> attack ads, like Super PACs, are unimaginable here, legally and culturally.
Legally? There are laws preventing certain kinds of criticism of political parties, and we're celebrating this?
Perhaps it's because I haven't seen many attack ads (as a UK citizen who doesn't watch adverts), but I don't get the hatred for them. Is informing the populace of the downsides of your opponents' positions not better than putting contentless posters all over the city?
While I don't agree with silencing laws, I just wanted to point out that attack ads have been a real problem in the UK recently. In November last year the DUP party in Northern Ireland came under criticism for distributing thousands of leaflets attacking a council decision to normalise the regularity with which the Union flag was flown at the Belfast City Hall [0]. This raised tensions which eventually led to a series of attacks in December on the offices and homes of members of rival parties[1], and sustained rioting in January[2].
The problem comes when some of the advertised downsides are fictitious and/or designed to appeal to people's irrationality.
Personally I think it would be great if there was some enforceable way of making it illegal for politicians to lie about each other. But then you have the problem of who judges that . . . which may end up being an easier problem to solve than the problem of electing good leaders in an American political climate. Not sure.
Well, Germany doesn't have really have activist judges, because they don't have Common Law. Because of this, it is rather hard (and especially hard to justify) to be political in one's judgement in Civil Law systems, so most judges (I obviously cannot say with absolute certainty all) in Civil Law countries tend not to be political motivated.[0]
[0] That is not ruling out them being corrupt, of course.
> Perhaps it's because I haven't seen many attack ads (as a UK citizen who doesn't watch adverts), but I don't get the hatred for them. Is informing the populace of the downsides of your opponents' positions not better than putting contentless posters all over the city?
Here in Canada the drum beat of attack ads is incessent. The Liberal party has gone through a terrible churn of leadership in teh past few years, and the Conservatives roll out attack ads the moment the leader is selected, regardless of how close we are to an election.
Even though the article make this impression it's not illegal in Germany to criticize your political opponent as long as you're not telling straight lies.
Germany politics are and have been for the last couple of years in a rather curious state where the opposition appears to have given up on attacking Merkel in any meaningful way. I think there are several factors that play into this.
First of all, after the 2005 election a grand coaltion between Merkel's CDU and the social democratic SPD was formed leaving only the three smaller parties with a combined 166 out of 614 seats as the opposition. This put the SPD in the position of the CDU's junior partner instead of their usual position of attacking the CDU's political agenda. What may be even worse from the SPD's perspective is that the are now in the position of having supported the decisions made in Merkel's first term which would make it less than believable to attack those decisions now.
In the 2009 election the CDU only lost a marginal amount of votes while the SPD suffered heavy losses to the benefit of the three smaller parties. This allowed Merkel to form the traditional coalition consisting of CDU and the liberal FDP thereby leaving 290 of 622 seats to the oppposition and allowing the SPD to resume their role as the main force in opposition.
Except they never did. Instead of mounting attacks on the government, they stayed tame and oftentimes even concurred with the government on decisions despite no longer being in power. I am not sure about their reasons. Their lack of charismatic leadership personnel may have played a role, but that can only explain so much.
The second and more important factor is probably Merkel's very specific style of governing. She tends to be extremely passive, never exposing herself and opening herself up to criticism. If possible, she avoids making decisions at all. If she has to make decisions, she will always take the popular choice. If hard or controvesial decisions have to be made, she never makes a proposal herself. A proposal is either leaked to the press or presented by one of her ministers. In case said proposals garners widely negative reactions, the minister takes the blame giving Merkel the opportunity to shield herself from the fallout. Should an extraordinary event like the Fukushima accident lead to a sudden reversal in public opinion (towards nuclear energy in this case), Merkel will immediately flip her position and take the opposite one. If you have paid close attention to German politics in the last couple of years, you will see these exact steps repeated over and over again.
The worst part is, it works. Her latest approval rating is at 60% compared to 25% for the SPD candidate. Somehow she has managed to lull not only to public but also her political opposition to sleep over her two terms in office. This leaves us in 2013, a month away from the election with an opposition that behaves more like her pet kitten than her political challenger. What is even worse, is the fact that it leaves the population without a real choice for political change.
