Germany's SPD Bleeding Members

Germany's oldest political party - the Social Democrats (SPD) is losing members at an alarming rate:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said Monday it had surpassed the rival Social Democratic Party (SPD) on the basis of membership figures for the first time since being founded in 1945.

Of course, the CDU doesn't have that much to celebrate, since it too is losing members - just not as many or as rapidly as the SPD.  The SPD has been around since the 1860s. and was the largest representative party for the working class through the Weimar Republic.  It emerged surprisingly intact in the postwar era and in the 1970s still had over one million more members than the Christian Democrats.  How far has it fallen?

According to figures from the end of last month, the SPD, Germany's oldest political formation, had 529,994 members. Both parties have been losing members for years, although this has been taking place more rapidly in the SPD. At the end of May, the SPD still had 531,740 members, by comparison with 531,300 for the CDU.

In certain eastern states the SPD has fallen to third place, behind the LEFT party and the CDU.  Especially younger Germans have been leaving the party in droves.  In the mid-1970s there were over 300,000 Jusos (young socialists) while today there are fewer than 50,000 in a reunified Germany. Now over half the members are older than 60, while only 5% are 29 years-old or younger. Nor is the SPD any longer "the workers" party.  None of the Bundestag representatives of the party are trade union activists.  The party chairman - Kurt Beck - is a licensed electrician and therefore a total anomaly: most of the other representatives are lawyers.  Trade union activists and their constituents have been turning their back on the SPD and crossing over to the LEFT party for some time.

Why did this happen?  Oliver Nachtwey has good piece in Die Tageszeitung that traces the long demise of the SPD.  He mentions of course the Hartz IV economic reforms implemented by former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which were seen by many working class Germans as a massive betrayal of their interests and a step towards dismantling the Social Economy that had been the hallmark of German stability in the postwar era. Nachtwey also points to Willy Brandt's concept of the "Neue Mitte" (the New Middle), when the party first began to expand its power beyond its proletarian base to middle class Germans.  This was wildly successful in the Brandt era, but in the past two decades the party has lost its connection with the base - the working class voter - and is now simply a party of die Mitte- the Middle - competing for the same voters as all the other parties with the exception of the LEFT party and the right-wing extremists.

Paradoxically, Nachtway sees this orientation towards die Mitte as a potential strength for the SPD, since it alone has the capacity of forging coalitions with any of the other German parties:

Doch in ihrer Schwäche hat die SPD durch den Wandel des Parteiensystems paradoxerweise die größten Möglichkeiten, weil sie - im Prinzip - die größten Koalitionsoptionen besitzt. Sie kann mit allen Parteien zusammenarbeiten. Aber in der Bundesrepublik gibt es derzeit nicht nur eine gesellschaftliche Mehrheit, sondern sogar eine potentielle parlamentarische Mehrheit für eine Politik der sozialen Gerechtigkeit. Eine Koalition mit der Linken könnte in diesem Sinne gar eine "Entlastung" für die SPD sein, da sie - befreit von der politischen Bindung ans Prekariat - ungeniert als "Neue-Mitte-SPD" agieren könnte. (Thanks to the changes in the party system the weakened SPD paradoxically has the greatest possibilities because in principle it has the best coalition options.  It can cooperate with all the parties.  But today in the Federal Republic there is not just a social majority, but also a parliamentary majority  supporting a policy of Social Justice.  In a sense a coalition with the LEFT party could even be a relief for the SPD since it would be free of political ties to the old base and can operate openly as the "New Middle SPD".).

It will be interesting to see if the SPD can regain its bearings.  But the mention of Brandt brings up a good point: what the party needs is a charismatic personality on a national level.  To some extent the success of the LEFT party is connected with the charisma of Lafontaine and Gysi.  Here in the States I've watched a charismatic leader - Barack Obama - attract millions of Americans into the Democratic Party, and into the political process - many of them young and first-time voters.  Could such a figure emerge from the ranks of the moribund Social Democrats?

Comments

[leftclicK]

For the German political establishment (SPD+CDU/CSU+Greens+FDP)it took more than 20 years to create a crisis so complicated that they can accuse everyone not responsible for the crisis of not being competent enough to solve it. So consequently the citizen shall be entitled to throw good votes after the bad -again. But more and more voters seem to tune out from that downward spiral. They turn their backs to those who have betrayed them. Life is just.

[David]

@Leftclick,

How much support do you see at the "Basis" of both the LEFT party and the SPD for cooperation?

[leftclick]

On low levels like in the cities and districts we already have talks (not only) with the SPD. In Berlin we also have a coalition with them. "The Basis" however, is mainly on our side because our demands dominate the agenda, while the leaders of the SPD rather feels themselves committed to the Schröder heritage and the guidelines of the great coalition with the CDU/CSU. Another remarkable point is that union activists discover the Left as a new political alternative - more and more of them join us. The downswing of the SPD will go on as long as their leaders behave like politruks against them 'damned proletarians'. It's all windfall profits that we earn until now. The storm is yet to come unless old auntie SPD gets real and remembers where she comes from.

[Scott]

Those Juso numbers do not paint a happy picture. Vibrant democracy needs a basis of activists who believe in social justice and the rule of law. The SPD should think outside the box a bit and find spokespeople who appeal to young people.

If the SPD can bend to reality and embraces the possibility of coalition with the Left, it will take some of the steam out of the Left's rise.

[David]

Scott,

The elections in Hessen show that both the SPD and the LEFT party seem to have run out of steam....