Germany's 'Americanization of Politics'

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/state-election-to-highlight-changing-german-political-landscape-a-832511.html

In the United States, it is the hamburger test. When hitting the stump in rural backwaters, American political candidates have little choice but to grab on with both hands and sink their teeth into a juicy burger. It is, after all, one of the few tricks available to politicians, aside from cuddling the odd baby or two, to demonstrate just how human they really are.

In Germany, the analogue is the bratwurst test. And Norbert Röttgen, the lead conservative candidate in Sunday's crucial regional vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, has been failing it. A slick political operator, Röttgen is both the German environment minister and the deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But with personality increasingly trumping policy in Germany's fast changing political landscape, Röttgen's aloof political style has not played well in small-town Germany. And with an increasing number of parties for voters to choose from, North Rhine-Westphalia threatens to become the latest in a series of regional election setbacks for Merkel and her conservatives.
"The Sunday vote will be an election of personalities," Wolfgang Muno, a professor of German politics at the University of Erfurt, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It is the Americanization of politics … and it could very well be indicative of a new model and a new political culture in the country."

Germany's political power structures are changing rapidly. Whereas the CDU and the center-left Social Democrats used to dominate elections both regional and national -- with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) often serving as kingmaker -- the party landscape is now crowded, with the Greens and the Left Party vying for attention on the left. More importantly, the up-and-coming Pirate Party has recently injected a significant degree of unpredictability into regional elections, making two-party coalition governments increasingly difficult to assemble. Surveys suggest that North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, could provide yet the latest proof of that trend.