CDU and Corporatism

7/27/2019 CDU and Corporatism

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The Christian Democratic Union and (Not) Working Mothers:

A Corporatist Catch-All Party Tackles Family Leave

Sarah Elise WiliartyDepartment of Political Science

University of California, [email protected]

Prepared for delivery at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American

Political Science Association, Hilton San Francisco and TowersAugust 30- September 2, 2001.

Copyright by the American Political Science Association.


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Introduction

When do conservative parties change in response to a changing society? To a

certain extent the goal of conservative parties is to resist change, to conserve the status

quo. On the other hand, if societal change is significant enough to lessen a conservative

partys electoral chances, then the party may go along with the changes in order to stay in

government or to get into government.

This problem is particularly acute for conservative or center-right catch-all

parties. A small niche party may appeal to a narrow segment of the electorate. Such

parties can ignore societal change as long as they retain their faithful core voters. A

catch-all party, on the other hand, needs to appeal to a broader electorate. This task will

likely be difficult, however, because some constituencies will prefer to resist adjustment.

Furthermore, both within the electorate and within the party, there is likely to be

disagreement on how to adapt. Deciding on and staying with a response will be much

more difficult because no matter what a catch-all party does, some supporters will be

dissatisfied with the partys choice.

In this paper, I investigate how a particular conservative catch-all party, the

German Christian Democratic Union (CDU)1, responded to societal changes regarding

the role of women. Otto Kirchheimers classic study of catch-all parties argues that when

these parties reach out to new constituencies, they will be forced to decrease the

involvement of membership to facilitate doctrinal flexibility. I argue, however, that

because not all catch-all parties are alike, they will not all deal with the dilemma of

1The CDU has a sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), that only exists in one federal state,

Bavaria. Because the organizations of the two parties are rather different and because I am making

primarily and organizational argument, I will for the most part discuss only the CDU.


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membership conflict in the same way. The CDUs system of internal corporatism allows

the party to reach out to new constituencies while maintaining or even increasing

membership involvement in the party. To understand how the CDU responds to womens

demands, we need to examine both the internal organization of the party and the process

of alliance formation by which interest groups influence party policy.

The CDU is what I call a corporatist catch-all party. It appeals to new societal

interests by granting them representation on the partys internal decision-making bodies.

Recognized groups negotiate with each other to influence party behavior. Therefore, the

party does not need to demobilize membership in order to respond to social change. On

the contrary, it mobilizes new groups that carry the emerging agenda into the heart of the

party decision-making system. This corporatist catch-all model has contributed to the

CDUs success over the past fifty years.

This paper has five main sections. In the first section I briefly outline the

historical origins of the CDUs internal corporatism by showing how the predominantly

Catholic CDUs initial success was based on the partys ability to catch both

Protestants and the working class. In section two I discuss the societal changes that

caused the CDU to lose the support of women voters and describe the partys response to

this challenge. Section three shows how existing theory is insufficient for explaining the

CDUs efforts to regain the support of women. In section four I introduce the concept of

the corporatist catch-all party and show how this idea better describes the CDUs internal

organization and explains the partys ability to reach out to voters without demobilizing

members. Section five is an empirical case study of the CDUs parental leave policies of

the mid-1980s. The case study illustrates how the CDUs corporatist organization


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allowed the partys womens auxiliary organization to influence the parental leave

policies.

I. Early CDU Successes with Protestants and Workers

The CDU is one of the most successful parties in post-World War II Europe. It

has governed the Federal Republic of Germany for all but 15 years since the war. Konrad

Adenauer, the first West German Chancellor and first chairman of the CDU, rebuilt the

country after World War II. In his fourteen years in office, he brought Germany out of the

ruins of war. Through his commitment to the Western alliance, Adenauer reintegrated

Germany into the community of civilized nations. Adenauers vision of economic and

political cooperation with France helped rebuild a shattered Europe and laid the

foundations for the European Union. Another CDU leader, Ludwig Erhard,

masterminded Germanys miraculous economic recovery and defined its social market

economy. More recently, during his sixteen years as Chancellor, Helmut Kohl

peacefully reunified East and West Germany and strengthened both the European Union

and Germanys role within it. These emblematic figures of postwar Germany were all

leaders of the Christian Democratic Union. The CDU has had more influence on postwar

Germany than any other party.

The CDU and Protestants

The CDUs influence stems from the partys ability to adapt to social change and

appeal to diverse constituencies. The partys initial success derived partly from the

CDUs historic decision to unite Protestants and Catholics into one integrated Christian


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party. Prior to World War II, the two confessions were deeply divided. Tensions between

Protestants and Catholics date back to the Reformation, but were also evident in more

recent history. In the late nineteenth century, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck

persecuted Catholics through theKulturkampf (cultural struggle) in order to gain support

from Protestants. Catholics responded by organizing the Center party, the predecessor of

the CDU.

The confessions were politically divided throughout the Weimar Republic when

no party claimed significant support among both Protestants and Catholics. The Center

party was anti-Protestant during Weimar, but the elections of the 1920s made it clear that

Catholics alone did not provide a large enough electoral base for the party to control the

government. Without somehow combining forces with Protestants, Catholics were

doomed to remain in a political ghetto.

After World War II, many politically active Christians of both confessions felt

that Christianity was one of the few possible responses to the horrors of Nazism. Their

vision was that only a party combining both confessions would be strong enough to

prevent the disasters of National Socialism. The founders of the CDU conceived of the

party as biconfessional, both Catholic and Protestant.

Because many of the early CDU leaders had been active in the Center party,

some Protestants viewed the CDU more as the successor to the Center party than as a

genuinely biconfessional party. Catholics had been better organized politically both

before and during the Weimar Republic. While in the Weimar Republic Protestants were

clearly the majority of the population, in the new Federal Republic the confessions were

nearly equally balanced. Some Protestants feared that the CDU was a thinly-disguised


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Catholic party. Furthermore, many Protestants wanted Germany to remain neutral in the

emerging conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. They thought a policy

of neutrality would more likely lead to unification with East Germany, which was, after

all, almost entirely Protestant. Protestant church leaders also tended to view rearmament

as immoral. When Adenauers policies favoring integration into the Western Alliance and

German rearmament became clear, the CDUs status as a biconfessional party was

threatened.

