Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

How Olaf Scholz won Germany

Dalia Marin 29th September 2021

In a few months, Scholz reversed the social democrats’ decade-long decline, running on a message of dignity and respect for all workers.

Scholz,SPD
A resonant message—including in the eastern Länder (Cineberg/shutterstock.com)

Olaf Scholz and his social-democratic SPD came out on top in Germany’s federal election with 25.7 per cent of the vote, narrowly edging out the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of the outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which received 24.1 per cent.

It was an astonishing victory for a party which had polled at around 14-15 per cent just four months earlier, when Scholz proclaimed his intention to become Germany’s next chancellor. At the time, his announcement sounded rather bold, even fanciful, considering that the SPD had come to be regarded as an irreparably damaged and diminished party. For years, the party had been haemorrhaging more and more of its traditional working-class and middle-class base. Now, some of those losses have been reversed.

Overarching message

How did Scholz pull off this electoral surprise? A partial hint can be found in the SPD’s crisp campaign slogans: ‘Soziale Politik für Dich’ (‘A social policy for you’) and ‘Respekt für Dich’ (‘Respect for you’). In the party’s online debates about its electoral programme, the overarching message which emerged was that Scholz had a ‘plan for the future’ and knew how to win back votes from the populists. The party’s focus would be on ‘respect’, ‘dignity’, the ‘future’ and a ‘sovereign Europe’. It was not for those ‘who think they are better’.

Among the sources of inspiration for the party’s programme was the Harvard University philosopher Michael Sandel. In his recent bestseller, The Tyranny of Merit, Sandel argues that education has become the greatest source of division in society. True, education was once a top progressive priority and part of any self-respecting social-democratic party’s DNA. The idea was that if you work hard and educate yourself, you can rise in society. But as Sandel contends, meritocracy has a dark side, because the winners tend to look down on those who do not achieve the same upward mobility.

Even if the winners owe their success largely to luck, an expressly meritocratic system allows them to say that they deserve their gains, because they were all of their own making. It also leads to the conclusion that the less well-off deserve their station, as if they simply failed to try hard enough. According to Sandel, meritocracy—and the attitudes it instils—has made the elite into an arrogant club, while depriving many others of their dignity.

The meritocratic narrative Sandel criticises ignores the fact that not everybody has an equal opportunity to ‘win’. In Germany, only 15 per cent of students from a household without university graduates complete a bachelor’s degree, compared with 63 per cent of students from more educated households. This is an important reason why Germany lags behind most other members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in terms of social mobility.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



Votes regained

Scholz’s campaign succeeded because he recognised that Sandel’s insights applied almost perfectly in Germany. The SPD regained votes from its traditional base, where many had felt betrayed and thus turned to the leftist party Die Linke. Owing at least partly to Scholz’s deft messaging, Die Linke’s share of the vote shrank by 50 per cent from its 2017 level. It is now barely scraping by, falling below the 5 per cent threshold but maintaining its presence in parliament by dint of having won three districts directly.

More surprisingly, perhaps, the social democrats also seem to have siphoned votes from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. Indeed, the SPD is now the strongest party in every eastern-German state except Saxony and Thuringia, where the AfD dominates. Apparently, the SPD’s campaign of ‘respect’ appealed to Germans who had felt a loss of dignity in the years since the fall of communism and reunification.

The SPD also appears to have regained votes from the centre-right CDU/CSU. In recent elections, many SPD voters had defected to the CDU out of support for Merkel, who represented the safe, stable centre of German politics. But now that Scholz is leading the SPD, they see their former political home as acceptably moderate once again.

Finally, the SPD also may have gained some votes from the Greens, a party that had increasingly come to represent the social-democratic position in recent elections.

Scholz’s campaign of dignity has delivered a fascinating result. The question now, of course, is how the revived SPD’s agenda will be translated into a new government, and then into new public policies.

Republication forbidden—copyright Project Syndicate 2021, ‘How Olaf Scholz won Germany’

Scholz,SPD
Dalia Marin

Dalia Marin, professor of international economics at the Technical University of Munich’s School of Management, is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834676 bcba 6b2b3e733ce2 1 The End of an Era: What’s Next After Globalisation?Apostolos Thomadakis
u4219834674a bf1a 0f45ab446295 0 Germany’s Subcontracting Ban in the Meat IndustryŞerife Erol, Anneliese Kärcher, Thorsten Schulten and Manfred Walser
u4219834dafae1dc3 2 EU’s New Fiscal Rules: Balancing Budgets with Green and Digital AmbitionsPhilipp Heimberger
u42198346d1f0048 1 The Dangerous Metaphor of Unemployment “Scarring”Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp