This book offers a systematic, theory-based, and empirically grounded introduction to the political system of Germany. Compared to other textbooks on government and politics in Germany, it has two particular benefits. First, it analyzes the individual dimensions of the German political system from a uniform theoretical perspective based on the well-known distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy. Second, it particularly explains how political decision-making in the multi-level system takes place, including the local, state, federal as well as EU levels. This way, the book provides a comprehensive, detailed, and clear picture of how German democracy is organized and how it works.

Florian Grotz is Professor of Comparative Government at the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany.

Wolfgang Schroeder is Professor of the Political System of Germany at the University of Kassel and Fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), Germany.

Chapter 1: The political system of Germany: Analytical and historical foundations.- Chapter 2. The Basic Law: Constitutional foundations.- Chapter 3. The European Union: The supranational framework.- Chapter 4. The federal order.- Chapter 5. Elections and the electoral system.- Chapter 6. Political parties and the party system.- Chapter 7. Interest groups and the system of associations.- Chapter 8. The media and the media system.- Chapter 9. The German Bundestag: The legislature.- Chapter 10. The federal government and the federal president: The dual executive.- Chapter 11. The Bundesrat.- Chapter 12. The Federal Constitutional Court.- Chapter 13. The government systems of the German states.- Chapter 14. Politics and administration at the local level.- Chapter 15. A resilient democracy? The German political system under scrutiny.