The CDU reached out to Protestants by forming the Protestant Working Circle

(Evangelischer Arbeitskreis, EAK), a group within the CDU that worked to ensure

adequate Protestant influence in the party. The EAKs main desire was for increased

Protestant representation within the party. This organization was certainly successful in

its goal. For example, from 1950 1956, Adenauer had two deputy party chairs, one

Catholic and one Protestant. When the number of deputies increased to four in 1956, the

confessional division remained the same; now two deputies were Catholic and two were

Protestant. In Adenauers first cabinet, Protestants held 5 out of 14 positions (36%). In

his second cabinet, they had 10 out of 18 positions (56%) (Egen 1971: 175).

The CDUs efforts to provide sufficient representation for Protestants contributed

to the creation of a system of representation calledProporz(proportionalism).Proporzis

a kind of unofficial proportional representation for groups in an organization. It is

widespread in Germany (and other countries) in a variety of organizations. In the CDU

internal party groups may also have official representation in which their presence on a

committee is anchored in the party statutes.ButProporzgrants representation in many

contexts where party statutes do not.


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The level of representation that the system ofProporzaims for is based on the

ratio of Protestants (or other groups) in the population, not in the party membership.

Therefore, groups may be represented within the party at a different rate than they are in

either membership or voters. For example, Protestants made up approximately one third

of CDU voters during the 1950s, and just under one fifth of CDU members (Egen 1971:

175). During this time period, Protestants always held half of the deputy chair positions

in the party and their cabinet representation ranged from 36% to 56%. Even taking into

consideration that the party chair was held throughout the 1950s by Adenauer, a Catholic,

Protestants were clearly well represented in party and government offices.

The CDU and Workers

In addition to Protestants, the other group that it was critical for the fledging CDU

to catch was labor. The middle class was the CDUs natural support base, but early

CDU leadership wanted the party to have cross-class appeal for a variety of reasons.

Several CDU founding fathers had roots in the Christian labor movement

(Pridham 1977: 30-31). When Christian trade unionists gave up the idea of separate

Christian labor unions in favor of one large union, they regarded having a significant role

for Christian workers in the CDU the best way to preserve some of the identity and

special features of Christian labor (Kleinmann 1993 and Markovits 1986).2 Some CDU

leaders also came from a tradition of Catholic Socialism, and wanted this philosophy,

which included caring for the working class, integrated into the new party (Pridham

1977: 31).

2See Markovits for details on the continuing existence of Christian trade unions.


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CDU leaders without roots in Catholic unions had different, but also important,

reasons for wanting the CDU to be attractive to the working class. The CDU wanted to

portray itself as a Volkspartei, or peoples party, a party that would represent everyone.

For the Volkspartei strategy to work, the party had to show that it represented and

appealed to classes besides its natural base, the middle class. Furthermore, especially

during the late 1940s and early 1950s, CDU leaders felt that there was a real risk of

workers voting for the Communist (KPD) or the Social Democratic Party (SPD). By

creating a party that appealed to at least a significant segment of the working class, the

CDU was building a bulwark against Socialism, its chief rival (Pridham 1977: 28).

The CDU reached out to workers both by giving working class groups

representation within the party and by passing policies that appealed to workers. The

CDUs auxiliary organization for workers is the Social Committees of the Christian

Democratic Working Class (Sozialausschsse der Christlich-Demokratischen

Arbeitnehmerschaft, often abbreviated CDA). The CDAs leadership had important

positions both within the party and the government from the beginning of the Federal

Republic. Jakob Kaiser, one of the founders of the CDA, was vice chairman of the party

from 1950 1958; in Adenauers first cabinet, the CDA held the Labor Ministry (Anton

Storch) and the Ministry for all-German Questions (Jakob Kaiser).

The CDU also appealed to workers through its economic policies, particularly

through the creation of the so-called social market economy. As envisioned by CDU

Finance Minister Ludwig Erhard, the social market economy rejected both laissez faire

free market capitalism and socialist economic planning and intervention. Instead, the

government set up a regulatory framework that ensured both sufficient competition and


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adequate social protection. For the working class, the social market economy meant an

extensive social insurance system providing generous protection for the elderly, the sick,

the injured and the unemployed. The social market economy also included worker

participation in company decision making. The CDU passed laws in 1951 and 1952

ensuring that workers had substantial representation on the boards of directors of their

companies. In the late 1950s the CDU passed a series of laws called Property Policies

that were directed at the working class. These laws were designed to help workers

acquire property through savings incentives, incentives to build private houses, and tax

breaks for employers who gave their employees shares in the company (Domes 1964:

150).

One way of measuring the success of the CDU in catching the working class is to

examine electoral returns. While the CDU was not as successful as the SPD, a party

steeped in the tradition of representing the working class, the CDU did gain significant

support from workers. In 1953 35% of workers voted for the CDU (48% for the SPD).

Among Catholic workers, 47% voted for the CDU in 1953 (36% for the SPD) (Pappi

1973: 580). While the CDU received a higher percentage of the vote from other classes,

the CDU cannot be considered a purely middle class party. It achieved its objective of

catching at least some of the working class.

II. The CDU and Women

Women have also been one of the most critical groups for the CDU to catch.

The CDUs success in the 1950s and 1960s was based partially on the partys ability to

attract large numbers of female voters in what was known as the womens bonus. Until


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1972, the CDU regularly received 8 to 10 percent more support from female voters than

from male voters. For example, in 1953 47.2% of female voters supported the CDU,

while only 38.9% of male voters did (Ritter and Niehuss 1991: 224). During the CDUs

stint in the opposition in the 1970s, the partys womens bonus was significantly smaller

and shrinking.3 When the womens bonus started growing again in the early 1980s, the

CDU returned to government. Most recently the CDU lost the 1998 election when it

received more votes from men than women for only the second time in the history of the

Federal Republic.4 Although gaining support from women is clearly an important factor

in CDU success, since the early 1970s, the party has no longer been able to take this

support for granted.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the CDUs traditional view of the proper role of women

seemed to go over well with German voters. This view of women was based on the 3K

image:Kinder, Kirche, Kueche or children, church and kitchen. 5 Womens proper place

was in the family, taking care of the children and other family members, or in the church,

possibly performing community service and once aga in, taking care of others. CDU

