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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Etymology ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 History .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Germanic tribes and Franklin Empire ....................................................................................................... 3 Holy Roman Empire ................................................................................................................................. 3 German Confederation and Empire .......................................................................................................... 4 Weimar Republic and Nazi Regime .......................................................................................................... 4 East and West Germany ............................................................................................................................ 6 German reunification and the EU ............................................................................................................. 6 Political Structure of Germany ..................................................................................................................... 7 Intro of Political Structure ........................................................................................................................ 7 The Executive ........................................................................................................................................... 7 The Bundestag .......................................................................................................................................... 8 The Bundesrat ........................................................................................................................................... 9 Political parties.......................................................................................................................................... 9 The judiciary ........................................................................................................................................... 10 The lnder ............................................................................................................................................... 10 Pakistan Germany Relationship ............................................................................................................... 11 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 12
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Introduction
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in westerncentral Europe. The country consists of 16 states and its capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 square kilometers and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 80.3 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state in the European Union. Germany is the major economic and political power of the European continent and a historic leader in many cultural, theoretical and technical fields. Various Germanic tribes occupied what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented by the Romans before AD 100. During the Migration Period that coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes expanded southward and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the German Empire, which was dominated by Prussia. After the German Revolution of 19181919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic in 1918, with some of its territory partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Despite its lead in many scientific and cultural fields at this time, Germany nonetheless endured significant economic and political instability, which intensified during the Great Depression and contributed to the establishment of the Third Reich in 1933. The subsequent rise of fascism leads to World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990, the country was reunified. Germany has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth-largest by purchasing power parity. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is the second-largest exporter and third-largest importer of goods. It is a developed country with a very high standard of living, featuring comprehensive social security that includes the world's oldest universal health care system. Known for its rich cultural and political history, Germany has been the home of many influential philosophers, music composers, scientists, and inventors. Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and has been a member of the Eurozone since 1999. Germany is a great power in regional and global affairs, and is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe.
Etymology
The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. The German term Deutschland (originally diutisciu land, "the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" (i.e. belonging to the diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *iudiskaz "popular" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *eud, descended from Proto -IndoEuropean *tewth- "people".
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History
Germanic tribes and Franklin Empire
The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Central and Eastern Europe. Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania (an area extending roughly from the Rhine to the Ural Mountains). In AD 9, three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius. By AD 100, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany; Austria, southern Bavaria and the western Rhineland, however, were Roman provinces. In the 3rd century a number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands. After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved further south-west. Simultaneously several large tribes formed in what is now Germany and displaced the smaller Germanic tribes. Large areas (known since the Merovingian period as Austrasia) were occupied by the Franks, and Northern Germany was ruled by the Saxons and Slavs.
4|Page From 1740 onwards, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1806, the Imperium was overrun and dissolved as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
5|Page President Friedrich Ebert. An era of increasing national confidence, a very liberal cultural life and decade of economic prosperity followed - known as the Golden Twenties. Suffering from the Great Depression of 1929, the harsh peace conditions dictated by the Treaty of Versailles, and a long succession of unstable governments, Germans increasingly lacked identification with the government in the early 1930s. This was exacerbated by a widespread right-wing Dolchstolegende, or stab-in-the-back legend, which argued that Germany had lost World War I because of those who wanted to overthrow the government. The Weimar government was accused of betraying Germany by signing the Versailles Treaty. By 1932, the German Communist Party and the Nazi Party controlled the majority of Parliament, fuelled by discontent with the Weimar government. After a series of unsuccessful cabinets, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building went up in flames, and a consequent emergency decree abrogated basic citizens' rights. An enabling act passed in parliament gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power. Only the Social Democratic Party voted against it, while Communist MPs had already been imprisoned. Using his powers to crush any actual or potential resistance, Hitler established a centralised totalitarian state within months. Industry was revitalised with a focus on military rearmament. In 1935, Germany reacquired control of the Saar and in 1936 military control of the Rhineland, both of which had been lost in the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Austria was annexed, and in 1939, Czechoslovakia was brought under German control. The invasion of Poland was prepared through the MolotovRibbentrop pact and Operation Himmler. On 1 September 1939 the German Wehrmacht launched a blitzkrieg on Poland, which was swiftly occupied by Germany and by the Soviet Red Army. The UK and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. As the war progressed, Germany and its allies quickly gained control of most of continental Europe and North Africa, though plans to force the United Kingdom to an armistice or surrender failed. On 22 June 1941, Germany broke the MolotovRibbentrop pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor led Germany to declare war on the United States. The Battle of Stalingrad forced the German army to retreat on the Eastern front. In September 1943, Germany's ally Italy surrendered, and German troops were forced to defend an additional front in Italy. D-Day opened a Western front, as Allied forces advanced towards German territory. On 8 May 1945, the German armed forces surrendered after the Red Army occupied Berlin. In what later became known as The Holocaust, the Third Reich regime had enacted policies directly subjugating many dissidents and minorities. Millions of people were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, including several million Jews, Romani people, Slavic people, Soviet POWs, people with mental and/or physical disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and members of the political and religious opposition. World War II was responsible for more than 40 million dead in Europe. The war casualties for Germany are estimated at 5.3 million German soldiers, millions of German civilians; and losing the war resulted in large territorial losses; the expulsion of about 15 million ethnic Germans from former eastern territories of Germany and other formerly occupied European countries; mass rape of German women; and the destruction of numerous major cities. The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals were held after World War II.
