Abstract
The ascension of Angela Merkel to the Chancellorship was always a bit curious to Germany watchers. Not terribly charismatic and an Easterner (in a political system dominated by Western elites), Merkel nevertheless outmanoeuvred her rivals to become the centre-right’s chancellor candidate in 2005, and since that time has dominated German politics like no other. Undoubtedly the biggest puzzle of Merkel’s rise to power is how a woman – from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) no less – became Chancellor in a country long known for a more traditionalist, patriarchal politics. In much the same way, the record of her party in regard to ‘women’s issues’ has also been puzzling: although the CDU was a long-time advocate of a more traditional role for women in society (reflected in the classic triad of ‘children, church, and kitchen’), over recent decades it has moved aggressively to expand parental leave, introduced a ‘quorum’ into its party statutes to increase women’s representation in the national legislature, and has acceded to liberalized abortion laws. What explains the party’s evolving positions, in terms of both policy and personnel?
For Sarah Wiliarty the primary reason for these decisions can be found in the inner-party dynamics of the CDU. These dynamics, in turn, are largely a result of the organizational structures of the party. For much of its post-war history, Wiliarty shows, the CDU enjoyed a ‘women’s bonus’, scoring substantially better in elections among women than men. This traditionalist gender gap was common to most Western party systems before the late 1960s, and could be explained by women’s greater religiosity and under-representation in the labour market at that time. Significant socio-demographic change and the concomitant rise of the feminist movement gradually eroded this women’s bonus, and the CDU was forced to grapple with how to respond. Characterizing the party’s overall policy response isn’t easy, since the CDU’s positions – kind of a two-steps-forward, one-steps-back (one-step-sideways?) pattern of policy-making – have neither simply aped leftist parties’ positions nor remained frozen in time by static party ideology. Indeed, existing literature on political parties (such as essentialist theories privileging a party’s historical origins and ideology or Downsian spatial models of party behaviour) cannot completely capture and explain the CDU’s evolving positions.
Consequently, Wiliarty introduces a valuable new model of party organization at the beginning of her book – the ‘corporatist catch-all party’ – meant to explain the CDU’s policy and personnel decisions. In contrast to Kirchheimer’s classic ‘catch-all party’, a corporatist catch-all party not only has leaders and members but also internal party interest groups (such as those for women and workers) recognized and sanctioned by the party. Some of these groups (although not all, and not all at any one time) are given representation on the party’s decision-making bodies; they thus have significant input into both policy and personnel decisions. Indeed, the party depends on such internal party groups (unlike the classic catch-all party) to generate ideas and strategies for the party and to mobilize voters. Crucially as well, recognized groups have something of an unspoken quota on these decision-making bodies. With this in mind, Wiliarty suggests, Merkel’s rise to power is at least partially a result of her ability to fulfil three important internal party quotas – those for women, Protestants and Easterners. In short, Merkel’s ‘rise in power has been at least partially because of her gender, and not in spite of it’ (p. 183).
In much the same way, Wiliarty demonstrates how the shifting policy of the CDU across three policy dimensions – work-family, abortion and women’s representation in the party and in government – can be seen as reflecting inner party dynamics and organizational structures. More specifically, the ability of the ‘Women’s Union’ of the CDU to bargain successfully over policy plays a crucial role in this story. In a succession of historically rich, closely-argued chapters that occupy the book’s middle section, Wiliarty shows how the power of the Women’s Union waxed and waned over the past several decades, with corresponding changes in the positions of the CDU. Throughout this part of the book, Wiliarty tests her hypothesis of the corporatist catch-all party against other explanations from the party literature and shows convincingly that these specific policy outcomes can really only be explained using her model.
In her penultimate chapter, Wiliarty tests the model further in other cross-national settings. She shows how the corporatist catch-all party model can help explain outcomes in these same three policy areas among conservative parties in Austria, Italy and The Netherlands. The book concludes by summarizing its main arguments, discussing some possible implications for policy-making on women’s issues, and briefly examining other examples of corporatist catch-all parties (the HSP in Hungary and the French PS). It also makes a strong normative argument for the corporatist catch-all party as an example of internal party democracy. Although this theme of the work remains only weakly developed, it nevertheless can serve as an initial exploration of an issue that invites further research.
The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany is well written, well organized and highly informative. It is rich in empirical detail yet employs an historical narrative not to simply describe but to inductively construct and test theory. Indeed, like the best works of social science which employ their particular case study to make more generalizable hypotheses, Wiliarty argues compellingly that the organizational dynamics of the CDU requires a re-thinking of party typologies, all the while challenging our understandings of policy-making, party behaviour and party organization. It is highly recommended not only for German and European scholars but also for those comparative scholars interested in parties and elections and those interested in gender politics.