Atlas / Organisations / Postwar Christian Democracy
Postwar Christian Democracy
CDU, DC, MRP · 1945–1990 · Western Europe · Christian Democratic · Electoral party · coding confidence high
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
Reconcile market economy, social protection and Christian moral order; European integration as a peace project.
Economic model
Social market economy: private ownership, competition policy, generous social insurance, codetermination.
Organisation of powers
Parliamentary democracy, federalism, constitutional courts, supranational treaty commitments.
Reading note
The most electorally successful ideological family in postwar Europe and the actual architect of the European welfare state.
Check a claim about Postwar Christian Democracy. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +03
Coded +3: the social market economy as an explicit third way.
- Programme textThe 1949 Düsseldorf Guidelines committed the party to competition policy plus social insurance.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +04
Coded +4: Christian moral order with a mass democratic party structure.
- Documented act or statuteCodetermination legislation from 1951 gave workers board representation in coal and steel.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −05
Coded −5: parliamentary democracy with a constitutional court and coalition as the norm.
- Documented act or statuteThe Federal Constitutional Court, created in 1951, has struck down legislation from every government since.
SC · Scale of decision · scored +01
Coded +1: federalism at home and supranational integration abroad.
- Documented act or statuteFounding participation in the Coal and Steel Community and the Treaty of Rome.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +02
Coded +2: a Christian national frame with an expansive refugee admission after 1945.
- Documented act or statuteAround twelve million expellees from the east were absorbed and granted citizenship.
CH · Method and tempo · scored −08
Coded −8: the most incremental family in the postwar settlement.
- Documented act or statuteBuilt its programme around constitutional continuity after 1949 rather than rupture.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromOrdoliberalism
The social market economy was the school's programme carried into government.
- takes its doctrine fromSocial Catholicism
Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno are the doctrinal source of Christian democracy.
- succeededBismarckian State Conservatism
Social insurance built to defeat the left became the settled European centre-right position.
- becameCDU/CSU
Continuous since 1945.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- CDU/CSU2.0
- Mauritian Democracy2.2
- Cape Verdean Democracy2.4
- Fianna Fáil3.0
- Botswana Democratic Party3.2
- Ghanaian Party Blocs3.3
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.