As chancellor Angela Merkel is on course to tie with Helmut Kohl as the longest serving democratically elected German head of government, it is time to attempt an initial assessment of the first 12 years of her chancellorship from 2005 to 2017 which left its marks both on German politics and European affairs. Bulpitt’s statecraft model is applied to evaluate the chancellor’s performance and to judge both achievements and shortcomings of Merkel’s incumbency. The theoretical approach chosen provides a scaffolding to direct the research which casts particular attention on four descriptive categories that help condition judgements of a leader’s success and failure and take into consideration attitude and behaviour of elites within the system whose actions and degree of allegiance may have advanced or constrained Merkel’s leadership. The findings suggest a mixed record that portrays Merkel as an efficient operator whose clout hinged on a firm grip on the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) apparatus and effective management of the parliamentary party. Yet even at the apex of her power, Merkel did not achieve or seek argument hegemony in the public discourse.

中文翻译：

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探索政府战略：对安格拉·默克尔 (Angela Merkel) 2005 年至 2017 年总理任期的治国方略评估

由于德国总理安格拉·默克尔（Angela Merkel）有望与赫尔穆特·科尔（Helmut Kohl）并列，成为任期最长的民选德国政府首脑，现在是时候尝试对她在 2005 年至 2017 年担任总理的前 12 年进行初步评估，这在德国和德国都留下了印记。政治和欧洲事务。布尔皮特的治国方略模型被用于评估总理的表现，并判断默克尔在位的成就和缺点。所选择的理论方法为指导研究提供了一个支架，该研究特别关注四个描述性类别，这些类别有助于判断领导者的成功和失败，并考虑系统内精英的态度和行为，这些精英的行为和忠诚度可能有所提高或限制默克尔的领导。调查结果表明，默克尔是一位高效的操作员，其影响力取决于对基民盟（基督教民主联盟）机构的牢牢控制和对议会党的有效管理。然而，即使在她权力的顶峰，默克尔也没有在公共话语中实现或寻求争论霸权。