Wiliarty Authors Book on Politics of Gender in Germany

Sarah Wiliarty, assistant professor of government, tutor in the College of Social Studies, is the author of  The CDU and the Politics of Gender in Germany: Bringing Women to the Party, published by Cambridge University Press, September 2010.

This book develops the concept of the corporatist catch-all party to explain how the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has responded to changing demands from women over the past 40 years. Otto Kirchheimer’s classic study argues that when catch-all parties reach out to new constituencies, they are forced to decrease the involvement of membership to facilitate doctrinal flexibility. In a corporatist catch-all party, however, societal interests are represented within the party organization and policy making is the result of internal party negotiation. Through an investigation of CDU policy making in the issue areas of abortion policy, work-family policy, and participation policy, this book demonstrates that sometimes the CDU mobilizes rather than disempowers membership. An important lesson of this study is that a political party need not sacrifice internal democracy and ignore its members in order to succeed at the polls.

Wiliarty also is the author of a book chapter titled, “How the Iron Curtain Helped Break Through the Glass Ceiling: Angela Merkel’s Campaigns in 2005 and 2009,” published in Rainbow Murray’s (ed.) Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: A Global Comparison of Women’s Campaigns for Executive Office. New York: Praeger.