The article explains economic policy in Germany with a model that takes partisan theory as its starting point, but supplements it with the impact of party competition and veto players. During the 1980s the low internal cohesion of the Christian democrats along with a positive economic performance kept the coalition from introducing coherent reforms. With the loss of the majority in the second chamber, compromises with the opposition were necessary which further diluted reforms with few exceptions. When the government faced worsening economic conditions which put its re-election at risk, it introduced more radical reforms. Because of an opposition majority in the second chamber, however, those reforms ran the risk of failing. In sum, Tsebelis' veto player theory is corroborated with some qualifications, the most important of which is that it must also take into account strategic orientations of actors.