German Green Party: the evolution of political agenda

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to present the evolution of the political agenda of the German Green Party (Die Grünen) between 1980 (establishment of the party, its first program manifesto – Das Bundesprogramm) and 2017 (recent German federal elections program – Zukunft Wird aus Mut Gemacht. Bundestagswahlprogramm). The research was conducted on the basis of the literature and the comparison of the two mentioned program manifestos. The hypothesis of the work is that the successes of the Greens in West Germany mainly result from the ideological, program, and strategic reorientation of the party that took place at the turn of 1980s and 1990s.

How Greens turn gray: Green Party politics and the depoliticization of energy and climate change

“…They have shaped the Zeitgeist of sustainability and environmental consciousness but also adapted to an economic and political system they once wanted to overhaul more fundamentally. Political party scholars and historians have identified modes of "strategic repositioning" when tracing the Green Party's development from a grassroots-based radical opposition to an established moderate party with increasing government responsibilities (Blühdorn, 2009;Frankland, 2019;Kwidziński, 2020). Yet, the multiple links between changing political positions, shifting ideological foundations, and the competing visions of a "green" future attached to a subject like the energy transition have been less clear.…”

Why the left has more to lose from ideological convergence than the right

“…10.These parties are classified as mainstream as they have served in national government. While the Green party may have initially been considered a radical challenge in the 1980s, by the 2000s, the party increasingly resembled the other major German parties (Kwidziński 2020). …”