Polarization and Consensus in West German Foreign Policy, 1949-1990

Abstract

During its four-decade lifespan, West Germany endured fierce domestic dispute over its foreign and security policies. On at least three occasions, government decisions to make major changes in the direction of Bonn's external relations rocked the Republic's political landscape, triggering intense, ideologically-fueled, partisan conflict-confrontation at times further heightened by a powerful executive's dominant role in decisionmaking and the frustration of a largely impotent legislature. Yet, even in those turbulent phases, respect for democratic process was never in danger or even in question and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was generally able to balance robust debate over foreign policy with the need for consensus on substance and democratic process. While West Germany's special sensitivity to its external environment created an incentive for bipartisanship, features of its domestic political setting reinforced this centripetal tendency-and provided ways of forging compromise. Party politics drove domestic confrontation, but also helped to limit it: neither of the two major players could long afford to abandon the political center to its rival without risk of alienating swing voters and the FDP-a vital coalition ally-and, thus, without risk of permanent exile from political power. Moreover, despite the acrimony often generated by a strong chancellorial role in foreign policy, the FRG's institutional framework otherwise mitigated in favor of compromise: even with a Bundestag majority, no government could run roughshod over its opponents, given the risk of a backlash against it in the Bundesrat. On balance, centripetal forces in the formulation of Bonn's foreign policy overwhelmed the centrifugal tendencies that often sparked fierce, if brief, domestic confrontation.