| Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences, Research

Series of articles sheds light on plans for new voting law

Under the working title "Smaller, but better?", a series of articles on the University of Erfurt's research blog "WortMelder" sheds light on the question of how representation would change with the law proposed by the governing parties for a new electoral law in Germany. The authors are Professor André Brodocz and Manuel Kautz, both from the Professorship of Political Theory at the Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences at the University of Erfurt.

symbolic ballot paper with dice and game pieces

The traffic light coalition's draft amendment to the law governing the election of the "Bundestag" is being hotly debated not only in the "Bundestag", but also in public. Due to the growing fragmentation of the party system, more and more overhang and compensatory mandates are becoming necessary, which has made the "Bundestag" larger and larger. As a result, it currently has 736 members, although it should actually only have 598.

In the future, it is not impossible that it could even become more than 800. The new law would ensure that in the future there would be no more than about 600 members in the "Bundestag". So the German parliament would be smaller, but would it also be better? For our research blog "WortMelder", André Brodocz and Manuel Kautz take a look at various aspects of the draft of the new electoral law from the perspective of democracy and representation theory in several episodes this week.

Read their contributions in the "WortMelder"(in German only).

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