3 The difference between the percentage of women voting for the CDU/CSU and the percentage of men

voting for the CDU/CSU in the 1970s and 1980s is as follows (i.e., womens votes for CDU/CSU minus

mens votes for CDU/CSU):

1969: 10.0

1972: 3.01976: 1.6

1980: -0.5

1983: 1.5

1987: 2.6

1990: 2.91994: 1.6

1998: 0.1

For 1969 1987 calculated from results in Ritter and Niehuss (1991: 224). 1990 results calculated from

Claus Fischer, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (1997: 78). 1994 results calculated from Ritter and Niehuss

(1995: 51). 1998 results calculated from Molitor and Neu (1999: 255).4

The first time was in 1980 when women showed a strong dislike of the CDUs Chancellor candidate,

Franz Josef Strauss because of his hawkishness on defense policy. In 1980 this was the worst result for theCDU since 1953, when the party system was not yet ful ly consolidated.5

The 3K image is well known throughout Germany.


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ideology quite explicitly placed a very high value on these activities. They were regarded

as at least as important as the more public world of work and politics, a world populated

primarily by men.

The CDUs womens auxiliary organization, the Womens Union, has existed

since 1948. During the first two decades following World War Two, the Womens Union,

rarely challenged the 3K image.6 The Womens Union was primarily involved in

organizing charity events and social gatherings. Its members were far more likely to serve

coffee at party events than to advocate for particular policies.

Societal changes in the 1960s and 1970s began to challenge the CDUs traditional

view of women. Notable changes included the emergence of the womens movement, the

increasing number of women in the work place, and the secularization of society. These

trends decreased the importance of womens traditional activities and increased the

likelihood that any particular woman would be involved with what had been viewed in

the past as male activities. During the same time period, the rise in the numbers of single

parents and the declining birthrate disrupted traditional family structures. With growing

numbers of German women less attracted by the 3K image, the CDU came under

pressure to adapt its policies.

Simultaneously with these changes, the Womens Union became increasingly

politicized. No longer willing merely to serve coffee, the Womens Union began to issue

position papers independent of the CDU and to work within the party to get its policies

adopted by the CDU. The CDUs auxiliary organizations are supposed to be

transmissions belts, transporting the views of the CDU to their target populations and

6One exception was the pressure a group of women activists in the Womens Union put on Adenauer toadd a female minister to his cabinet. They were finally successful in 1961.


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ensuring that the CDU is aware of and accommodates the views of the target population.

Prior to this time period, the Womens Unions transmission belt operated primarily in

one direction, from the CDU to women in Germany. After the rise of the German

feminist movement, the transmission belt began working in both directions.

CDU Policy Making on Womens Issues

In a larger project I look at how the CDU has responded in three areas that have

challenged the CDUs traditional vision of women: abortion policy, family policy, and

policies to increase womens political participation. While this paper analyses one case of

family policy in depth, I will outline the other cases in the remainder of this section. In

the case of abortion, Christian Democratic doctrine clearly opposes all moves toward

liberalizing access to abortion. On family policy, the traditional CDU view is that women

should not be employed outside the home. Therefore, they do not need any benefits or

policies to facilitate combining work and family. Indeed, public policy should encourage

mothers to remain at home with their children. Finally, while there is nothing in CDU

ideology that directly opposes womens political participation, the CDU has historically

had a significantly smaller number of female members than the parties of the left.

Women were not expected to be active in the public sphere. Therefore, the CDU was not

interested in any measures to increase womens political participation.

The new ideas of the 1960s and 1970s challenged the CDU to take certain actions:

liberalize access to abortion, accommodate working mothers, increase womens political

participation. Over time, the CDU has generally become more accommodating to new

demands from women. With regard to the politics of any particular moment, however, the


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CDU has offered a mixed strategy for confronting these changes. Sometimes the CDU

has resisted the new ideas about women and tried to promote its traditional image. Other

times, the CDU has accommodated the new ideas and incorporated the new themes

brought up by society. What is behind this variation in response?

The transformation of CDU behavior can be broken into three time periods. The

first period is 1969-1982, the CDUs first stint in the opposition. The second time period,

1982-1989, marks the partys return to government as the dominant partner in the

Christian Democratic-Liberal coalition under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Finally, the third

time period, 1989-1998, begins with German unification and ends with the CDUs

electoral defeat in 1998.

The pattern of CDU evolution is complex (see Table 1.0). In each policy area, the

party sometimes resists and sometimes accommodates. The following section briefly

summarizes CDU responses chronologically.

Despite significant societal pressure from the late 1960s throughout the 1970s,

during the first time period, 1969-1982, the CDU resisted change and offered only

traditional responses to new demands from women. Even in the face of intense protests to

liberalize abortion law and the partys own strong desire to get credit for designing new

legislation, the CDU remained unyielding on abortion. With regard to family policy, the

CDU began advocating child-raising money for parents (in practice, mothers) who stayed

home with their children, a reaffirmation of the traditional gendered division of labor.

Political participation policies were not yet on the agenda.

The 1980s were the heyday for the CDUs efforts to modernize its womens

policies. After returning to government in 1982, the CDU created the first Womens


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Ministry in Germany. The entire party congress of 1985 was devoted to womens issues.

The CDU also passed a significant package of family policies, including not only child-

raising money, but also employment guarantees for parents who take time off to care for

their children and pension credits for time spent caring for children. In the late 1980s the

CDU adopted a series of measures designed to boost womens participation in the party.

These non-binding statements recommended increasing the percentage of women on the

partys leadership bodies to match womens presence in membership. Womens

representation increased significantly after these measures were adopted, although it did

not reach the stated goal. On abortion, however, the CDU remained recalcitrant and even

considered reversing the policies enacted when the CDU was in the opposition.

In the 1990s, the CDU continued to accommodate working women by passing a

law mandating the creation of Kindergarten spots for all children aged three to six. In

terms of political participation, however, the CDU voted down a proposal to implement

an internal party quota that would have given women at least one third of party offices

and every third slot on the electoral lists. In the 1990s, the CDU signed the most liberal

abortion law ever supported by the party a law that transferred the abortion decision

from the doctor to the pregnant woman.

