The German Party System

Evolution since 1990

This webinar will examine the general development of the German party system since reunification.

What are the reasons behind the belated arrival of right-wing populism in Germany? What are the prospects for the Greens; will they replace the Social Democrats as the leading force of the center-left camp? What are the effects of the corona crisis on the party landscape? What are the coalition politics before and after the federal election of 2021?

Join AGI for the third webinar in a series on the 30th anniversary of German unification.

Frank Decker is a Professor in Comparative Government and Politics at the Institute for Political Science and Sociology of the University of Bonn, where he has been teaching and researching since November 2001. He is also the scientific director of the Bonner Akademie für Forschung und Lehre praktischer Politik (BAPP). Frank Decker studied Political Science, Economics, Journalism and Public Law at the Universities of Mainz and Hamburg from 1983 to 1988. After gaining his doctorate in 1993 on the failure of government in environmental protection (Umweltschutz und Staatsversagen), he completed his habilitation in 1999 with the subsequent publication of a monograph on right-wing populism in western democracies (Parteien unter Druck). Both were completed at the Helmut Schmidt University of Hamburg, where he was a research assistant from 1989 to 2001 at the Institute for Political Science. Frank Decker’s main research interests focus on problems of institutional reforms in Western democracies, especially direct democracy, federalism, parliamentarism, party systems, right wing populism, the EU-polity and German politics. He has published numerous articles, chapters and several books on these topics and is often consulted by the news media as a political expert and commentator. Frank Decker is a member of the Basic Values Commission (Grundwertekommission) of Germany’s Social Democratic Party.

Recent publications (only books) include Die Zukunft der Demokratie, co-edited with Thomas Hartmann and Jochen Dahm (Bonn 2019), Ausstieg, Souveränität, Isolation, co-edited with Ursula Bitzegeio and Philipp Adorf (Bonn 2019), Die USA – eine scheiternde Demokratie?, co-edited with Patrick Horst and Philipp Adorf (Frankfurt a.M. 2018), Parteiendemokratie im Wandel, 2nd. ed. (Baden-Baden 2018), Handbuch der deutschen Parteien, co-edited with Viola Neu, 3rd. ed. (Wiesbaden 2018), Reform des Bundestagswahlrechts, with Joachim Behnke, Florian Grotz, Robert Vehrkamp and Philipp Weinmann (Gütersloh 2017) and Europas Ende, Europas Anfang, co-edited with Jürgen Rüttgers (Frankfurt a.M. 2017).

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This webinar is supported by the German Embassy Washington.