No 50 – The dynamics of German public opinion (January – February 2011)

Institute for Western Affairs releases a series of Bulletins under a joint title "The dynamics of German public opinion". The subject of the series is a course of debates in a German public sphere. The studies are carried on under the research project in co-operation with Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

On the last days of February, German public debate became dominated by so-called "plagiarism scandal". Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU), minister for defence, who has been very popular so far, was forced to resign due to accusation of copying considerable parts of his doctoral thesis from sources which has not been listed in its bibliography. This personal scandal covered for a while other important political subjects of the last weeks of 2010: a reform of armed forces and imigration debate. Despite intensive criticism of Guttenberg, his personal popularity decrease was not considerable and did not weaken popularity of CDU/CSU.

On the first weeks of 2011 SPD improved its statistics of popularity in general, but worsened them with reference to the Green Party. Fall 2010 statistics for the Greens were very good and some publicists were predicting that the takeover of the status of the second (after CDU/CSU) general society (Volkspartei) party - at the expense of SPD - is forthcoming. The predictions turned out to be premature, nevertheless the debate on decline of Volksparteien is still up-to-date.