Talk:Free Democratic Party (Germany)

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[edit] Expanding the History

I've re-written sections of this article and re-arranged it. I think it would be useful to expand the early history/origins of the FDP in this article. As it stands now, the article seems to imply that the party miraculously emerged for roll of creating majority governments. --metzerly 08:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

- One should at least mention that despite of the small number of party Members, the FDP has since the late seventies topped any record of politicians charged before the courts for tax evasion and corruption. In Germany it is therefore quite common to associate this party - more than any other - with greasy business and black money transfer.

- The situation on coalition negotiations after 2005 election is described in a very misleading way. Although the FDP won a lot of "second votes" (The second-vote being the decisive, proportional vote in German electoral system),this meant that the CDU lost these votes and consequently turned out surprisingly bad. On the whole, the christian-democrat-liberal "camp" could not improve vis-a-vis 2002. The "problem" in coalition negotiations was then simply that greens and liberals (esp. on environmental and social policy issues) hold a clear opposite position within a left-right spectrum, so any three party coalition including both of them (CDU-Green-FDP) or (SPD-Green-FDP) was simply ruled out. On the other hand, most political observers acknowledged that SPD and CDU were not "miles apart" in their programme and could indeed form a coalition which they finally did (Chancellor Merkel in 2006 even said she would prefer CDU-SPD coalition in view of large legislative projects). As no two-fraction coalition had a majority, the other alternative would only have been a so-called real left (Left Party-SPD-Green) coalition, which was however ruled out rather quickly by practically all SPD-frontmen already during the election campaign.

- Some more nick names for FDP apart from party of the better-off (Partei der Besserverdienenden):

- eternal co-governing party ("ewige Mitregierer") - fun party (in 2002 elections)("Spaßpartei") - "frühere dritte Partei" - former third party (due to lack of support in the eighties and nineties compared to very good results in the fifties and sixties) - "fast drei prozent" (nearly three per cent), due to very bad results in some regional elections. - dentists' party


I don't really think that social issues had anything to with the fact that the FDP and the CDU didn't end up as coalition partners; I'm not going to delete this line because I can't verify that social issues weren't a problem in talks, but in the end the two didn't coalition simply because they couldn't. Also, economics and international policy so dominated the campaign, that I don't think there was much room for internal strife based on social issues.

[edit] Ideology

I originally changed the ideology section to remove [Right Wing] and replace it with [Libertarianism] because I thought that more accurately reflected where the FDP really sits on the political spectrum. While I understand the desire to simplify the whole listing to [Liberal], I don't think that explains things well enough, nor does it help to differentiate the FDP from the SPD. I think including [Conservative Liberalism], [Libertarianism] and other qualifiers helps to better explain the positions of the party.Nsfreeman 06:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

