The Federal Republic of Germany is a federal state and organized as a parliamentary democracy. The Basic Law stipulates that all state power emanates from the people. The people transfer this power to the parliaments (Bundestag and Landtag) for the duration of an electoral period.
State power is divided between the legislative (legislative), executive (executive) and judicial (judiciary) branches. This separation of powers is an integral part of every democracy and anchored in Germany in the Basic Law, the constitution. Parliaments are part of the legislature, governments are part of the executive. The judiciary plays a central role because the judges in the state and federal courts are independent and decide solely on the basis of the law. The highest German court is the Federal Constitutional Court, which monitors compliance with the Basic Law. All other state organs are bound by the case law of the 16 constitutional judges.
The Federal President is the highest-ranking representative in Germany according to protocol. In terms of protocol, the President of the Bundestag has second place. The Federal President is represented by the President of the Bundesrat – an office that is held by a Prime Minister of the 16 federal states on an annual basis. The office with the greatest political shaping power is that of the Federal Chancellor, who also determines the guidelines of politics. The President of the Federal Constitutional Court, the highest German court, is also one of the high representatives.
Resource: https://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/de/politik-deutschland/politisches-system
Citizen participation
Elections (according to Art. 38 Para. 1 Sentence 1 Basic Law (GG).
An election is a vote on people (candidates) or options for action. Elections serve to form political opinions and make decisions.
At the federal level, the Bundestag is elected every 4 years according to the personalized proportional representation system. With this electoral system, the voters have two votes that can go to different parties (so-called vote-splitting): With the first vote, they decide which candidate should represent their constituency in parliament according to the majority voting system, and with the second vote, according to the proportional representation system, which party they prefer. Ultimately, the second votes decide largely on the distribution of seats in the Bundestag. Since the candidates directly elected with the first vote retain their seat in any case, even if the party is entitled to fewer seats after the second vote, there are normally overhang mandates in federal elections. Personalized proportional representation is intended to combine the advantages of majority voting and proportional representation.
There is a threshold clause to prevent parliament from fragmenting into too many small parties. According to this, a party’s second votes only count for the distribution of mandates if it receives at least five percent of the second votes or three direct mandates. However, directly elected applicants (if there are only one or two) are always allowed to enter the Bundestag, but then they cannot form a parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
In addition to the federal elections, the citizens of Germany also decide on the composition of the European Parliament, the state parliaments and the local councils in the municipalities. The respective electoral system is defined in the European Elections Act, in the corresponding state constitution or in the local elections law of the country. In local elections, the right to vote extends to all EU citizens residing in the respective district. Citizens can vote in the European elections either in their country of residence or in their nationality. Only the right to vote in state parliaments and the Bundestag is linked to German citizenship.
In practice, it is often criticized that in Germany the sheer number of elections and the associated election campaigns (Bundestag elections, state elections, local elections, European elections) as well as a legislative period of only 4 years for the Bundestag have a negative effect on the design of politics, since the various Election dates are not coordinated with each other and during election campaigns the parties – rightly or wrongly – try to refrain from doing anything that could cost votes (see also: super election year). Political science also discusses the extent to which the voters in a system with many (relatively weak) centers of power that have to balance themselves out and ultimately level everything in the pressure of consensus can exert real influence on the direction of politics (“meaningful election”).
Direct democracy
At the federal level in particular, Germany knows few direct opportunities for participation, despite Article 20(2) of the Basic Law, which expressly lists votes: referendums are only provided for in the Basic Law in the case of the configuration of the federal states – merger, splitting up or border changes – according to Article 29 of the Basic Law.
At the state level, depending on the state, there are more or less strong influence opportunities through referendums and citizens’ initiatives, citizens’ petitions. Here it must be considered in detail how high the hurdles for such initiatives are in each case. The limits of this participation lie within the limits of the competences of the federal state.
Other possibilities
With the right to petition, every citizen has the opportunity to send petitions to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and its state parliament. Constituency MPs hold office hours to keep in touch with citizens. Anyone can submit their request there.
For individual groups that would otherwise have to remain politically silent, the institution of public ombudsmen was introduced (not always under this name) based on the Scandinavian model.
Associations, religious communities, trade unions and employers’ associations are heavily involved in the preparation of decisions on certain issues. Like working in political parties, working in such organizations enables certain opportunities for participation. The municipal opportunities for local residents to participate in the planning of large-scale projects are more direct.
As in other countries, associations play an important role in the political system. With their lobbying they try to move politics in the direction of their interests. The usefulness of these activities is not without controversy and is subject to frequent criticism, in particular from the other associations negatively affected by the lobbying work.
More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Germany
https://www.demokratie-leben.de/das-programm/ueber-demokratie-leben