Table 1.0: CDU Responses to Feminist Demands, 1969-1998

1969 1982 1982 1989 1989 1998

Abortion policy Resist Resist Accommodate

Family policy Resist Accommodate AccommodateParticipation policy Not on the agenda Accommodate Resist

As is clear even from this short policy summary, the CDU response to changing

demands from women is not uniform and does not follow an obvious pattern. The CDU


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was not open to addressing any of these issues in the past. Now that the issues are clearly

on the agenda, the partys response is irregular. In any given issue area, the CDU has

both resisted and accommodated change at different moments. I argue that we can only

understand these patterns when we take the CDUs internal party organization into

account, but let us first explore three rival hypotheses.

III. Alternative Hypotheses

Existing theory offers three main arguments for explaining how a large

conservative party might respond to change. First, essentialist theories claim that the

CDU is primarily a Christian party. The partys response to societal changes will be

guided by its Christian-based ideology. Second, spatial voting literature sees the CDU as

part of an oligarchic system of parties competing for government office and predicts that

the CDUs response to societal changes will be driven primarily by concerns for electoral

advantage. Finally, catch-all party theories posit that the CDU will try to appeal to new

groups in society by making its ideology more vague and by loosening its ties to party

militants. This section explores the advantages and disadvantages of each theoretical

perspective.

The Essentialist Christian Party

Essentialist theories view parties as deeply embedded entities with strong links to

their core subcultures (Lipset and Rokkan 1967, Przeworski and Sprague 1986). These

theories predict that the CDU will not respond to new demands from women with any

serious adjustment (although the party may respond symbolically). Theories that envision


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little change in the essential CDU identity highlight the partys ideology as a Christian

Democratic party. Because of the CDUs roots in Christianity and the partys links to

Catholic subculture, the party will cede little ground in terms of modernizing the CDUs

stance on womens roles. Particularly on moral issues, such as abortion, the CDU will

resist change, even if resistance is electorally costly.

Essentialist theories focus on a partys ideology. The existence of a core

constituency virtually guarantees the party a certain level of support and parliamentary

representation. When society changes, however, parties face a dilemma if their base is

declining. Efforts to reach out beyond core supporters would require parties to moderate

their ideologies and their policies. Moderation, however, implies that essentialist parties

sacrifice their identity, which they are unwilling to do. Furthermore, moving away from

the partys ideology will alienate the partys traditional voters, also causing electoral

decline. For the CDU, societal changes such as secularization and increasing female

workforce participation mean that its traditional policies toward women have declined in

popularity. Many CDU members and voters continue to support the partys more

traditional understanding of womens roles, however, and they may withdraw their

support if the CDU decides to compromise on these issues. Przeworski and Sprague

(1986) identify a similar dilemma for working class parties faced with a declining

working class. Trade-offs between old supporters and new supporters will be difficult, if

not impossible, to balance successfully. According to essentialist theories, the CDU will

ensure the loyalty of these core supporters by remaining true to its Christian ideology.

One possible way out of this dilemma is for the party to offer symbolic policy.

Symbolic policy is designed to have little or no real effect (Edelman 1964, Elder and


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Cobb 1983, Mazur 1995). By offering symbolic policy, the CDU can try to appear to

accommodate new demands from women while actually remaining loyal to its traditional

position. Of course, this technique involves the tricky undertaking of fooling new

supporters into thinking the party has changed, but ensuring that old supporters know the

party has not changed. This balancing act will probably be difficult to maintain in the

long run, but that does not mean parties will not attempt it.

The CDU has certainly passed symbolic policy on womens issues, which might

lead observers to believe that the party is only responding symbolically. For example, the

CDUs programmatic statements in 1975, Woman and Society, and 1985, A New

Partnership, were clearly symbolic policies. Woman and Society, for example,

declared that women were to have an equal role in political, economic and all other

aspects of society. The statement also assigned the task of child rearing to men and

women equally (CDU party congress 1975). A New Partnership begins by noting that

the CDUs Christian understanding of humanity is not reconcilable with continued

discrimination against women. This document goes on to call for more women to be

active in political parties and the media and more men to take over more responsibilities

in the household and in child raising (CDU party congress 1985). Both these statements

call for dramatic changes in how German society is organized, but the statements did

little to translate these ideas into practice.7

While the CDU makes symbolic policy on womens issues, the essentialist

Christian party theory does not sufficiently explain the CDUs response to new demands

from women. The party is much more flexible than this theory predicts. The CDU has

7These programmatic statements do not consist entirely of symbolic policy. As will be discussed later, ANew Partnership also contained genuine policy recommendations.


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often responded to societal changes by passing womens policies that accommodate new

demands. Particularly the abortion and family policies of the CDU have had a real and

sometimes dramatic impact on women. For example, in the 1990s, the CDU supported

the abortion compromise that significantly eased access to abortion. The family policy

package passed by the CDU in the 1980s provides for family leave that has been used by

nearly 95% of mothers since it was implemented (Engelbrech 1997: 161). From 1985 to

1988 approximately 80% of these mothers used the job guarantee to return to work after

the family leave ended (Speil 1991: 72). This policy package cost around 7.2 billion DM

in 1995 (Wingen 1997: 214). While the CDU has not given in to every new demand from

women, it has clearly responded to some demands. The par tys actions on womens

issues cannot be explained by the CDUs Christian-based ideology.

Spatial voting Theory

The spatial voting literature argues that the CDUs behavior, including the partys

choice of womens policies, is influenced by voter preferences and the actions of other

parties (Downs 1957). This approach views the CDU as a leading player in an oligarchic

system in which the goal of parties is to maximize votes. The theory has different

predictions depending on the number of parties in the party system.

For most of the postwar period, Germany has had a two and one half party

system. The two large parties, the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), have

competed for the dominant position in government. The small liberal Free Democratic

Party (FDP) has played the role of junior coalition partner to both of the large parties. In

the 1980s, the Greens, a second party of the left, entered the political scene. Since


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unification in 1990, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) the successor party to the

old Communist party of East Germany has become an important regional party in the

Eastern states. Today, Germany is closer to a multiparty system than a two-party system,

albeit with two parties that are significantly larger than the other three.

