Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/253436 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Editor:] Schmitt-Beck, Rüdiger [Editor:] Roßteutscher, Sigrid [Editor:] Schoen, Harald [Editor:] Weßels, Bernhard [Editor:] Wolf, Christof [Title:] The Changing German Voter [ISBN:] 978-0-19-884751-9 [Publisher:] Oxford University Press [Place:] Oxford [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 3-24
Publisher: 
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Abstract: 
Over the past half century, the behavior of German voters has changed profoundly. After a long period of stability, elections have dramatically altered their character—at first rather gradually, but during the past decade at an accelerated speed. Voters' decision-making has become much more volatile, rendering election outcomes less predictable. The long-term process of party system fragmentation that had already been going on for a while intensified sharply. A particularly conspicuous outcome of this period of turbulent electoral politics was the termination of Germany's exceptionality as one of the few European countries without a strong right-wing populist party. The chapter traces this development in detail. It identifies three distinctive phases of party system development: 1949 to 1976, 1980 to 2005, and 2009 to 2017. The topoi of realignment and dealignment are evoked as key concepts for interpreting the trends that have become increasingly visible since the second phase.</p>
Subjects: 
German electoral behavior
party system development
dealignment
realignment
electoral volatility
right-wing populism
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Additional Information: 
The open access publication of the edited volume "The Changing German Voter" was financially supported by the Leibniz Association’s Open Access Publication Fund for Monographs, the University of Mannheim, and the DGfW.
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Book Part
Document Version: 
Published Version

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