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 HOW GERMAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS HAVE SAID FAREWELL TO FAMIALISM
ABSTRACT: This paper finds that, until 2005, parties matter in explaining reforms of German family policy along ways predicted by the literature on partisanship and the golden age of the welfare state. However, existing theories on welfare development cannot explain why German Christian democrats suddenly implemented policies supporting working mothers rather than the traditional family from 2005 on. Building on the literature on intraparty politics, the paper argues that, against a background of secularization and increased women’s emancipation, electoral defeats as well as government exclusion from 1998 to 2005 triggered a profound change of Christian democratic politicians. Once the CDU returned to office, dominant groups within this party were much more oriented towards working mothers than their predecessors. In terms of the comparative literature on welfare development, the fact that purposeful political re-organizing within parties was responsible for policy outcomes offers a strong challenge to the prevailing assumption that welfare states are reformed by parties as we knew them. I take this situation to be evidence that further underscores the need for scholars of the welfare state to stop making assumptions about unitary actors with stable preferences, and to focus on societal changes and intraparty dynamics to clarify the role of political parties in developing family policy.
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