Spatial voting theory predicts that the CDU will respond to changes in the

electorate, such as new demands from women, by positioning itself in whatever fashion

offers the largest electoral payoff. The difficulty is in determining what that might mean

in a given scenario. According to Downs, a multiparty system usually indicates a

polymodal distribution of voters rather than a unimodal distribution. Under a unimodal

distribution, most voters cluster together around a particular political position and few

voters differ from this position. With a polymodal distribution, voters cluster together

around more than one position. In a multiparty system, parties do not have any incentive

to move towards each other. In fact, the incentive is toward product differentiation and

moving apart from each other. In this scenario, the CDU should be sure its policy

offerings are clearly distinct from those of other parties.

In many multiparty systems, including Germanys, coalition government is the

norm. Governing by coalition, however, is more complicated and makes rational

behavior difficult for parties (Downs 1957: 156). Downs identifies three forces that may

pressure parties in coalition to adjust their policies:

1. Desire to get along with coalition partners tends to move parties in a coalition

together.2. Each individual party in the coalition would prefer to maximize its power in the

coalition by maximizing its votes. It will try to move to where most of the voters

are. This may mean coalition partners move together or apart depending ondistribution of voters in society.


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3. All parties in a coalition would like the coalition to be re-elected. Parties in acoalition should therefore move apart from each other in an effort to cover as

wide a spread in the electorate as possib le (Downs 1957: 157-158).

Parties will continue to attempt to maximize their votes, but it is difficult to say how they

can best do so:

A tension is thus set up between the desire of each party to make sure thecoalition gets elected on the one hand, and to raise the extent of itsinfluence within the coalition on the other. No wonder politics is

considered by many to be an art instead of a science! (Downs 1957: 159).

In Germany, the CDU is often pulled in opposite directions on womens issues by

its sister party, the CSU, and its most frequent coalition partner, the FDP. The FDP is

more likely to advocate a modern vision of women, while the CSU takes the most

traditional stance of all German parties. There are too many conflicting pressures to

predict party behavior with only the information provided by the distribution of voters

and other parties. Indeed, in the late 1970s, there was a serious conflict between the

CDUs desire to be more accommodating of societal changes (including, but not limited

to, the role of women) and thereby win back the cooperation of the FDP and the CSUs

desire to rally sufficient numbers of conservative voters to get back into government. The

CDU and the CSU nearly ended their sisterly relationship over this conflict. Both parties

thought their strategy would be more likely win the election. Clearly, the politicians

themselves are often unsure what the best strategy might be.

Another possible approach using insights from spatial voting theory is to simplify

the German party system and assume that only the two large parties matter. In this case,

we might expect the CDU to imitate the policies of the SPD when the CDU fares poorly

with women voters and the SPD fares well. If the CDU matches or even moves in the


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direction of the SPD, then the advantage the SPD has won with women voters will

perhaps be neutralized.

This hypothesis certainly helps explain some of the actions of the CDU. On

certain issues, such as abortion, the CDU is almost always reacting to the left, not

initiating policy changes itself. However, this left party interaction hypothesis also has

significant limitations. It is not at all clear, for example, that the best strategy in response

to a left party challenge is to imitate the left. In some cases, the CDU may choose to

move to the right. For example, the parties of the left put abortion reform on the political

agenda in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. In the 1970s, the CDU moved toward the

SPD position without going so far as to allow for abortion legalization. In the 1980s, the

CDU moved away from the SPD (and the Greens) and called for increasing restrictions

on abortion. Finally, in the 1990s, the CDU again moved toward the policies advocated

by the left, this time allowing abortion to become legal.

While it is certainly true that the parties of the left and electoral concerns can

provoke a response from the CDU, it is not clear what that response will be. Sometimes

the CDU will move toward the left in an effort to blur the differences between the parties.

Other times the CDU will move in the opposite direction to clarify the difference. The

primary limitation of spatial voting theory is that it underspecifies how the CDU will

respond. Of course the party cares about electoral concerns, but this approach cannot help

us explain whether the CDU is accommodating or resistant to new demands from women.


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Catch-all party theory

The third hypothesis is generated by theories focused on explaining the behavior

of catch-all parties (Kirchheimer 1966). Kirchheimer developed the concept of the catch-

all party with the post-Godesberg SPD in mind, but the CDU is generally also considered

to be a catch-all party. 8

A catch-all party weakens ties to members so that it can act in whatever way is

necessary to win elections. Often catch-all parties dilute their ideologies and make vague

promises that appeal to nearly everyone. Because the influence of party loyalists has been

decreased, catch-all parties can offer benefits to new constituencies that loyalists might

disagree with. In terms of CDU response to new demands from women, this theory

predicts that the CDU would issue statements on womens policies that are so vague they

are hard to disagree with, while simultaneously demobilizing membership in an effort to

dampen any tensions with membership over these issues. The CDU might also make

genuine concessions to women. Because membership is demobilized, old members would

have little power to object.

Kirchheimer predicted that competition would cause ever- increasing numbers of

parties to adopt a catch-all strategy. The theorists discussed below (Mair 1994, Kitschelt

1994) mostly try to explain why this change does not always happen. I refer to these

theories as classic catch-all theories because they build directly on Kirchheimer. Their

analyses are compatible with Kirchheimers precise definition. These theorists are adding

8The term catch-all party has been popular since Kirchheimer first introduced it in 1966. Often the term

has been used rather vaguely. Sometimes catch-all party has been used as synonymous with large party;

other times it has been used to refer to a party using modern technology in electoral campaigns. This morecasual use of the term catch-all party has contributed to the terms popularity, but it has also created a

certain amount of confusion.


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to catch-all party theory by clarifying the circumstances under which it is possible for a

party to offer a bland appeal and demobilize membership.

Classic catch-all party theory predicts that catch-all parties will respond to

societal changes by trying to catch as large a section of the electorate as possible.

Catch-all parties adopt vague ideologies that appeal to many groups in society, not just

core supporters. To be able to offer a bland ideology and cease catering specifically to its

core supporters, catch-all parties must weaken ties to membership. Therefore, classic

catch-all party theories predict that as the electorate becomes more diverse, the CDU will

make more generic ideological appeals and membership will lose influence over the party

(Mair 1994).

