Abstract
Concluding the book, this chapter returns to the key aims of the study and provides a summary of the key findings of the research. Key descriptive aims were to explore how much support there is in Germany, assess the extent to which it has been dynamic and varies between the east and west. It argues that the evidence challenges suggestions of a widespread legitimacy crisis and reveals a sceptically supportive public. The conclusion also reinforces that there has been some convergence in political outlooks between the east and west, but that important differences remain. A key analytical goal, meanwhile, was to explain how support develops by testing theoretical approaches and weighing the evidence. The conclusion thus pinpoints where short- and long-term factors are at work and how these mediate support for different objects of the political system. Finally, the conclusion offers some closing reflections on the impact of the findings for the present condition and future trajectory of German democracy.
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- 1.
Richard Rose and Bernhard Wessels, ‘The Absolute and Instrumental Legitimacy of Democracy’, Studies in Public Policy (Glasgow, University of Strathclyde: Centre for the Study of Public Policy).
- 2.
On the importance of this, see: Jean Cohen ‘Trust, Voluntary Association and Workable Democracy: The Contemporary American Discourse of Civil Society’ in Mark E. Warren, Democracy & Trust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 208–249.
- 3.
Marc Hetherington, Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
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Donatella della Porta, Can Democracy be Saved (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).
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Archon Fung, Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
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Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).
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Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).
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Edeltraud Roller, ‘Einstellungen zur Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland: Gibt es Anzeichen für eine abnehmende Differenz’, in Peter Krause and Ilona Ostner (eds.) Leben in Ost und West Deutschland: Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Bilanz der deutschen Einheit 1990–2010 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2010), pp. 597–614.
- 9.
See, for example, ‘Germany’s Conservative Meltdown The Approaching End to Merkel’s Tenure’. Der Spiegel, 22nd June 2018. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/migrant-policy-conflict-could-spell-the-end-for-merkel-a-1214503.html. Also, Alexander Neubacher writes of the death of the German Party system: Crisis in Berlin The End of German Politics As We Know It. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/csu-merkel-conflict-means-german-politics-is-changing-a-1216204.html.
- 10.
Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston Beacon Press, 1975).
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Campbell, R. (2019). Popular Support and German Democracy; Resilience and Restoration. In: Popular Support for Democracy in Unified Germany. New Perspectives in German Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03792-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03792-5_9
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