SCIENCE CENTER BERLIN
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IIES pre 8 2 - 1 7
THE POLITICAL SETTING OF THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
by
Hans-Joachim Fietkau Hans Kessel
This paper will be published in L.W.Milbrath, Environmentalism and Social Change, Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, 1983.
Summary
This paper, aimed at the non-German public, gives a short impression of the political dimensions of the environmental movement in the Federal Republic of Germany. It shows that the former environmental protection groups have developed into new political parties which were successful in the last elections at the state level. Special emphasis is placed on the interrelations between the environmental movement and the peace movement.
Zusammenfassung
In diesem Papier wird dem nicht-deutschen Leser ein erster Überblick über die Umwöltbewegung in der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland gegeben. Die Entwicklung von Umweltschutzgruppen zu neuen (grünen) Parteien, die in den letzten Wahlen der
Länderparlamente erfolgreich waren wird aufgezeigt. Besonderes Gewicht wird dabei auf den Zusammenhang zwischen der Friedens
bewegung und der Umweltbewegung gelegt.
Introduction
Fundamental changes are about to take place within the political scenery of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
"Classical” political topics and conflicts relevant for polarization of our established political parties are
beginning to move into the background making room for other subjects. One of the most important subjects of political debate is, undoubtedly, the environmental protection issue.
Air and water pollution, noise, harmful substances in food
stuffs are some of the concerns which have entered the poli
tical sphere during the past several years. Utilizing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes has especially caused a polari
zation of public opinion. The traditional left-right politi
cal spectrum, along which German political parties can fairly easily be arrayed, seems poorly adapted to deal with these problems. The result is that controversies over these new issues have opened deep gaps in all of the established political parties.
A great number of laws and regulations dealing with the environment were passed in the FRG after 1970; most are still enforced today. In the early 1970's political debate on these regulations was mainly the concern of a small num
ber of experts. With environmental awareness growing towards the end of the decade, and the formation of an environmentalist movement, the environmental issue has emerged from its shadowy existence in the realm of
bureaucratic-technocratic treatment to become one of the central political issues in the FRG. Evidence for its high topicality can be seen in the fact that ecology-oriented
"alternative" parties succeeded in passing the 5% mark in some state-level elections and now have some of their mem
bers seated in several of the state or city parliaments.
This trend seems to be continuing and it can be assumed that ecology-oriented parties - might even win some seats in the German Bundestag in 1983.
The success of these parties is characteristic of the growing protest potential in the Federal Republic of Germany. For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic it is clear that younger voters who mainly supported the Social Democratic Party (SPD) are now turning away from it and the SPD has had to turn over its role as reservoir for progres
sive forces to the recently founded Ecological parties. The SPD is more and more being judged as an established political institution offering no home to those trying to accelerate more intensive change of society. The new Ecological parties have become the home for today's German protest potential.
In recent times it also has become evident that the new parties, that were initially only concerned with environ
mental issues, have started to intervene in other political subjects as well. Germany is experiencing a rapidly growing peace movement and a reorientation of ecological parties to become "alternative" parties that are concerned about peace as well as the environment, can be expected.
Evaluation of protest movements
In 1980, we asked our respondents of the "International
Environmental Survey" if they favored or opposed the environ
mental movement; this was repeated in 1982. In the latter year we added an item that asked if people favored or opposed the peace movement. Table 1 reports the percentages of
people favoring each of these movements.
Although there was a small decline in the percentage favoring the environmental movement from 1980 to 1982, it was still overwhelmingly favorable. Note that business leaders showed only a small decline in those favoring but a large rise in those opposing; this is further evidence of increasing polarization.
Table 1 also shows that the peace movement generally is
favored but much less strongly than the environmental movement;
only business leaders had a much larger percentage opposing than favoring the peace movement. In the lower part of Table 1, we show the percentages overlapping in favor and overlapping in opposition, as well as the percentages with mixed responses. Within the German public, 58% favored both movements and 10% opposed both movements.
Members of the Parliament were fairly close to the public in this respect showing a slightly lower percentage who favored both and a slightly higher percentage who opposed both.
Environmentalists overwhelmingly favored both movements and business leaders tended to oppose both movements but less overwhelmingly; as a matter of fact, the highest percentage of persons with mixed responses was found within the business leader group.
It is instructive to compare those who overlap in favor of both movements to those who overlap opposing both movements on several other variables. In Table 2 it can be seen that females are more highly represented in the group favoring both movements and males even more strongly dominate the group opposing both. Those favoring both tend to be younger than those opposing both. Those identifying themselves as politically "right" are much more likely to oppose both movements whereas those who identify themselves as "left"
are more likely to favor both. It is interesting that those with no position on the left-right continuum also tend to favor both movements; such persons should not be thought of as apolitical.
These left-right differences are reflected in party choice.
