Analysing Party Politics in Germany with New Approaches for Estimating Policy Preferences of Political Actors

This contribution introduces the development of German party competition and coalition politics in recent decades on the one hand and the latest techniques for estimating the preferences of political actors on the other. It argues that, for reasons of social change, the preferences of the electorate were reshaped and political actors therefore had to adopt programmatic changes. In addition, the establishment of a new socialist party in the eastern German states, and since 2005 also in the western part of Germany, resulted in new coalition strategies for the 'traditional' political parties, which are discussed between and within the parties. Researchers can apply various methods to test what programmatic position political actors adopted and whether they changed their programmatic orientation over time. The paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks of the major strategies in estimating preferences of political actors and provides an overview of the contributions to this issue of German Politics.