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7|Page federal ministries. The relocation of the government was completed in 1999. Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union and NATO. Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent a force of German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban. These deployments were controversial since, after the war, Germany was bound by domestic law only to deploy troops for defence roles. In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany as the leader of a grand coalition. In 2009, a liberal-conservative coalition under Merkel assumed leadership of the country.
The Executive
The head of state is the President, a largely ceremonial position, elected for a maximum of two five-year terms. The voters in the election for President are known collectively as the Federal Convention, which consists of all members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members nominated by the state legislatures - a total of 1,244. The current President is Joachim Gauck. The head of the government is the Chancellor (equivalent to the British Prime Minister). The current Chancellor is Angela Merkel of the CDU. Every four years, after national elections and the convocation of the newly elected members of the Bundestag, the chancellor is elected by a majority of the members of the Bundestag upon the proposal of the President. This vote is one of the few cases where a majority of all elected members of the Bundestag must be achieved, as opposed to a mere majority of those that are currently assembled. This is referred to as the Kanzlermehrheit (Chancellor's majority) and is designed to ensure the establishment of a stable government. Most significantly, the Chancellor cannot be dismissed by a vote of no confidence.
8|Page In fact, in the six decades of the Bundestag, there have been only eight Chancellors a remarkable element of stability. In the same period of time, Italy has had 37 Prime Ministers (although some of served several separate terms of office). The current Chancellor is Angela Merkel of the CDU. As in Britain or France, day to day government is carried out by a Cabinet, the members of which are formally appointed by the President but in practice chosen by the Chancellor. Since Germany has a system of proportional representation for the election of its lower house, no one party wins an absolute majority of the seats and all German governments are therefore coalitions.
The Bundestag
The lower house in the German political system is the Bundestag. Its members are elected for four-year terms. The method of election is known as mixed member proportional representation (MMPR), a more complicated system than first-past-post but one which gives a more proportional result (a variant of this system known as the additional member system is used for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly). Half of the members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies using the first-past-the post method of election. Then the other half another 299 - are elected from the list of the parties on the basis of each Land (the 16 regions that make up Germany). This means that each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote allows voters to elect their local representatives to the Parliament and decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies. The second vote is cast for a party list and it is this second vote that determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag. The 598 seats are only distributed among the parties that have gained more than 5% of the second votes or at least 3 direct mandates. Each of these parties is allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received. This system is designed to block membership of the Bundestag to small, extremist parties. As a consequence, there are always a small number of parties with representation in the Bundestag currently the figure is only six (and effectively the CDU and the CSU are the same party). At least 598 members of the Bundestag are elected in this way. In addition to this, there are certain circumstances in which some candidates win what are known as an overhang seat when the seats are being distributed. This situation occurs if a party has gained more direct mandates in a Lnd than it is entitled to according to the results of the second vote, when it does not forfeit these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag. This electoral system results in a varying number of seats in the Bundestag. In the 2005 elections, there were 16 overhang seats while, at the last election in 2009, there were even more overhang seats (24). In 2008, the highest German court de-legalized the overhang seats claiming them to be "absurd" and obliged the Bundestag to change the electoral system on that issue. A deadline was fixed for doing so of end June 2011. One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the American Congress or the British House of Commons is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. In part, that difference results from the fact that only 50% of Bundestag members are directly elected to represent a specific geographic
9|Page district. In part, it is because constituency service seems not to be perceived, either by the electorate or by the representatives, as a critical function of the legislator and a practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag members (especially compared to members of the US Congress). The Bundestag elects the Chancellor for a four-year term and is the main legislative body.
