From ‘dream team’ to ‘marriage of convenience’? An introduction

Abstract

This introduction connects some of the main themes covered in this special issue on Chancellor Merkel’s second coalition cabinet, which was formed in October 2009 and ended with the electoral collapse of the FDP in the Bundestag election of September 2013. It starts by setting out an interesting ‘puzzle’: the parties forming the coalition of 2009–2013 (CDU, CSU and FDP) had expressed a strong preference for this coalition in the run-up to the election of 2009. Despite their seeming agreement in many policy areas, the coalition formed in 2009 faced tough negotiations and conflicts between the parties from the beginning. The economic crisis the preceding government faced between 2005 and 2009 and unforeseen events during the course of the CDU/CSU–FDP coalition 2009–2013 (e.g. the Euro crisis and the Fukushima environmental disaster) had altered the policy agenda in important ways and rendered the former ‘Christian–Liberal reform project’ obsolete.