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After a rather boring election campaign the Social-Democrats (SPD) managed to achieve the position of the strongest party again which they lost to the Christian-Democrats (CDU) in 2019 . The CDU and the Left Party defended more or less their last election results whereas the Greens came up with a loss of more than five per cent of the votes . Apparently, the performance of the Greens in the three-party-coalition with the SPD and the Left Party obtained only low credit by the voters . With 5,1 per cent the Liberals were very close to enter the parliament . The SPD as the strongest party invited the Greens and the Left Party as well as the CDU to exploratory talks but came up very quickly with the decision to continue with the former left coalition . The coalition contract issued by the three coalition parties formulates ambitious goals with respect to investigations in the infrastructure, the ecological transformation of industries, and the increase of personnel in the education system, but remains vague with regard to their financing . The coalition plans to use money for many of these projects from the so-called climate-fonds that was already adopted in the last election period . Against this background the CDU announced that it will call the Bremer Staatsgerichtshof for a judicial review of constitutionality because the budgetary rights of the parliament may be violated by credit authorization without the parliament . Finally, the coalition decided to reallocate senate portfolios . Five portfolios went to the SPD, two to the Greens and the Left Party . Additionally, the representative of Bremen for national and European affairs from the SPD joins the senate in the function of a state councilor .

The state election in Bremen in 2019 was marked by a head-to-head race between SPD and CDU and ended up with a considerably increased turnout and a historical result . The Christian Democrats managed to beat the Social Democrats for the first time in Bremen's postwar history . The Greens achieved their second-best outcome in a Bremen state election and had the choice between a so-called Jamaica coalition or a left coalition . Whereas the pragmatic oriented Left Party succeeded to accomplish a two-digit result of 11 .3 percent, the Liberals and the Alternative of Germany underperformed with an outcome of about six percent of the votes . After a round of exploratory negotiations between Christian Democrats, Greens, and Liberals on the one hand and between Social Democrats, Greens, and The Left on the other hand, the rank and file of the Green Party decided to hold coalition talks with Social Democrats and the Left Party . Once the red-green-red coalition was built, the Senate's president and SPD front-runner, Carsten Sieling, resigned . Instead, Andreas Bovenschulte became the Senate's new president . Bovenschulte is a former chairman of Bremen's Social Democrats and had already been elected to lead the SPD parliamentary party .

"Greens would score a comfortable victory despite predicted losses for the Greens and growing public discontent with the coalition's rigid policy of cutbacks. However, the election ended in a completely unexpected result. Not only the Greens but also the Social Democrats and their popular prime candidate lost a great deal of voter support. Due to the opposition's weakness, the red-green coalition could, nevertheless, maintain a narrow majority and build a government again. For the Christian Democrats the result of 22.4 percent of the votes and an increase of only two percentage points were disappointing. Next to the Left party, the Free Democrats, the Alternative for Germany, and a local voters' association ained strength and secured mandates. Against this background the fragmentation of the party system increased. What attracted national attention and was one of the most significant outcomes of the election was the low turnout of only 50.2 percent. Particularly in residential areas with a high number of unemployed people and welfare recipients the voter participation was extremely low. However, the reason was not only the distinctive social divide in Bremen but also a rather lethargic pre-election mood as well as an election campaign with nearly no polarization between the parties." (author's abstract)

"Nachhaltigkeit hat sich aus den Nischen der umweltpolitischen Bewegungen zu einer regulativen Leitidee und einem politischen Grundwert entwickelt. Heute lautet die Alternative: Postwachstumsökonomie oder ökologische Modernisierung?" (Autorenreferat)