However, the FDP is not a libertarian party. The FDP is a liberal party and was correctly associated with the three previously named ideologies, including right-wing, as you can see by reading the right-wing article it also includes certain forms of liberalism, which the FDP has adopted since ca. 1984 (Freiburger Beschluesse). Poeloq 13:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Libertarianism is a pretty exclusively American phenomenon, which should not be used to describe European liberal parties. john k 15:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Not necessarily exclusive to the US, but more predominant there. However, libertarian parties do exist in Europe and other parts of the world, however the FDP is not such a party! Poeloq 15:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, much more predominant in the US. Obviously, continental liberals share some similarities with libertarians, but the two are quite distinct, and should not be confused. john k 21:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
However, it is not an American thing, as is easily seen by studying its roots, i.e. for example Hayek and Mises. Still, I think we can conclude that the term libertarian is not right for the FDP. Poeloq 21:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Here are citations for the FDP representing libertarian viewpoints:
From Political Compass: The Free Democrats, like the US Libertarian Party, advocated certain social freedoms while remaining focused on the freedom that actually matters to them - the free market.
From The New Republic: The Greens biggest competitor, in fact, was Germany's longtime third party, the libertarian, pro-business FDP
From Teachersparadise.com: liberal/libertarian
Even if all of this is incorrect and the FDP does not represent Libertarian viewpoints anymore, historically, they do. From "The Libertarian Forum," Nov. 15, 1969: The FDP's policies have been characterized as the traditions of libertarianism and economic neo-liberalism.Nsfreeman 23:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
No one would dispute that the FDP has certain similarities to American Libertarians. Certainly when writing for an American audience, as the New Republic is doing, american Libertarians are probably closest to the FDP today. But the New Republic is not an expert on German political ideology, and the party does not describe itself as libertarian. It has affinities with libertarianism without being libertarian. You have also quoted a wikipedia mirror (teacher's paradise) as a potential source for wikipedia, which is very lame. And of course an explicitly libertarian organization (the Mises site) is going to claim as much as it can for libertarianism. The basic fact is that the FDP does not describe itself as libertarian, and that its form of liberalism, while having much in common with libertarianism, also has significant differences. The libertarian attempt to claim the entire legacy of classical liberalism for itself must be resisted. (Among other things, libertarianism is dogmatic where liberalism is pragmatic - even when the two come to similar conclusions, it is usually not for the same reasons.) john k 23:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for giving us some sources for your claim. Still, you may be correct that the FDP historically could be seen as libertarian, however it has not been so for many years (25+ at least). Part of there logo used to be "Die Liberalen", "The Liberals". Liberals and Libertarians would not use the two terms interchangeably, ever. I myself have been a member of the FDP for more than 5 years, so I do have some knowledge on what it is all about;) Poeloq 23:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I totally apologize for the teacher's paradise reference. I did not notice that it was a wikipedia mirror. My mistake. I also see the validity in many of the points made above but there still has not been a response to the Political Compass reference. They are a UK organization whose sole purpose is to identify where individuals and parties fit on the political spectrum and they call the FDP libertarian. Moreover,to argue that because a party doesn't refer to itself as something, it can't be that thing seems troublesome at best. Every totalitarian calls himself a democrat but that doesn't mean we shouldn't call him a totalitarian. Obviously this is less extreme, but if an objective source like Political Compass says that the FDP fits the Libertarian mold, shouldn't we at least list it along with the other descriptions? I have no problem with keeping the other terms up, it just seems to me that libertarian should be included.Nsfreeman 00:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, so we have one source left to deal with: The Political Compass. It does not call the FDP libertarian at all. Take a look at the diagram: the FDP lies above the middle line, downwards being libertarian. The description only states a similarity in some points with the US Libertarian party. Poeloq 00:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
But they're as close to libertarian as any party on their specturm gets. If you require that a party be in the bottom right corner to be considered libertarian then you'd have to remove the word libertarian from the ideology of every libertarian party in the world. By that logic, we should require that for the american Democratic party to be listed as liberal they be on in the bottom left corner. We'd have to remove the word liberal from the FDP, too, for that matter. Nsfreeman 01:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Neoliberalism (especially German neoliberalism) has nothing to do with libertarianism. Intangible2.0 16:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Just a thought, would it be fair to say that maybe the FDP falls more in the realm of [Classical Liberalism]?Nsfreeman 01:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The FDP does also not fall into the realm of classical liberalism, as it incorporates many elements of social liberalism. In this case conservative liberalism may not be 100% true, but the most accurate as well as economic liberalism. Nsfreeman: To be honest, I don't think this discussion is going to turn to your favor! How about the just leave it as it is? It describes the FDP in the most accurate way...Poeloq 01:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The Political Compass is not an impartial site, and it is not an authority on anything. It is a site created by unknown authors of unknown credentials (the only credits i can find are that it is by "Pace News Limited", of which I can find nothing on the web save the reference to it as the creator of the Political Compass site), and it is specifically trying to create a new paradigm as to how political ideology is to be conceived. That particular paradigm, by the way, is one that is not really very much more useful than the standard left-right spectrum, and that, furthermore, advances a libertarian POV. The site is basically subtle libertarian propaganda. To summarize, Political Compass is a) not impartial; and b) not actually a reliable source by any measure. Even if we ignore that, there is nothing in the quotation which says that the FDP is a libertarian party, just that they share certain ideas with libertarians, which I don't think anyone would dispute. But I really don't see how the Political Compass is any kind of authority on anything. john k 16:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
The party is not conservative liberal. This is the only liberal party in Germany. Intangible2.0 16:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd call it a mildly libertarian party - I have yet to hear them calling for the privatization of the Autobahns. By American standards, it's center-right economically (but with perhaps more willingness to continue social benefits than all but the most leftish of US Democrats who actually manage to get elected to Congress) and socially quite liberal (Guido Westerwelle as a prime example - the US Democratic Party would not dream of placing an openly gay man with a partner in charge of the party!) Texmandie 09:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I think they should be classified as a liberal party since they are members of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party. Anything else is a POV and not worthy of wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ELDR1985 (talk • contribs) 04:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "has participated in all but four/six governments"

This has recently been controversial. However, it is problematic to word it this way as it is unclear how "a government" is defined. Does it go per cabinet (which seemes to be Mogelzahn's view)? Or per legislature? Or by coaltion (which seems to be the IP's view)? Things are further complicated by short-term departures of the FDP from the cabinet during the Spiegel Affaire and in 1982. Therefore I suggest replacing the ambiguous calculation by "governments" by a calculation by years, which also avoids treating short-term "governments" equally with longer-lasting ones. My calculation goes like this:

  • CDU/CSU/FDP/DP coalition (Chancellor Adenauer): 1949-1956 = 7 years
  • CDU/CSU/FDP coalition (Chancellors Adenauer and Erhard): 1961-1966 = 5 years
  • SPD/FDP coalition (Chancellors Brandt and Schmidt): 1969-1982 = 13 years
  • CDU/CSU/FDP coalition (Chancellor Kohl): 1982-1998 = 16 years

which summs up to 41 years. I'll change the passage to that effect. Str1977 (talk) 21:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)