What is the reason for the worldwide decline of democratically governed states?
The development of democracies around the world is a complex matter that is difficult to explain exactly. What’s certain is that, after having been on the rise for a long time, there is now a clear trend towards the dismantling of democracies. A key feature of this development is that fundamental freedoms, rights, and the rule of law are increasingly being restricted or even abolished. Many former democratic countries show clear authoritarian-nationalist features: they are still considered democracies, but they are on a worrisome path.
Is the political system in our country in danger?
Germany is not immune to these global tendencies either, and there is a possibility that parameters that affect us, such as freedom of the press and academic freedom, could deteriorate. In fact, I would say that the constitutional order, as enshrined in the Basic Law, is currently under threat. I think I can name this threat quite clearly without being accused of alarmism. There are forces actively working to dismantle pluralistic principles and restrict the possibilities for the development of cultural diversity – the cornerstones of our democracy. These forces systematically "probe" our legal system in order to identify weaknesses or gateways for their political goals within the existing order.
What is currently the biggest threat to democracy?
The political activities of a party that explicitly fights against democratic principles. One such party that we should clearly name is the Alternative for Germany, the AfD, which from a political science perspective has long been considered dominated by right-wing extremists. This party is opposed to the democratic order of the Basic Law, and this tendency is confirmed by the assessment of the security authorities. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, although it has different and more restrained evaluation criteria, sees this similarly. In addition, it can be clearly observed that the principles of our parliamentary democracy no longer have the same binding force as before. We notice this very clearly in the political science discourse: We must assume that our party-based democracy will change, even if it is not immediately threatened. This transformation is noticeable, and we are faced with the challenge of considering how the functions that parties have performed to date can be substituted in future structures or how the democratic legitimacy of parliaments and the communication of the will of the citizens can be secured. I lack the imagination to see how we could stop or reverse these problematic developments to preserve democratic stability.
In fact, nine out of ten Germans think democracy as such is a good thing, but only about 42% approve of the way “it works in the Federal Republic of Germany.” Why is that?
For decades, there has been broad approval of democracy as a principle in Germany. However, this is in contradiction to the current performance of democratic institutions. Many citizens, including myself, feel dissatisfied with the output of democracy because they do not feel adequately represented. When we examine which democratic institutions citizens trust, we see that these are mostly the judiciary and the executive branches. There is less trust in parliaments, which I find alarming, because freely elected parliaments are the central place of popular sovereignty. This clearly shows the mistrust towards parliamentary institutions.
The dissatisfaction within the population with regard to democracy must be viewed in a differentiated way. There are people who are dissatisfied with democratic output and others who have a different understanding of good democracy. Some want less representative democracy and more identitarian democracy, which functions as a unity of leaders and followers, often in the form of a plebiscitary democracy. From a political science point of view, I think this is harmful, as referendums often only allow yes/no answers and can easily be influenced by populist actors. In addition, there is a risk that results are distorted, as they depend heavily on a specific point in time. In a plebiscitary democracy, minority interests are often ignored or overrun, even though they are worth protecting and important.
Our democracy offers the opportunity to shape necessary processes of social change. These should not be imposed from above but should be actively created and developed with the participation of the population in order to take up as many interests as possible and integrate them into compromises. This is the only way to make the necessary social reforms possible.
What has to be done to change this negative judgement of the population?
There are many aspects that we cannot fully control, as some of the challenges arise from the current performance of our democratic systems. This clearly shows us that democracy is ultimately a vulnerable experiment. That is why it is urgently necessary to develop democratic imagination, instead of sticking our heads in the sand and pessimistically assuming that everything will only get worse. However, it is crucial to limit the possibilities of anti-democratic forces at the same time. This applies in particular to influencing opinions, as it was practiced in the past by large monopolistic corporations and today even more so by the unregulated world of social media. There is an urgent need for regulations and control mechanisms here. At the same time, we must actively defend our democracy – especially against party actors who seek to undermine it. It is about protecting and strengthening the foundations of our democratic order to be able to preserve and develop the principles that underpin it.
How does democracy defend itself?