The early version of catch-all party theory assumed that leadership could identify

and implement the optimal strategy (Kirchheimer 1994). As Kitschelt notes, however, in

some parties constraints may prevent leaders from making the necessary adjustments to

adopt a classic catch-all strategy. If leadership is insufficiently autonomous or if

membership is too entrenched, then members will be able to prevent the party from

responding to societal changes. Another possibility is that an overly entrenched

membership will force through an inappropriate response. Both Kitschelt (1994) and

Koelble (1991) examine the difficulties of the British Labour Party in the 1980s in this

light. If either constraint insufficient leadership autonomy or overly entrenched

membership prevents the party from responding, then the party will lose electoral

support as its position becomes increasingly disconnected from the preferences of wide

segments of society.


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Classic catch-all theory draws our attention to the importance of organizational

factors for analyzing party response to societal changes. The relative influence of

leadership and members is important and influences what kind of strategy a party will

adopt. These theories have too narrow a vision of the role of party members, however.

According to classic catch-all theory, the best thing a party can hope for from its

membership is that it does not seriously constrain the ability of leaders to enact their

strategy. This vision is problematic on two counts. First, like spatial voting theory, it

assumes that only one best strategy is available and that leadership knows what it is.

Second, the only role allowed for membership is as a negative constraint; members may

or may not prevent leaders from implementing the strategy chosen by the leadership.

The classic catch-all theory cannot explain the CDUs response to electoral crisis.

After the CDU lost the elections in 1969 and 1972, the party dramatically expanded its

efforts to increase both membership numbers and membership influence. Reaching out to

new members can provide a party with new ideas and new energy, not to mention

increased membership fees. The CDU particularly targeted groups such as women whose

support for the party had dropped. The CDU increased the representation of the womens

auxiliary organization, the Womens Union, within the partys governing structure. The

Womens Union participated in internal party negotiations about womens policies.

Women in the CDU were not given the right to determine the partys womens policies.

Instead, the CDUs policies toward women are the reflection of internal interest group

dynamics. The next section introduces the concept of the corporatist catch-all party.


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IV. The Corporatist Catch-all Party

Not all catch-all parties are classic catch-all parties. The German CDU, for

example, has some, but not all features of a classic catch-all party. I introduce the term

corporatistcatch-all party to explain how the CDU differs from classic catch-all parties.

Drawing on the corporatism literature, I note that corporatist catch-all parties have

much in common with corporatist political systems. The insights from the corporatist

literature point to particular types of interest representation (Schmitter 1979: 13) and

policy making (Lehmbruch 1979: 150).9 In a corporatist political system, the state

recognizes certain interests, but not others. State recognition brings with it a variety of

potential benefits, including policy influence, but state recognition also entails costs, such

as diminished autonomy from the state.

A corporatist catch-all party differs from a classic catch-all party in three ways.

First, in a corporatist catch-all party, some (but not all) interest groups are recognized by

the party and gain representation within the party. Second, groups with representation

have genuine influence over party policy. Party policy is largely the result of internal

interest group bargaining. Third, the result of this type of organization is that the party

can reach out to new societal interests by mobilizing instead of demobilizing

membership.

9Schmitter and Lehmbruch emphasize these different aspects of corporatism through their definitions.

Schmitter defines corporatism as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are

organized into a limited number of singular, compulsory, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered andfunctionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted adeliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for observing certain

controls on their selection of leaders and articulation of demands and supports (Schmitter in Schmitter and

Lehmbruch 1979: 13). Lehmbruchs definition focuses more on the policy making aspects of corporatism:

Corporatism . . . is an institutionalized pattern of policy-formation in which large interest organizations

cooperate with each other and with public authorities not only in the articulation . . . of interests, but . . . in

the authoritative allocation of values and in the implementation of such policies (Lehmbruch in Schmitter

and Lehmbruch 1979: 150). The authors agree that they are focused on different aspects of the same


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In a corporatist catch-all party, membership is organized into interest groups that

are recognized and sanctioned by the party. The party offers recognized groups both

inducements, such as subsidies and logistical support (administrative personnel, printing

and mailing costs, office space), and constraints, such as control over the interest groups

selection of group leaders (Collier and Collier 1979). Recognized groups have

institutionalized representation on the partys decision-making bodies. Unrecognized

groups have neither the benefits nor the constraints that come with recognition. They are

not represented in a partys governing structure. Thus, the existence of party recognition

sorts all societal interests into those that are recognized and those that are not.

The second feature of a corporatist catch-all party is that groups represented on a

partys decision making bodies participate in policy making. Policy making happens

through a bargaining process in which represented groups negotiate with each other and

with party leadership. Representation on the partys decision-making bodies, therefore, is

not merely symbolic. A corporatist catch-all partys interest associations do more than

just lobby the party; they are integrated into the partys decision-making process.

Represented groups are not guaranteed that the final outcome will go their way, but they

are guaranteed the right to participate in the bargaining process. The party adopts the

results of the bargaining process as party policy.

Because of its distinctive internal organization, a corporatist catch-all party

responds to new issues and electors in a different manner than the classic catch-all party.

When a classic catch-all party reaches out to new groups, it demobilizes membership. For

classic catch-all parties, this demobilization is necessary because of potential conflict

phenomenon. I will be discussing both features of corporatism as I transfer these ideas to the realm of party

organization.


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between loyalists and floating voters. Loyalists would prefer that the party remain true to

its founding tenets. New supporters are interested in the party only if it moves away from

these founding tenets. The conflict is resolved by making the new tenets of the party so

abstract that everyone can subscribe to them and by decreasing the power of both

loyalists and potential new supporters, so that neither can significantly influence the

partys actions. Because old members will resist the move to broaden the appeal, classic

catch-all parties must limit the power of membership if they wish to adapt successfully.

Corporatist catch-all parties operate according to a different logic. They respond

to change by incorporating the groups advocating change into the partys governing

structure. Instead of weakening the links to both loyalists and floating voters as a classic

catch-all party would, a corporatist catch-all party maintains organizational links to the

loyalists, but also offers links to floating voters, as these voters coalesce into interest

groups. Through its recognition process, the party controls which groups gain

representation. Pre-existing groups may or may not attempt to resist the partys

recognition of new groups, depending on whether they view the new groups as potential

competitors or allies. The recognition process will therefore likely be contentious. Once

both loyalists and new groups have access to the partys decision-making structures,

however, they must reach some kind of compromise with each other on what the partys

position will be. Represented groups are central players in defining party policy.