The Bundesrat
The upper house in the German political system is the Bundesrat. At first glance, the composition of the Bundesrat looks similar to other upper houses in federal states such as the US Congress since the Bundestag is a body representing all the German Lnder (or regional states). However, there are two fundamental differences in the German system: Its members are not elected, neither by popular vote nor by the state parliaments, but are members of the state cabinets which appoint them and can remove them at any time. Normally, a state delegation is headed by the head of government in that Land known in Germany as the Minister-President. The states are not represented by an equal number of delegates, since the population of the respective state is a major factor in the allocation of votes (rather than delegates) to each particular Land. The votes allocation can be approximated as 2.01 + the square root of the Land's population in millions with the additional limit of a maximum of six votes so that it is consistent with something called the Penrose method based on game theory. This means that the 16 states have between three and six delegates. This unusual method of composition provides for a total of 69 votes (not seats) in the Bundesrat. The state cabinet then may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, but is under no obligation to do so; it can restrict the state delegation even to one single delegate. The number of members or delegates representing a particular Land does not matter formally since, in stark contrast to many other legislative bodies, the delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are required to cast the votes of the state as a bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective delegate). This means that in practice it is possible (and quite customary) that only one of the delegates (the Stimmfhrer or "leader of the votes" - normally the Minister-President) casts all the votes of the respective state, even if the other members of the delegation are present in the chamber. Even with a full delegate appointment of 69, the Bunsderat is a much smaller body that the Bundestag with over 600 members. It is unusual for the two chambers of a bicameral system to be quite so unequal in size. The Bundesrat has the power to veto legislation that affects the powers of the states.
Political parties
Like many countries including Britain, France, and the USA Germany has two major party groupings, one Centre-Right and the other Centre-Left. The Centre-Right grouping comprises two political parties that operate in different parts of the country so that there is no direct electoral competition between them. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
10 | P a g e operates in all the Lnder except Bavaria, while the Christian Social Union (CSU) operates only in Bavaria. The Centre-Left party is the Social Democratic Party (SPD in German). The other parties represented in the Bundestag are: The Free Democratic Party (FDP) a Rightist party The Left Party built on the former Communist Party The Alliance '90/The Greens the German Green party The electoral system in the German political system means that coalition governments are very common. The Social Democratic Party was in coalition with the Greens the Red/Green coalition - from 19982005 and, from 2005-2009, there was a 'grand coalition' between the CDU/CSU and the SDP. Since 2009, the CDU/CSU has been in a coalition with the FDP. Unusually political parties in Germany receive significant public finds and the costs of election campaigns are substantially met from the public purse.
The judiciary
Germany's supreme court is called the Federal Constitutional Court and its role is essentially as guardian of the constitution. There are 16 judges divided between two panels called Senates, each holding office for a non-renewable term of 12 years. Half the judges are elected by the Bundestag and half by the Bundesrat, in both cases by a two-thirds majority. Once appointed, a judge can only be removed by the Court itself. Whereas the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have moved from Bonn to Berlin, the Constitutional Court is located in Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Wrttemberg.
The lnder
During the initial occupation of Germany after the Second World War the territory in each Occupation Zone was re-organized into new Lnder (singular Land) to prevent any one Land from ever dominating Germany (as Prussia had done). Later the Lnder in the western part of the former German Reich were constituted as administrative areas first and subsequently federated into the Bund or Federal Republic of Germany. Today, following the reunification of Germany, there are 16 Lnder in the German political system. The cities of Berlin and Hamburg are states in their own right, termed Stadtstaaten (city states), while Bremen consists of two urban districts. The remaining 13 states are termed Flchenlnder (area states). The Basic Law accords significant powers to the 16 Lnder. Furthermore there is a strong system of state courts. Politics at the state level often carries implications for federal politics. Opposition victories in elections for state parliaments, which take place throughout the federal government's four-year term, can weaken the federal government because state governments have assigned seats in the Bundesrat.
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Conclusion Like all political systems, the German one has its strengths and weaknesses. The great strength of the system a deliberate feature of the post-war constitution is the consensual nature of its decision-making processes. The Bundesrat serves as a control mechanism on the Bundestag. Since the executive and legislative functions are closely intertwined in any parliamentary system, the Bundesrat's ability to revisit and slow down legislative processes could be seen as making up for that loss of separation. On the other hand, it can be argued that the system makes decision-making opaque. Some observers claim that the opposing majorities in the two chambers lead to an increase in backroom politics where small groups of high-level leaders make all the important decisions and then the Bundestag representatives only have a choice between agreeing with them and not getting anything done at all. Germany is has a strong will to survival which is prominent after witnessing its breakage and reunification time and time again. Surviving two world war defeats and coming out of the holdings of four countries upon its capital, Germany truly shows the power of persistence and national strength turning into its integrity. The state system like US but surpassing the American system by creating separate constitutions and one above all to keep the federal and the states intact is a very clever and strengthening move. The coalition governments make sure that the oppositions are as much minimized and consensus is as much created as possible. Germany tends to capitalize on her distinct strength and make it stand against all odds, that is their key to success that will take them to further heights of prosperousness.