ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen

After the break-up of the traffic light coalition in November 2025, the question of confidence was used to bring about early general elections. Mathematically and politically, the results allowed only for a coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD....

In the last two weeks of the 2025 federal election campaign, the chancellor candidates from the CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and AfD parties met in three televised debates in various constellations, continuing a tradition of televised...

The Schleswig-Holstein local election system features four problematic aspects, which are associated with paradoxical effects that are not appropriate to the local context. These include the fact that individual candidates sometimes do not receive a...

Since the 1970s, the party systems of European democracies have undergone fundamental changes. In all countries, the centrist parties that had shaped political life for decades lost support among the electorate. The first phase of change was...

The end of the so-called “traffic light coalition” in November 2024 demonstrated once again that party coalitions in Germany sometimes end prematurely – that is, before the regular end of the legislative period. Against this background, this...