This method of incorporation allows a corporatist catch-all party to reach out to

new societal interests without demobilizing membership. If the party considers new

interest groups important enough, it will give them representation on party decision-

making bodies and the influence over party policies that comes with this position. This


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method of representation means that it is not necessary for the party to take power away

from members when it reaches out to new societal interests.

Policy-Making in a Corporatist Catch-all Party: The Importance of Alliances

In a corporatist catch-all party like the CDU, policy is largely the product of

internal interest group politics. It is not that Christian Democratic ideology or the

changing place of women in German society or SPD initiatives are irrelevant, but these

forces are strongly mediated and refracted by internal bargaining among the major

interest groups that shape policy within the CDU. In particular, the CDUs womens

policies depend on the success of the partys womens auxiliary organization, the

Womens Union, in forging alliances with other groups within the party.

InPaper Stones, Przeworksi and Sprague explore the difficulties facing the

working class because they are not a majority. Women in the CDU have a similar

problem because they are also not a majority within the party. To accomplish anything,

they must form an alliance with another group or groups. Because womens preferences

may not be shared by other groups, compromises and logrolling may be necessary. The

selection of an alliance partner will likely influence which part of an interest groups

agenda will be acted on.

In thinking about the opportunities for the womens interest group to shape CDU

policy, it is helpful to distinguish between two situations: 1) women in the dominant

coalition and 2) women in the opposition (within the party). The dominant coalition is a

subset of the party leadership working together over a period of time to control party

behavior in major decision-making arenas (Panebianco 1988). This kind of alliance is


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stable over time and works together on multiple issues. The dominant coalition has

sufficient control over the internal workings of the party that it can generally make party

policy. The dominant coalition does not consist of the entire party leadership. Because all

important interest groups continue to be represented in decision-making bodies, these

groups are now divided into insiders, who are members of the dominant coalition, and

outsiders, who are not. Insiders will find it relatively easy to get the party to adopt their

policies; outsiders will find it extremely difficult.

The only real option for outsiders to get the party to adopt their policies is to form

what I call a cobbled coalition. Unlike the dominant coalition, a cobbled coalition exists

only on a single issue, on which all involved groups must agree. A cobbled coalition will

find it much harder to get its policy passed. If a cobbled coalition is successful in passing

its policy, the coalition will generally dissolve afterwards.

V. Parental Leave Case Study

This section illustrates the above argument using the case of parental leave

policies adopted by the CDU in the mid-1980s. When the CDU returned to government

in 1982, the existing policy providing benefits to working mothers was a paid six-month

maternity leave passed by the SPD-FDP government in 1979.10 Mothers who had been

employed for a minimum amount of time could stay home for six months after delivery

and received 750DM per month. Mothers on leave were guaranteed to get their jobs back

after the six months had elapsed. Mothers who were not working prior to pregnancy

received no benefits.

10Mothers are required to take some time off from work following delivery. None of the parental leavebenefits discussed in this paper affect this mother protection law.


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In 1986 the CDU/CSU/FDP government passed a new benefits package for

parental leave, or child-raising vacation. The CDUs parental leave benefits package

included the following benefits. One parent could take ten months off from work. Men as

well as women were eligible. The stay-at-home parent was guaranteed an equivalent

position upon returning to work, but not the same position. During the first six months,

the stay-at-home parent received 600 DM per month, as long as the couples yearly

income does not exceed 100,000DM (or 75,000DM for single parents). Low income

parents continue to receive 600DM per month throughout the parental leave. Finally, for

the duration of the parental leave, the stay-at-home parent will receive credit toward the

pension plan as if she or he were earning 75% of the average wage. The parent on leave

may work up to 19 hours per week without losing these benefits. Receiving these benefits

has no effect on whether the parent is eligible for other welfare payments.

The main differences between these two policies are: the CDU policy pays less

money per month, but pays it over a longer period of time, at least for low income

parents. The CDU policy is gender neutral. The CDU policy offers an employment

guarantee, but not a job guarantee.11 The CDU policy contained provisions to extend the

parental leave to up to three years.12 The CDU package also came with a promise to

legislate more flexible regulations for part-time work, which were subsequently passed.

The differences between these policies point to different conceptions of how to

respond to working mothers. The SPD policy is more compatible with women returning

11 Parents returning from leave are guaranteed an equivalent position at their former company, but

employers and employees often disagree on whether a given position is equivalent.12

The CDU did in fact extend these benefits. The current benefits allow for a three-year leave with

payments possible for the first two years. Many of the federal states (especially those frequently governed

by the CDU) pay for the third year. Neither the monthly benefit nor the maximum income levels have beenchanged since 1986, however. Therefore, the monthly payments are worth less and fewer parents are

eligible for them.


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to full-time work after the birth of a child. The CDU parental leave, on the other hand,

envisions women working part-time after they become mothers. Although the CDU

policy is gender neutral, only a miniscule percentage of men take any child-raising

vacation. Because little childcare was available (then or now) both versions of parental

leave often cause women to drop out of the labor force entirely. Since the CDU leave is

longer, it has this effect more strongly. Some CDU politicians have advocated the

parental leave policy because it relieves pressure on the labor market. The female

activists in the CDUs womens auxiliary organization, the Womens Union, not only

supported the CDUs parental leave policy, they had worked to develop it. This set of

benefits reflected their views on how to negotiate the conflict between work and family.

Internal CDU Disagreement

While the CDU policy seems to fit well with the Christian Democratic

commitment to supporting families and to more traditional roles for women, in fact there

was significant resistance to the parental leave benefits within the CDU. Opponents of the

parental leave policy included the chair of the parliamentary caucus, Alfred Dregger, the

partys Finance Minister, Gerhard Stoltenberg, and the partys auxiliary organization for

middle class interests (Mittelstandsvereinigung). The primary objection was to the

employment guarantee. Employers felt that saving the jobs for people returning from

parental leave would be overly burdensome. Further objections were that the benefits

would be too costly. Germany was just recovering from the budget deficits of the late

1970s and these new benefits represented a significant expense. Finally, working so

actively on womens policies was seen as the domain of parties of the left and many in


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the CDU felt that these issues were unimportant at best and would alienate conservative

voters at worst.

