The European Debt Crisis and the Functional Logic of the Parliamentary System: A Case Study of the German Bundestag

Over the last 20 years national parliaments have increasingly been the focus of the debate on the European Union’s (EU) democratic deficit. They have lost core parliamentary competencies (“deparliamentarisation”), yet have simultaneously increased their formal information and participation rights in EU affairs. This paper focuses on the German Bundestag which is characterized by a wide gap between formal right-endowment and de facto right-employment. It argues that the most valid explanatory factor for this lies in the functional logic of the German parliamentary system: Within this so-called logic of ‘New Dualism’, the governing majority carries its government and has no incentive to discredit it publicly. It is furthermore argued that this system is hit by an external shock, namely the measures taken on the EU level to combat the debt crisis. It is hypothesized that the specific character of the debt crisis measures as the independent variable affects the functional logic of the parliamentary system as the dependent variable, potentially inducing a gradual drift from the prevailing logic of ‘New Dualism’ (government and its majority vs. the opposition) to ‘Old Dualism’ (parliament as a whole vs. the government). The empirical analysis focuses on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and three levels: The system’s level, i.e. the entire parliament, the individual-behavioural level, i.e. the behaviour of single parliamentarians, and the role-orientation level, i.e. the parliamentarians’ mindset. The study is based on a document analysis as well as 17 semi-structured interviews with members of parliament, their staff, the Bundestag’s administration and the executive. The findings indicate some ‘holes’ in the ‘New Dualism’ logic on the first two levels of analysis signaling towards ‘Old Dualism’. At the same time, the interviewees are still very much caught up in the usual cleavage mindset, thus a shift in role-orientations cannot be seen, (yet). In addition to the external ‘shock character’ of the crisis, the interviewees do identify an internal stimulus, namely the voter pushing for a higher politicization of the topic, arguably moving it closer to the logic of ‘normal domestic politics’. While democratically desirable, the longevity of these drifts remains to be seen.