ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the development of opposition politics in the Federal Republic of Germany since the mid-1960s. It investigates the changing concepts and practice of opposition in Germany and the Federal Republic up until this period. The chapter focuses on the dismissal of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) into the federal opposition with the fall of the old Social-Liberal coalition offers the chance to compare its opposition strategy to the one it followed when Kirchheimer wrote his seminal essay. It explains that following the 1983 federal elections, the SPD was joined on the opposition benches in the Bundestag by the Greens and was thus faced for the first time since the early years of the Federal Republic by a significant competitor for the left-wing vote. The chapter argues that parliamentary opposition in the Federal Republic has had a preponderantly co-operative cast.