The main proponents within the CDU of the parental leave policy included Helga

Wex, chairwoman of the Womens Union and Heiner Geissler, CDU General Secretary

and Family Minister. The policy was also backed by the Youth Union, the CDUs youth

organization, and partially supported by the Social Committees, the CDUs working class

organization. These groups had been working together since the mid-1970s to develop

the CDUs parental leave policies and to convince the party to adopt them. The

proponents of the parental leave benefits were able to force their views through the party

and subsequently through the parliament because they formed a dominant coalition

within the CDU. The constellation of offices in the party and in government combined

with their willingness to work together enabled these internal party actors to override

those in the party that opposed them.

Strategies of the Dominant Coalition

The leaders of the dominant coalition, Wex and Geissler, worked together to

ensure the passage of the parental leave legislation. They did so in several stages. First, a

party congress was devoted to womens issues. Second, the discussion process both prior

to and during the party congress generated interest and enthusiasm in the CDUs new

position on womens issues. Wex and Geissler used the enthusiasm surrounding the party

congress to pressure reluctant internal CDU actors into supporting their policies. The

following section reviews these steps.


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The CDU devoted its 1985 party congress in Essen to womens issues. To focus

such a large event on womens issues was quite controversial; this choice was seen as

highly untypical for the CDU. In fact, prior to 1985 no other party had had a national

party congress on womens issues. Some members of the Presidium (notably Stoltenberg

and Dregger) resisted this the idea of a womens party congress, arguing that womens

issues were insufficiently important for a national party congress. Ultimately, however,

the General Secretary is responsible for party congresses and Heiner Geissler, the CDUs

General Secretary, pushed for the womens party congress.

Besides just raising awareness and working on internal party consensus building,

the main event of the party congress was to pass a program paper called A New

Partnership between Man and Woman. The parental leave provisions were one of the

main policy centerpieces of this program. The dominant coalition used the Essen party

congress to get their views on womens issues adopted by the party.

In preparation for the 1985 party congress, Wex and Geissler had mobilized

support both within and outside of the party. They organized a series of discussions at

lower levels of the party to mobilize support for the parental leave policies and for

changing the partys image of women more generally. Because the main topic of the

party congress was womens issues, many local CDU branches felt obligated to send

female delegates. These female delegates were more likely to agree with the suggestions

of their auxiliary organization, the Womens Union, or at least to have been previously

exposed to the relevant issues through the earlier discussions. Geissler and the leadership

of the Womens Union seem to have discouraged delegates that they knew disagreed with

their program (interview with Irmgard Karwatzki, CDU Bundestag representative and


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member of the Womens Union executive committee). Additionally, the CDU invited

500 prominent women, many from outside the party, to attend the congress in Essen and

discuss the partys New Partnership program.

Although the Womens Union and the Youth Union had worked closely with the

Social Committees during the 1970s, the Social Committees strayed from the alliance in

the early 1980s. With stubborn and high unemployment a serious problem, the Social

Committees sponsored a conference in 1981 entitled the Gentle Power of the Family.

This conference promoted the importance of motherhood and advocated that women stay

home after becoming mothers. The Womens Union regarded this conference as a

betrayal of the joint effort to create a more reform-oriented CDU, a critical part of which

was a more modern vision of womens roles. This rift was partially healed when the

Womens Union and Geissler accepted some pro-mother language into the New

Partnership program.

Geissler wanted to get the parental leave policies approved by the party congress

so that he could use the official statement of the party organization to pressure the CDUs

representatives in the Bundestag (interview with Heiner Geissler, CDU General Secretary

1977 1989). Although the parliamentary leader at the time, Alfred Dregger, opposed the

benefits package, Geissler had generated sufficient support for the parental leave to get it

through the Bundestag. The Bundestag approved the parental leave package early in

1986.


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Analysis

The CDU is a corporatist catch-all party. Groups that are regarded as important

have permanent representation on the partys decision-making bodies. For example, when

Hans Katzer, the Social Committees representative to the Presidium, died, he was

replaced by Norbert Blm, that organizations new chairman. This practice is normal for

the CDU. Thus, although the CDU experienced serious internal turmoil from 1979 to

1982, this turmoil is not much reflected in changes in the partys leadership. Furthermore,

although the party returned to government amid promises of neo- liberal politics, the

representatives of those policies did not succeed in removing their internal party

opponents from the partys leadership bodies.

The result of relatively constant representation of the various internal party groups

in the partys decision-making bodies is that no group can overrule the others by

eliminating their representatives. Instead, one way party leaders can increase their

influence over the party as a whole is by activating their membership. Particularly for

groups such as the Womens Union, that cannot necessarily hope for large financial

contributions from their constituencies, increasing activity and participation of members

can increase the power of the groups leader vis--vis other CDU leaders.

This organizational dynamic results in party behavior opposite from that expected

by Kirchheimers catch-all party theory. As a catch-all party, we would expect the CDU

to reach out to women voters in the 1980s by making generic appeals and by

demobilizing membership. If members have less influence and are less active, it is harder

for them to prevent the partys move away from its traditional position on womens

issues. As can already be seen from the discussion above, however, the CDU did not


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change its position by demobilizing existing supporters. Instead, the leaders of the

Womens Union mobilizedtheir supporters to create more support for their position

within the party organization. Membership mobilization was designed to increase the

influence of the dominant coalition, which included the Womens Union. Leaders of

internal groups can use mobilized members as an instrument to further their agenda

against the wishes of other leaders.

Without appreciating the internal party dynamics, we cannot explain the pattern of

CDU policy making toward women. The CDU neither accommodates women across the

board nor refuses to adjust its traditional positions. Instead, the CDU responds to the

politicking of its internal interest groups. When the Women's Union was part of the

dominant coalition as in the 1980s it could pass its policies fairly easily, as long as its

alliance partners were not strongly opposed. The Women's Union had a more difficult

time creating cobbled coalitions in the 1990s. Both electoral pressures and ideological

preferences provide only ambiguous guidance to the party. It is internal party dynamics

that have driven party behavior.


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