Ein zunehmend bunter Freistaat: Die Analyse der bayerischen Kommunalwahlen im März 2020 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kreisfreien Städte

Abstract

Despite their crucial role for democratic decision-making, local elections receive little atten­tion from political science research . To overcome this shortcoming, the article analyses the Bavarian local elections of 2020 . Although the CSU remains the strongest party in the Free State, the Green Party was able to make considerable gains, especially in larger cities . How­ever, the Greens could not gain any grounds in mayoral elections, whereas CSU and SPD competed for the win . In most of the cases, the Social Democrats won the posts in city halls . In addition to detailing election results, this article addresses the ballot lists, the com­position of local councils, and coalition building at the local level . Overall, this contribu­tion provides a comprehensive account of the elections, which are characterized by their unique ballot system and, thus, have a special role in the political system of Germany .

Determinants of Government Membership at the Subnational Level: Empirical Evidence from Large Cities in Germany (1999–2016)

“…For example, it is now quite common to negotiate formal coalitions not only in larger cities but also in smaller municipalities because local party systems become more fragmented, the times of absolute majorities held by a single party are mostly over, and six out of ten councillors in German municipalities (almost nine out of ten in municipalities with at least 10,000 inhabitants) have a party affiliation (Egner 2015: 184). Even in a local government setting like Bavaria, which is characterized by a very dominant role for the directly elected mayor and a more ‘consensual’ style of local politics (Holtkamp 2008), parties frequently form coalitions in local councils and try to include the party of the directly elected mayor (Pollex et al 2021). This is also the case for coalition formations in larger cities in almost all other German states (Gross 2018).…”

Parliamentary questions as an intra-coalition control mechanism in mixed regimes

“…I chose to focus on German major cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants for multiple reasons. First, studies show that in Germany, mayors of populous municipalities, such as German cities, are often members of one of the parties in the city council (Pollex et al, 2021;Nyhuis et al, 2022). Thus, the German local level is an ideal case to test my third hypothesis.…”

Studying politics at the local level in Germany: a tale of missing data

“… 2 For instance, this is the case for the most recent local elections in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia in 2020, where even socio-demographic characteristics of candidates running for local councils and more fine-grained data on local election results for the Kreistage has been made publicly available (see Pollex et al. 2021 ; Nyhuis et al. 2022 ).…”

“…For instance, this is the case for the most recent local elections in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia in 2020, where even socio-demographic characteristics of candidates running for local councils and more fine-grained data on local election results for the Kreistage has been made publicly available (seePollex et al 2021;Nyhuis et al 2022). 3 See Article 259 of the Political Constitution of Colombia (https://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/ Colombia/colombia91.pdf) as well as Article 1 of the Law 131 of 1994 (https://www.funcionpublica.…”