ABSTRACT

A sketch of the historical context within which the party system developed in Germany will help in understanding the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) governing and opposition role. The West German political system was stable because of the relative homogeneity of the population and decreasing national, religious, and social class cleavages. This chapter argues that social and economic forces produced significant and often destabilizing changes within the SPD, just when it was assuming a senior governing role in 1969. The SPD emerged during the nineteenth century in response to the consequences of the industrial revolution. The chapter examines the SPD's relations, while in power, with the other two segments of the Social Democratic triad—its parliamentary group and the SPD-led government. It assesses the effect of the change in the party's profile on the parliamentary group's factional struggles and on selected domestic and foreign policies of the government is assessed.