Archiv der Kategorie: politics

compulsory reading, German Politics, media, Political Theory

High Noon

Well, it was about time. Being a mature liberal democracy with television, it was only a matter of time until there would be a televised duel between the two most serious contenders for Germany’s most important political office, the chancellor.

Yesterday evening, 20:15 was the hour of truth for both contestants. Given that this sort of two-man-show is a new element in German campaigning, it is understandable that both Mssrs. had some trouble to find the right way to deal with the other.

There were no fatal mistakes, no watch-checking, no claims about Eastern Europe being still under Soviet control. Actually, the duel was not actually a duel. The contestants hardly spoke or even looked at each other. Nor did they look at me (or the other estimated 14m viewers, which equals appr. 50% prime-time market share) since cameras, contestants and the two interviewing journalists were placed in a way it appeared the two men simply looked nowhere when they were actually looking at the journalists. Seriously, I wonder if they should pay their campaign advisors.

So the event is the main story. And for all the pundits being interviewed afterwards this was in all likelyhood a very profitable evening. But for the rest of us and for our democracy, the debate (that was not) was not very helpful.

By the way, the (conservative) BILD-Zeitung has apparently decided that Edmund Stoiber won. Actually, a lot of people said that today. Such commentary is a good example of the fact that pessimists tend to be more effetive than optimists, because because their “should be / is”-fraction will always be higher. Stoiber won simply because everyone expected him to perform as abysmal as he did in the first one-hour interview after his nomination as CDU/CSU candidate.

So to sum up, we did a) not learn anything interesting about policy options in the debate (that was not), b) we have a winner because a duel by definition needs a winner and c) unfortunately, that “winner” only because he tragically lowered expectations by himself. It’s a bit like the soaring approval ratings for George W. Bush after his handling of 9/11. Most people expected him to fail so they were positively surprised when he did not (fail entirely).

Note: It is evident why a televised debate is being introduced in Germany just now, but interestingly, it is less certain than in many previous elections that the voters will get the chancellor the want. Germany is a parliamentary democracy and the public elects the parliament, not the government. As no single party will be able to get 50+% of the votes, they will need to form coalition.

This, in turn, means that the candidate who received the most votes will not necessarily become chancellor. It all depends on the vote distribution between the parties. And given current trends, the FDP might well choose the SPD over the CDU as a coalition partner as they would have more weight in such a coalition. So Schroeder could stay in office despite getting less votes than Stoiber. Now this is a logical possibility of a parliamentary democracy and far less problematic than in the case of the last American election.

From here, the discussion would become increasingly theoretical and thus I will spare you (and me) tonight. Whatever the public says (through elections or otherwise) there is no correct way to translate it into majorities. It’s just an (socialised) agreement.

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German Politics, Germany

Too much water. And Moral Hazard.

THW Hochwassereinsatz DeutschlandFaced with the destruction of the floods currently covering a good part of East Germany and the Czech Republic, more than 4m victims will only be able to deplore their impotence with regard to the destructive potence of nature and to feel the anxiety of not knowing how to go on with their lives.

It is truly a tragedy what is happening these days after 12 years of reconstruction in the formerly Communist East. But for all their losses, none of the victims is faced with the moral dilemma which German government politicians will have to tackle. On the one hand, their human hand, they will feel compassionate just like everyone else (and will deplore the budgetary consequences of generous government bailouts for the affected regions). On the other, their (party) political one, they will see the enormous potential this national crisis is offering to them in public relation terms with the general elections looming in five weeks. But then, their private smugness will certainly be offset by the mourning of opposition leaders…

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German Politics, Iraq

FT: FDP criticizes Schroeder’s stance on Iraq

(Link) I really don’t know why the papers pay so much attention to politicians during campaign time. They really ought not to.

Wolfgang Gerhardt, the boring old possible successor of Joschka Fischer in the foreign office has given an interview. Now that is something he does not do very often since he was ousted as chairman of the FDP by Guido Westerwelle in 2001.

He’s a politician, so he probably likes media attention. And he probably wants more of it. And he thinks he will get some for criticising the chancellor for something I am pretty sure neither of both actually has: an (informed) stance on Iraq.

It’s election times, people. As a reminder, election times are those in which policy is the last thing on a politician’s mind, for the product/market diagrams his campaign staff have prepared dominate the thinking part of his/her brain. So my guess is, should they actually have an informed stance on Iraq (and I *very* much doubt that) neither of them is going to tell it to the public before the election.

Germany is a democracy. And we have tv. And one and one still adds up to two.

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US Politics, USA

Leviathan has to move.

LeviathanA friend in need is a friend indeed. Leviathan certainly is not a friend of the Afghan people as recent reports of new fights in and around Kabul confirm.

So instead of trying to forge some sort of working government out of the state-of-nature-like inter-agency conflicts of competing warlords Leviathan apparently prefers competing with his friend Nicholo M. on who is best in curtailing civil liberties in the West. A state-of-the-extremely- scary-art example of the latter was exhibited last week in the New York Times, titled “Kafka in Tulia“.

I am not going ot summarise the article, I think it’s best if you read it yourself. Now if the West (and especially the US) want to underscore the theoretically sound claim that decent institutions of governance are prerequisite to economic and social development – and that the West is an example of those institutions – I think stories like the one above seem to make it necessary to reconsider the definition of “decent” in today’s politics.

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German Politics

New Left, again.