The first question is how to protect the citizens. At the individual level, this usually works quite well, but the protection against collective persecution is less reliable. An example of this is the Sarrazin debate, which collectively defamed a population group, in this case the Turks. The International Court of Justice found state failure in this context. This protection mechanism is poorly equipped and adjustments should be made, but so far this has not happened. This makes it possible to disparage and devalue a group without any real means of defense. Another aspect relates to the legal and constitutional order: How can the democratic state be protected from attacks coming from the societal sphere, similar to what happened in the Weimar Republic? The protective mechanisms of democracy, which are supposed to defend both the state and the citizens, are currently impaired. Examples of this are the failed ban proceedings against the NPD and certain interpretations of press freedom, such as in the Compact ruling. Another example is the 5% threshold, which is actually intended to preserve the constitutional order. But when an anti-constitutional force easily crosses this 5%, while the opposition forces are strongly fragmented, it becomes dangerous. In Brandenburg, the AfD is strong, while at the same time 14% of the votes are not represented in the state parliament, including parties such as the Left, the Greens, Volt, and others, which often come from the political left or middle spectrum. In this case, the 5% threshold poses a problem, as it can hinder the representation of minorities or fragmented parties.
When a party has the goal of endangering the free democratic basic order, there is the possibility of banning it. But the last time this was done was in 1956. Did German democracy never have enemies?
For a long time, there were no clear criteria for dealing with parties whose ideology was opposed to the democratic constitutional order. In the early days of the Federal Republic, for example, the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), which was close to the NSDAP, was banned in 1952, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1956. Since then, there have been repeated discussions about banning parties. However, the Federal Constitutional Court (BVG) has always tried to avoid having to comment on the issue in principle, even though it has been very detailed in its rulings in other areas and has had the opportunity to draw red lines in this case as well. Ultimately, in 2017, the “sharpest sword of democracy” was apparently rammed so deep into its sheath that we can no longer draw it now when we urgently need it.
Already since 2015, two years after its founding, a ban on the AfD has been discussed. To this day, this has not happened. Why?
The concept of protecting the constitution is complex, and the authorities, with their special structure, have long hesitated to classify the AfD even as a suspected case. At the beginning, this was even actively hindered by the then President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen. In addition, there were concerns about making a premature assessment. These circumstances have significantly set back the debate.
There are good reasons for banning the AfD. However, such a ban would be difficult to enforce, which illustrates how challenging it is to combat political extremism through constitutional protection measures or prohibition proceedings. It requires a thorough and open discussion about how we as a society and across political and legal institutions deal with the challenge of identifying and confronting anti-constitutional efforts.
In May 2025, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution raised its assessment of the AfD nationwide from a “suspected right-wing extremist case” to a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party. In the last Bundestag election, it achieved over 20%. Why is that?
The AfD is always particularly strong when social discourse takes up its issues and accommodates them, for example by focusing on the discourse against migration and pushing issues that require necessary measures against climate issues into the background. This has fulfilled the AfD’s wish to normalize itself with its issues. A majority still considers the party unelectable, but this group is shrinking. Particularly alarming is the declining willingness to oppose the AfD on its core issues, such as migration, gender, and climate and environmental protection policies. This leads to a loss of the process of negotiating viable solutions and protecting minority rights. Looking at media coverage of the coalition talks, the focus is often on which “strong man” would prevail in the end. This approach risks ignoring processes of deliberation and exchange, even though they can produce fundamental, evidence-based solutions. In politics, we rarely find complete solutions, but it is quite possible to achieve better conditions, and that is what we should aim for. It is important to be aware of what is at stake when we turn away from these principles and lose our ability to engage in discourse.
Gideon Botsch is Head of the Emil Julius Gumbel Research Center for Antisemitism and Right-Wing Extremism (EJGF) at the Moses Mendelssohn Center (MMZ). Since 2018, he has been Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Potsdam.
This text was published in the university magazine Portal - Zwei 2025 „Demokratie“. (in German)
Here You can find all articles in English at a glance: https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/explore-the-up/up-to-date/university-magazine/portal-two-2025-democracy