most prominent datasets, Scruggs's CWED and Korpi and Palme's SCIP, we show that not only diagnoses on the occurrence and intensity of welfare cutbacks vary considerably, but also the results on the determinants of welfare state change. After tracing some causes of the divergences, we conclude that future research needs to be more programme-specific, more data-conscious and more humble in its claims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German grand coalition's track record with regard to managing the financial crisis is mixed. The government has spent enormous amounts of money to prevent a breakdown of the banking system and to cushion the effects of the recession. It was at least partially successful as these programmes indeed prevented collapses of banks as well as bank runs, kept unemployment relatively low and somewhat mitigated the recession. Nonetheless, at least some of the crisis policies lacked coherence, particularly with regard to the bank rescue packages. The reason is that even in the face of a systemic banking crisis and a GDP decline of 5 per cent, programmatic differences between the coalition partners have not disappeared and became manifest in government policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2009 German federal election took place during the deepest recession in German post-war history. It brought to power a coalition of Christian democrats and liberals while the social democrats suffered by far their worst result at a general election since 1949. This paper discusses whether there is a causal relationship between the government's response to the crisis and the election result. While voters basically supported the government's management of the banking crisis they were much more sceptical with regard to the grand coalition's management of the recession. Interestingly, a majority of the voters disapproved of some of the interventionist policies the SPD had suggested and believed that the Christian democrats were the most competent crisis managers. Therefore, the economic crisis may well have helped the bourgeois parties win the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a model of the decision-making process that can help to understand the politics of policy change and stability. The model takes as a starting point veto players. Since these actors are mostly political parties in Western democracies, their preferences can be modelled as policy seeking and vote maximization. Thus, governing parties try to adopt certain policies which differ according to their partisan orientation. The adoption of policies may, however, be impeded by electoral considerations unless the government is confronted with economic problems that put its re-election at risk. In addition, the existence of further veto players can make the adoption of reforms difficult. Policy change comes about if at least one element of the veto player constellation changes or if an external shock occurs. Both of these mechanisms are discussed in more detail, taking a change in the partisan complexion of government and globalization as examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to important parts of the literature, blame avoidance opportunities, i.e. the necessity and applicability of blame avoidance strategies, may differ between countries according to the respective institutional set-ups and between governing parties according to their programmatic orientation. In countries with many veto actors, a strategy of 'Institutional Cooperation' between these actors is expected to diffuse blame sufficiently to render other blame avoidance strategies obsolete. In contrast, governments in Westminster-style democracies should resort to the more unilateral strategies of presentation, policy design and timing. At the same time, left-wing parties are expected to have an easier time implementing spending cuts while right-wing parties are less vulnerable when proposing tax increases. Evidence from the politics of budget consolidation in Britain and Germany does not corroborate these hypotheses. Instead, it seems that party competition conditions the effects institutions and the partisan complexion of governments have on the politics of blame avoidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the impact of the European Employment Strategy on German policies. The Luxembourg Process contains concrete, quantitative objectives as well as relatively heterogeneous proposals that allow rather antithetical national policies. Nevertheless, it marks a specific European path, emphasising state–led activation strategies. Applying clear and verifiable criteria, we analyse the impact of the guidelines, the quantified objectives and the recommendations on German employment policies and find that they selectively influenced German policies, normally catalysing existing policies (‘intensifier effects’), but sometimes also inducing a policy change (‘steering effects’). The impact varies depending on the concreteness of the guidelines and the party composition of the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Was there a turnaround in economic policy after the change of government in Germany in 1998? And to what extent was it adopted or why did adoption fail? These are the questions this article addresses. Analysing fiscal policy and employment policy between 1998 and 2003, it is impossible to detect a stringent policy concept which the government tried to implement. What is more, there exist significant policy discontinuities over time. This is explained by intra-party conflicts within the Social Democratic Party and by the effects of party competition while the institutional obstacles turned out to be of minor importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Christian‐liberal coalition under Helmut Kohl came to power in 1982 it declared that a major turnaround in economic policy was to be brought about. However, although the new government faced rather favourable conditions it failed to launch major policy reversals in the 1980s. What accounts for this result? The thesis of this article is that the most important impediment for comprehensive market‐oriented reforms in the 1980s was the fact that the coalition lacked programmatic cohesion. Particularly the labour wing of the CDU managed to prevent more extensive reforms in most areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]