Persons who oppose both movements overwhelmingly are found in the .conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) or Christian Socialist Party (CSU). Note that none of them belong to an environmental party. Persons who favor both movements are found in all parties but particularly in the SPD party with substantial representation in the environmental party. Note also that those who say they do not vote tend
Table 1
Overlap between environmental and peace movements Germany 1982
(1980 Percentages in parenthese, where available)
G erm an P u b l i c
M em bers o f P a r l i a m e n t
E n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s
B u s i n e s s L e a d e r s
N=1129 N=109 N=268 N=153
f a v o r o p p o s e f a v o r o p p o s e f a v o r o p p o s e f a v o r o p p o s e E n v i r o n m e n t a l
M ovem ent 7 1 ( 7 7 ) 1 2 (1 0 ) 79 21 95 1 5 1 (5 5 ) 4 9 (2 2 )
P e a c e
M ovem ent 57 32 55 35 82 13 21 73
O v e r la p
1 58
I- 10
1
53
1 18
1 82
1 1
1 . 17
1 45
M ix ed r e s p o n s e
o r no p o s i t i o n 32
X 2
/
9 18
X 3
z 8
Source: TIES International Environmental Survey 1980 and 1982
Table 2
Age, sex and political differences among supporters and opponents of the environmental and peace movements
German Public 1982
G e n e r a l P u b l ic
O v e r l a p i n : F a v o r o f B o th
O v e r l a p O p p o s in g B o th M ov em ents
P e r c e n t a g e o f e a c h s e x M 48 F 52 M 46 F 54 M 61 F 39
A v e r a g e a g e 40 37 44
P o l i t i c a l L e a n i n g %
R i g h t 30 '•1 8 55
L e f t 20 32 3
No P o s i t i o n 17 19 9
P a r t y C h o ic e %
C o n s e r v a tiv e ( C D U /C S U ) 38 24 72
S o c i a l i s t s (SPD ) 28 31 16
L i b e r a l s (FDP) 9 9 9
E n v i r o n m e n t a l P a r t y 13 21 0
No V o te 10 12 2
Source: TIES International Environmental Survey 1982
to be in favor of both movements.
The political protest of "green" parties is not only directed against established forms of politics. The new political movement is looking for new forms of grassroots participation
in political decision making processes. This search becomes comprehensible when taking a look at the history of the
environmentalist movement. Ecological parties have not been founded "from above" but have their origin in the political formation of relatively diverse groups at the local level.
Now they have begun to move in to the Parliaments and they are running the risk of becoming part of the political
establishment and of adapting themselves to the same political processes they had previously fought against during their
early grassroot activity days. Consequently, they run the risk of becoming alienated from their supporters because they can't hold close contact to the grassroots; the supporters might develop a skeptical, critical attitude toward their elected representatives.
Although the established German political parties (SPD, CDU, FDP) for some time have already taken up environmental
questions in programmatic statements, it may take seme time before these established parties pay environmental protection
its due. One cannot help but notice that during the last years, discussions of environmental and peace policies have generated deep internal conflict instead of harmony.
The change of political tradition
Nature protection organizations have a long history in
Germany. These are traditional organizations with a rather apolitical or conservative attitude. Their concern was mainly with protection of species and landscapes or with conducting walking tours. To promote these objectives they tried to influence politics using traditional channels.
However, it is fair to say that they did not visibly influence the design of environmental policies in Germany. The
environmental movement, in a way, developed independently of these nature protection organizations, as also seemed to be true in England and to some extent in the United States.
The groups that formed the environmental movement first became active on the local level, generally to deal with concrete problems found there. Recently in Germany, however, we also find a noticeable politicization of traditional nature con
servation organizations. In other words, it seems that environmentalists and nature protection organizations are approaching each other more closely. This has become easier as the environmentalist movement has begun to break away from its preoccupation with local problems. The German
Federal Association of Citizens Initiatives for Environmental Protection (Bundesverband Bürgerinitiativen Umweltschutz - BBU) has been founded as a national umbrella organization that promotes professionalization and politicization of the environmental movement.
Basically, the environmental protection movement in the
Federal Republic of Germany is led by middle class activists with some support from the working class. Even though the German mass media reporting on environmentalist activities is'often biased - especially with respect to active protest against nuclear energy - the citizens' initiatives movement has achieved a high degree of public acceptance. This
acceptance is accompanied by a wide array of environmental protection groups. In the Federal Republic of Germany today, there are more people active in citizens' initiatives than there are members in political parties (about 2 million
people are members of political parties, and about 5 million people are active in citizen initiatives). This is an
especially serious change since the political tradition of the German people is to believe that political parties domi
nate public decision making. The effective assertion of
political interest by public interest groups is an astonishing new political phenomenon in the Federal Republic of Germany.
