OnPoint Subscriber Exclusive
Global Bookmark offers long-form examinations of global trends and challenges, viewed through the lens of important new books.
The Calm Heat of German Politics
It will be no small feat to fill outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoes, but many of Germany's leading politicians have welcomed the challenge. With the most promising candidates occupying various positions in the political center, Merkel's brand of change amid stability is likely to continue.
Olaf Scholz, Hoffnungsland: Eine neue deutsche Wirklichkeit, Hoffmann & Campe, 2017.
Sahra Wagenknecht, Die Selbstgerechten: Mein Gegenprogramm – für Gemeinsinn und Zusammenhalt, Campus, 2021.
Annalena Baerbock, Jetzt – Wie wir unser Land erneuern, Ullstein Verlag, 2021.
Wolfgang Kubicki, Meinungsunfreiheit: Das gefährliche Spiel mit der Demokratie, Westend, 2020.
Tobias Blasius and Moritz Küpper, Der Machtmenschliche: Armin Laschet. Die Biografie, Klartext,2020.
BERLIN – The current German Bundestag election campaign offers further evidence of how Germany has long been spared from the dysfunctional political party systems found in other Western democracies. While the United States buckles under an increasingly scorched-earth two-party war of attrition, the United Kingdom is routinely subjected to the Tory party’s deeply deceitful political strategies and Labour’s disingenuous fence-sitting. And France and Italy have both witnessed rapid swings that suggest disintegrating party systems.