The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd Edition

Party politics and the environment

5.2 Thefundi–realodivide

Thefundi–realodivide reflects a strategic

dispute over the role of green parties in

achieving change.

Fundamentalists


 oppose the centralisation of the party

organisation;


 reject coalitions with other parties;


 regard the state as the agent of the capitalist

system;


 are therefore sceptical about the possibility

of achieving radical change by parliamentary

means;


 emphasise the grassroots extra-

parliamentary base of the party.

Realists


 believe radical changes require a piecemeal

parliamentary strategy;


 insist that some participatory principles must

be sacrificed if the party is to become a

credible force in electoral and parliamentary

politics;


 are willing to build coalitions with other

parties and to accept government office.

In short, the Fundamentalists have defended

the ‘anti-party party’ model, whilst the Realists

have sought to reform it.

that the ‘anti-party’ phase was over and that the Greens should become a
normal party with a conventional organisational structure and prepared to
formcoalitions. Thefundi--realodebate raged to and fro until, eventually, the
shock of the 1990 electoral defeat shifted the balance of power decisively
in favour of the Realists, whose position was cemented after the merger in
1993 with B ̈undnis 90, the moderate East German citizen alliance.
The Realists instigated a series of organisational reforms, including the
abolition of the rotation principle and reform of the federal executive (see
Box5.3). Rotation was rejected as impractical in a parliamentary arena where
effective politicians need time to develop a strong personal presence and
master the complex procedures of the legislature. The principle of amateur
politics also proved unworkable: how could the twenty-seven unpaid, part-
time members of the federal executive hold the parliamentary group of
almost 200 salaried, full-time staff to account (Poguntke 1993 :153)? Salaries
were introduced for members of the federal executive. After entering gov-
ernment in the red–green coalition, organisational issues again came to the
fore. Although a new Party Council was established to improve co-ordination
between national and state MPs and the wider party, and two ‘party chairs’
replaced the former ‘co-speakers’, further Realist attempts to overhaul the
party organisation foundered in the face of strong resistance from grassroots
activists.
As for the second plank of the APP model, Die Gr ̈unen dropped its com-
plete rejection of coalitions in 1985 when, after much internal wrangling,
thefirst coalition with the SPD was formed in Hesse. The principle of funda-
mental opposition proved unworkable because, once in the parliamentary
arena, politicians have to decide whether to support specific policies, and
party groups are obliged to work alongside opponents, especially when a