After Merkel, What?

TALKING POLITICS

Catherine Carr

News, News & Politics

4.7 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We talk to Hans Kundnani about the prospects for German politics in the run-up to September's federal elections, now that the cast list of possible successors to Merkel is known. Can Laschet escape from her shadow and does he want to? Would a Green led government be radically different from the alternatives? Is the age of the 'grand coalition' over? Plus we consider the historical parallels, from Bismarck to Adenauer to Kohl: do long-serving leaders ever manage a successful transition?

Talking Points:

To wrap up the second season of History of Ideas, on 11 May, the LRB is hosting a conversation between David and Pankaj Mishra. They’ll discuss the thinkers we did—and didn’t talk about. To book tickets, follow this link.

Armin Laschet is the new CDU leader.

So far, his candidacy has been underwhelming. He is generally seen as being a Merkelite candidate who would probably continue her centrist, grand-coalition style.
Is the CDU pinning its hopes on the vaccine? If Germany gets it together in the next few months, the party in power will likely reap the benefits despite current polling woes.
The personality of the lead candidate is less of a determining factor in German politics; you don’t vote for an individual chancellor.

Is the era of grand coalition politics between the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats coming to an end?

There is a real possibility that the party that has run Germany for the last four electoral periods might not get a fifth.
Of course it’s still likely that the Christian Democrats will stay in power, but even the possibility that they won’t contributes to a new sense of dynamism.

The German Greens hope to be in power too—with the Christian Democrats.

There’s been a convergence during the Merkel Era.
The Christian Democrats have moved to the center on social issues.
It’s no longer clear that the Greens would prefer to be in coalition with the Social Democrats. They have moved to the right, especially on economic issues.
Geopolitics may push the Greens more toward the Christan Democrats, especially re Russia.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Further Learning:

And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my name is David Roxeman and this is Talking Politics. Today we're looking at Germany
0:12.5	we now know the cast of candidates vying to succeed Angela Merkel this autumn. They want
0:18.0	to succeed her but can any of them escape from her shadow.
0:24.9	Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London reviewer books. A literary
0:29.3	magazine full of politics and a political magazine full of literature.
0:34.3	listeners can subscribe at a special rate of just one pound an issue by using URL lrb.me
0:42.4	slash talk. That's lrb.me slash talk.
0:53.7	Joining us today it's a pleasure to have back hands could nani who is a senior research
0:57.8	fellow Chatham House he's the author of the paradox of German power. And we've talked
1:03.1	about Armin Lashett before. He's quite a hard person to kind of hold in mind exactly
1:08.0	who he is and what he stands for. But he has now been chosen. He's emerged from the
1:12.4	mist as the CDU CSU candidate for the elections in the autumn. I think it's fair to say
1:19.2	that his candidacy hasn't been greeted with a fanfare of trumpets and hosamas. It's
1:24.6	a little underwhelming. Is there a strategy here? Is there a party strategy to get this
1:30.6	man elected? Because if there is a how much I can see what it is.
1:35.0	I'm not sure if there's a strategy exactly. I think they have been kind of making it up
1:39.6	as they go along over the last few months. I guess though if there is a strategy, I kind
1:45.8	of feel like this is this is repeating what I said in the last podcast, but I feel like
1:49.9	it's a continuation of the Merkel strategy. Insofar as Lashett is seen as the candidate
1:56.5	among the Christian Democrats who stood as being the closest to Merkel in terms of style
2:02.3	and substance. There are some differences which we may want to get into later on in the
2:08.6	discussion, but broadly he is seen as being the sort of Merkelite candidate. And the
	...

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