OK, now that the left has really come round to understand the coordinating value of markets, they want to apply their knowledge whereever they can. This is an excerpt from a campaigning website of the SPD which tries to motivate people to volunteer for their Online Campaigning Team. Funny…but in German.

Wie werden die Aufgaben an das Online Campaigning Team verteilt? Das geschieht auf dem Jobmarkt.

Der Jobmarkt ist eine Art Marktplatz. Er funktioniert wie ein Internetforum. Die Einträge sind nur fär OCT Mitglieder sichtbar. Wer Aufgaben an das OCT zu vergeben hat, kann hier ein Angebot aufgeben. Die Mitglieder des OCT können auf jedes Angebot antworten. Auf dem Jobmarkt werden die Informationen ausgetauscht, wer bis wann welche Aufgabe erledigen kann und welche Fähigkeiten dafür benötigt werden. Für eine Aufgabe benötigt man z.B HTML Kenntnisse, manche Aufgaben sollen von vielen OCT Mitgliedern bearbeitet werden, manche nur von einem. So soll sich der Markt selber regeln und Angebot und Nachfrage zusammenführen, so dass jede Aufgabe von dem bearbeitet werden kann, der dafür am besten geeignet ist.

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Economics, German Politics

Do it the German way, if you have to. But do it.

Gerhard SchröderThe Social Democrats (SPD) seem somewhat desperate these days. With the general elections looming in only 48 days and the SPD still trailing the Christian Democrats (CDU) by about five cruicial points, Chancellor Schroeder kicked off the ‘official’ SPD campaign in Hannover saying that his government would contine to conduct business, that is economic policy, “the German way” – as opposed to the American way of social security, of course.

While campaigns are not usually a good opportunity for serious policy analysis, this statement is actually interesting, because it demonstrates to which extent this government is at loss about its economic policy. A few weeks ago, the chancellor tried to gain points among the reformist voters who helped him into office back in 1998 by proposing to pursue the implementation of the proposals of a working group (the “Hartz-commission”) under the direction of a member of the VW-board.

These proposals include serious supply side changes to the incentive structure of the German labour market regulations. The deal he tried to cut was – back me again and I’ll be in a better position to keep the Unions in check than a conservative-liberal coalition so I could actually implement the plan.

While this calculation may be right if – and it certainly looks as if – Schroeder himself is the only argument that could keep the SPD in office, many voters seem to have lost their faith in his ability to deliver. After all, they signed precisely that deal in 1998 and the only changes the SPD made to labour market regulation, even after the departure of my-heart-beats-on-the-left finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, made it even more rigid than before.

So it seems the SPD campaigners now believe that they will have to rely more on the votes of the traditional social democratic core than they thought and thus start a campaign to defend “the German way” – the corporatist rhenish capitalism – of organising the economy. Not helpful, you might say and you could be right.

But I still believe in Schroeders deal. Especially if the SPD has to cut a deal with the Liberals after the election instead of the Greens whose very knowledgeable spokesperson for budgetary and economic matters, Oswald Metzger, will not return to the Bundestag due to plainly stupid electoral regulations, once conceived to promote the role of women in the Green party.

So I fear in a coalition with a technically neoliberal chancellor they might try to appeal to leftist tradiationalists and slow down necessary reforms. I would certainly miss Joschka Fischer and will dearly deplore the lack of social progressiveness in the FDP but as things stand today I figure a coalition of SPD and FDP will be the best deal this country can get.

So if Schroeder has to praise “the German way” to be reelected, be it. In any case, I would advise you not to listen too closely to any politician over the next 48 days, it’s campaign time. If you’re campaigning yourself, you’re a journalist or you’re into advertising, you might have have fun.

All others – try to spend the rest of the summer abroad.

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German Politics, Iraq

Soundbites.

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated today that in his opinion a war against Iraq is not useful for the time being. The middle east conflict should be solved before considering any further action against Iraq.

I have not yet made up my mind concerning a western military intervention in Iraq but to wait until the middle east conflict will be resolved would certainly be a bit longer than useful. Sometimes I wonder whether politicians secretly hate Emil Berliner for inventing the microphone…

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German Politics

Miles & More.

Remember the words of the great Baz Luhrman:

“Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.”

OK, history teaches us that politicians will philander. For German politics then, this week was certainly historical – this week, a fair amount of well known and less well known politicians fell prey to an unprecedented wave of accusations and subsequent resignations – the most prominent politician to step down was Gregor Gysi, senator for economics in the Berlin state government and the most prominent figure the socialist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) has to offer.

And what is the fuss all about? It’s about Miles & More, the well known frequent flyer programme of Lufthansa. According to the internal rules of the Bundestag, deputies are not allowed to use the miles they received for flights conducted for official business for non-official purposes. But then, normally, their frequent flyer accounts are protected from official inspection by Lufthansa’s privacy rules. No wonder then, that some politicians relied on Lufthansa to protect their privacy from the public and used their miles for private purposes. But somehow, someone was able to obtain this information and so it was subsequently published by Germany’s most infuential tabloid, BILD, with the above consequences.

Have we all gone bonkers? How can we expect anyone of modest intelligence to become involved in high-profile politics if the BILD-Zeitung and other media can ruin their careers with a headline concerning something as unimportant as the discretionary private use of frequent flyer miles.

We know that politicians will philander, fair enough. But if we use a standard like the one used in German politics this week, the statement might become untrue in the future, for the simple reason that there won’t be any politicians left to philander.

The person who has never used a corporate copier or sent and email from the office for private purposes throw the first stone. All others, sit down and be quiet.

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