Bringing women to the party
Subtitle: the CDU and the politics of gender in Germany
By: Sarah Elise Wiliarty.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 267
ISBN-13: 9780521765824
Subjects: Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands -- Membership; Women in politics -- Germany; Women -- Government policy -- Germany; Women -- Government policy -- Europe, German-speaking
Description: "Sarah Elise Wiliarty develops the concept of the corporatist catch-all party to explain how the German Christian Democratic Union has responded to changing demands from women over the past forty years"--

"This book develops the concept of the corporatist catch-all party to explain how the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has responded to changing demands from women over the past forty years. Otto Kirchheimer's classic study argues that when catch-all parties reach out to new constituencies, they are forced to decrease the involvement of membership to facilitate doctrinal flexibility. In a corporatist catch-all party, however, societal interests are represented within the party organization and policy making is the result of internal party negotiation. Through an investigation of CDU policy making in the issue areas of abortion policy, work-family policy, and participation policy, this book demonstrates that sometimes the CDU mobilizes rather than disempowers membership. An important lesson of this study is that a political party need not sacrifice internal democracy and ignore its members in order to succeed at the polls"--
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction: a democratic paradox?; 1. The puzzle of CDU policy making on women's issues; 2. The corporatist catch-all party model; 3. The postwar CDU: origins of a corporatist catch-all party; 4. The emergence of the Women's Union, 1969-1982; 5. The Women's Union in the dominant coalition, 1982-1989; 6. Looking eastward: the Women's Union and cobbled coalitions, 1989-1998; 7. The rise of Angela Merkel: policy and personnel decisions of the CDU in unified Germany; 8. Christian democracy with and without corporatism: policy making on women's issues in Austria, Italy and the Netherlands; Conclusion; Appendix A: list of cited interviews.