Why Parties Take Neutral Positions on Policy Issues: Insights from the German Christian Democratic Union.

Do political parties position themselves neutrally on policy issues for strategic reasons and, if so, why? We conceptualise neutral position-taking as strategic responses made by parties to reconcile several conflicting political objectives simultaneously and theorise why these actors should take such a position. The empirical focus lies on the Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) position-taking on the policy topic of agricultural biotechnology at the federal and regional levels (Thuringia) in Germany. The results show that parties take neutral positions and do this for various reasons. The federal CDU took a neutral position in 2017 in order to reconcile its moderate GMO agenda with its objective of forming a coalition with the Greens and to respond to the increasingly diverging policy preferences of its regional branches. The Thuringian CDU took neutral positions from 1999 to 2009 in order to reconcile its pro-GMO agenda with its aspirations for forming coalitions with the SPD and to reduce electoral losses that might result from anti-GMO sentiment. The paper shows that neutral position-taking represents a real phenomenon of partisan activity. Hence, rather than ignoring supposed non-positions, scholars should consider the possibility that these may actually represent neutral stances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]