If she has to make decisions, she will always take the popular choice.
Are you saying that this is a bad thing? I am always surprised when people demand from politicians to make unpopular choices. Isn't that a bit schizophrenic?
If they simply declare that they are servants of the people and that they will do as the people will despite sometimes disagreeing, that's fine.
But what many politicians do (no idea about Merkel, but I've seen it a million times elsewhere) is take the public opinion as their own. If public opinion supports X, they will say that they believe X. If public opinion shifts and then support Y, they will not only say that they now believe Y, but imply that they always believed Y.
I realise that this is a tricky question, but I think that politicians should act in the best interest of the country for the long run and this may necessitate making unpopular decisions in the short term that may even go against the majority's opinion.
Let's view this from the other side. A politician promises to cut taxes for everyone by an amount of x after being elected. Doing so will require cuts in other budgets. I don't think the majority of people will reason that although it would be nice to have a bit more money in the pocket, it is a better idea to spend that money on say the educational system.
My experience is that very few people are really interested in seing the bigger picture and much fewer even in solving those issues.
I think it's more of a attack on the two-faced deceptiveness that politicians usually exhibit, and the demand for "unpopular choices" is more of a demand for consistency in the face of opposition looking to score political points on a hot-button issue.
Interestingly, Thatcher was known for ignoring pre-election opinion polling statistics (she personally identified herself as a 'conviction politician') and instead pointing at her unbeaten election record. This stubbornness was in fact key to her downfall, and the rest is history.
There are alot of good long term decisions that are unpopular in the short term. Merkel mostly optimizes for a positive short-term outcome, especially this close to the election.
Thats more like a global problem with the current form of democracy though.
Yes, and there are lots of popular short term decisions that would be terrible in the longer term. Lower taxes, yay. Block immigration, hard on crime with long jail terms for minor offenses, deregulate banking etc. Just recently I had a friend who voted for the party that promised to lower taxes complaining about the lack of staff, being overworked and not having a pay rise. He works in a publicly funded institution. People don't seem to think even 2 steps ahead.
It certainly has been very odd, especially considering there was a very noisy and shrill uproar around NSA/BND -- and I use the term was tentatively.
Merkel is a backseat driver, to put it bluntly. When the ride get bumpy then she can defer outrage to whomever she has employed as the driver, however when all is well then she receives nothing but praise for her careful stewardship.
"Should an extraordinary event like the Fukushima accident lead to a sudden reversal in public opinion (towards nuclear energy in this case), Merkel will immediately flip her position and take the opposite one."
I think you mean "away from nuclear energy" ;-) though I dont't think public opinion was ever for it, most people just didn't care enough to make it politically untenable to support it. That changed drastically with Fukushima. And to be honest, I'd rather have a politician in power who is able to change their opinion in response to important events than one who will not admit being wrong whatever happens.
Nuclear energy is a prime example for her usual MO. The people didn't really like nuclear energy but apart from some small groups of activists there was no real opposition. So, in summer/autumn of 2010 she let her people present plans to abandon the phasing out of nuclear energy. Once those didn't meet any meaningful resistance, Merkel sprang into action and made her coalition pass a law to that effect. Then spring of 2011 arrived, the accident happend and public opinion turned into staunch opposition of nuclear energy. Merkel immediately flipped.
Don't get my wrong, I am not opposed to politicians admitting they were wrong, but Fukushima didn't change any facts about nuclear energy. Merkel was operating on exactly the same facts in autumn as in spring and yet her decisions were polar opposites. The only thing that changed was public opinion and that is what I criticise.
Legally? There are laws preventing certain kinds of criticism of political parties, and we're celebrating this?
Perhaps it's because I haven't seen many attack ads (as a UK citizen who doesn't watch adverts), but I don't get the hatred for them. Is informing the populace of the downsides of your opponents' positions not better than putting contentless posters all over the city?