Why Christian Democracy succeeded in West Germany but failed in France: The politics of pragmatism and its lasting implications for contemporary Europe

Why did Christian Democracy become the dominant force in post-war West Germany yet fail to achieve institutional durability in post-war France? This article argues that these contrasting trajectories were shaped by the unequal pressures of post-war state-building, which enabled pragmatic coalition-building in Bonn while amplifying fragmentation in Paris. Drawing on a comparative analysis of post-war West Germany and post-war France, it traces three mechanisms. The first is the conversion of confessional divides into a cross-denominational Union in Germany versus the persistent association of Christian Democracy with Catholicism under French laïcité . The second is the moral reconstruction after National Socialism versus the reputational costs of France’s colonial wars. And the third mechanism centres on the Cold War dynamics that fostered party consolidation in West Germany while exacerbating political polarisation in France. The article argues that these early institutional pathways continue to shape contemporary European politics, sustaining a resilient political centre in Germany while leaving its French counterpart structurally volatile and thus subject to recurrent reconfigurations of the party system.