ABSTRACT
Four years after unification, the 1994 elections in the new Länder show the institutional weakness of the parties, an electorate relatively unstructured by group based partisanship, and a party system characterised by potentially unstable structures of party competition. Whilst party membership has stabilised, there is little indication that the post-unification decline can be reversed. Although group partisanship ‘normalised’ somewhat in 1994 it remains weaker than in the west, with a correspondingly higher incidence of ‘situational voting and more electoral volatility. Tendencies towards concentration and polarisation mean that the party system is less predictable than previously, with a more open political market in which the capacity of the parties to control politics is significantly reduced.
