The answer is not to ban the AfD but to enhance democracy so that citizens think it is worth defending.
German media recently reported that a number of political parties agreed on the necessity to amend the country’s constitution, its Basic Law. The amendment would strengthen the Constitutional Court to protect it from enemies of democracy.
The proposal came as a surprise to many. After all, we are talking here about one of the world’s most advanced democracies, which is not facing an imminent authoritarian threat. Are German political actors being alarmist? Would voters really tolerate a party which attacked one of the country’s most respected institutions and a pillar of its democracy?
We have investigated this very question. Our survey’s experimental design allowed us to explore how German voters would behave when faced with a choice between democracy and their party loyalty, policy priorities or ideological dogma. In other words, we put German democracy under a stress test.
Not so robust
We found out that Germans do show a clear willingness to punish at the ballot-box undemocratic behaviour by politicians. Their support for democracy is however not as robust as previously thought. Indeed, under certain circumstances many Germans would abandon democracy.
More concretely, many would forgive the undemocratic behaviour of politicians who came from their favorite party or promised to satisfy them on identity-related issues, such as immigration, same-sex couples’ rights or the environment. This is particularly true for voters on the right end of the political spectrum.
Yet this does not mean that Germans would by default sacrifice democratic norms—that they would suddenly become authoritarian-minded and less supportive of a democratic system. Even in countries which have witnessed real-life attacks on democracy, most voters did not choose leaders with authoritarian tendencies because of their authoritarian agenda, but in spite of it.
Such leaders however skilfully justified their undemocratic actions and managed to increase the tolerance of otherwise democratically minded citizens for their authoritarian behaviour. Thus the independence of the judiciary was curtailed because by protecting minority rights the courts allegedly acted against ‘the people’, while executive power grabs at the expense of the parliament were supposedly necessary to protect ‘the nation’ from immigrants.
The results of our survey indicate there is great potential for such a development in Germany too. Many Germans would be open to a narrative according to which, say, the power of courts must be limited to curb immigration.
Bearing in mind these findings as well as an increase of support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland—the likeliest candidate for such a subversion of democracy, polling at 19 per cent nationwide—the concern of other German parties to protect the Constitutional Court does not sound so alarmist any more. Germany’s democracy is facing difficulties and the key question is how to respond.
Wishful thinking
Emboldened by the massive demonstrations against the radical right in cities across Germany, some see the solution in the mobilisation of non-voters and young voters, to strengthen society’s pro-democratic camp. If more of them cast their ballots, the argument goes, even a strengthened AfD would remain irrelevant. Yet according to our data, this is wishful thinking.
An active, politically engaged citizenry is understood as fulfilling the ideals of democratic citizenship and a sign of a healthy democracy. Our findings however illuminate a darker side of political disengagement in Germany: non-voters show the greatest acceptance of authoritarianism.
To be clear, in no case do we see evidence that non-voters actively embrace authoritarianism. But this group is the most willing to tolerate candidates with authoritarian aspirations. More than any other subset of the electorate—including AfD voters—these citizens are willing to sacrifice democratic principles to elect candidates and parties they believe champion their desiderata. Put simply, German non-voters are its least democratically minded and so are more likely a reservoir of tolerance for authoritarianism.
We do not see strong democratic potential either among German youth. If we analyse behaviour by age group, young people (18-29) value democracy the least and do not show a strong willingness to punish undemocratic political behaviour electorally.
Banning no solution
Is then the banning of the AfD a solution, as some demand? Or at least stripping its most radical officials from the former East Germany—where Länder elections are coming and where the AfD is polling at 30-34 per cent—of their political rights? Such measures constitute a serious limitation on the political process and should only be used as a last resort, but in any event their rationale is flawed.
Aspiring authoritarians are popular in the eastern Länder, it is suggested, because many there (still) embrace authoritarianism, unlike their compatriots from the more democratically oriented western part of the country. Consequently, if authoritarian minded political actors such as the AfD’s Thuringia boss, Björn Höcke, were off the ballot, they could not be selected and so could not win the power they need to subvert democracy.
Our data, again, are at odds with this conventional wisdom. Germans value democracy as a form of government, with no significant differences between east and west in our survey—neither when we directly asked about their support for democracy and its principles, nor when our experimental design assessed citizens’ tolerance for undemocratic behaviour.
Eastern Germans are however more of the opinion that their country could be much more democratic and that German democracy should function better, for example by producing better output. Their dissatisfaction with democracy (and democratic parties) thus appears not to be rooted in rejection of a democratic system as such or disdain for democratic norms. In their view, German democracy fails to live up to its standards.
Hence, improving the output—successfully addressing burning issues such as socio-economic inequalities—and bridging the gap between the citizens and the elite, by including the former more in decision-making via new forms of participation (for example, citizens’ assemblies), appear a more promising cure for the malaise of Germany’s democracy. The key takeaway from our experimental survey, and thus the main message to political actors, is clear: the more Germans feel that democracy works, the more likely they are to defend it.
Johanna Lutz is director of the 'Democracy of the Future' programme of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Regional Office for International Cooperation in Vienna. She studied political science, public law and intercultural business communication in Jena and Cairo.
Ludwig List is senior researcher for empirical social and trend research at FES Democracy of the Future. He advises other FES regional offices around the world on empirical social and trend research.
Filip Milačić is senior researcher for democracy and society at FES Democracy of the Future. He is the lead project manager for the project lines Citizens' Assemblies and Polarisation & Democracy.