Renewing Democracy: The Rise of Green Politics in West Germany

Abstract

The September 2013 Bundestag election, which reelected Angela Merkelas chancellor, was a clear defeat for the Green Party. Alliance 90/TheGreens (henceforth the Greens) fared far better than the Free DemocraticParty (FDP), which failed even to score the five percent of the vote requiredfor representation in parliament, but still fell from 10.7 percent to 8.4 percent,losing five of their sixty-eight seats in parliament. Since in March ofthat same year, surveys had shown their support at 17 percent, this disappointingresult forced Jürgen Trittin, the leader of the parliamentary delegationto step down.1 In many ways, this perceived electoral debacle markedthe end of an era. The former Federal Minister of the Envi ron ment, whohad originally joined the party in 1980, told reporters that “a new generation” would have to step forward and lead the party into the 2017campaign. This statement suggested not only that the Greens’ rebelliousfounding impulse was spent, but also that they had become part of theestablishment in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), now requiring areinvigoration of their own. Since the Greens were once expected to be littlemore than a short-lived byproduct of the social conflicts of the 1970s, acloser look at the party’s founding moment at the beginning of the 1980smight shed new light on its current predicament.

German Green Party: the evolution of political agenda

“…They opposed the traditional politics based solely on the activity of the parties which claimed a monopoly in shaping the social reality. They were created for the advocates of change, not only in the anthropocentric way of thinking about the surrounding nature but also in the understanding of democracy and the relationship between citizens and power (the postulate of participatory grassroots democracy and democratization of larger areas of the social life than before) (Jarausch, Milder, 2015).…”

“…The first program created in 1980 was a compromise worked out by sometimes significantly different circles, from ecological socialists (Ökosozialisten) and activists sympathizing with ultra-left organizations, to moderate activists, for whom the priority was not a radical reconstruction of society, but only liberal politics in line with the spirit of "sustainable development" of the state and economy (Ökolibertaren). The clearest, however, was the division into Realists and Fundamentalists, two factions with strong personalities and charismatic leaders -J. Fischer and P. Kelly (Jarausch, Milder, 2015).…”