The next speaker in this session at the 2026 International Communication Association conference in Cape Town is Christiane Eilders, whose interest is in the communication styles and conflict resolution processes within mainstream parties in Germany. The core focus here is on factionalism within political parties, then, where parties divide into ideological subgroups that pursue specific policies or strategic goals; such factionalism can be an important safety valve which prevents parties from splitting apart altogether. Factionalism also affects electoral successes, the efficiency of governing coalitions, and the stability of the overall party system, however.
How do party factions communicate and interact with one another, though – through conflict, communication, or cooperation? Depending on the level of polarisation between them, and their level of consensus or non-consensus orientation, interfaction interactions can take various forms. This was studied for the SPD and CDU parties, as the traditionally leading parties in the German political environment, with particular focus on the protocols of the major party congresses.
Such factions can exist at the parliamentary level, focus on specific issues, or exist as grassroots networks for the SPD; or divide into ‘sociological’ (meaning socioeconomic) and cross-level associations (connecting politicians and other interest groups) for the CDU.
The project manually coded party congress debates between 2015 and 2024, at the paragraph level; of some 2,500 cases, 1,500 have been coded by now. Key topics include climate, migration, pensions, labour, military, and the annual keynote debates selected for each party. These varied in prominence over time.
The CDU’s youth network, for instance, engaged especially in emotional mobilisation; the SPD’s parliamentary left focussed strongly on cooperation, while its labour politics group was more conflict-focussed. There are various attack directions: the youth CDU frequently attacks individuals, the party leadership, and the whole congress; while the youth SPD mostly attacks the whole party and its leadership. Internal conflicts in the SPD appear to be much more tied to factional groups than in the CDU.
