Frank Decker, political scientist: "Social democracy as a party family has been in crisis for more than 20 years"

The problems Germany faces are widely known: an unpopular government, a radical right in opposition that keeps growing and the loss of its privileged economic position. However, it is less clear how Germany reached this point and how Germans, in their own interest and in Europeans’ interest too, can find a way out of the impasse. Although University of Bonn professor Frank Decker did not come to Madrid with an anti-crisis manual under his arm, he did give me several relevant answers.

In this conversation, he extends the diagnosis of the "crisis of social democracy" into the German party system itself. On one side is the SPD, where there is "a leadership problem". On the other are the Christian Democrats of the Union, with Chancellor Merz —"a somewhat old-fashioned conservative politician"— and a government that "performs poorly in a technical sense". As if that were not enough, public discontent is being captured by the AfD. Among the consequences of the rise of the radical right, Decker points out that "democracy also depends on having a strong democratic opposition".

There are also major economic challenges to resolve. Asked about the reasons for the country’s weak economic performance, Decker, who is visiting Spain at the invitation of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, turns the question around: if we want to understand today’s weakness, we should first ask why the German economy performed so well five, six or seven years ago. He answers this himself, pointing out that cheap Russian gas, security advantages thanks to the United States and privileged access to the Chinese market made Germany the strongest economy in the eurozone. Today, all these elements have disappeared or are in the process of doing so. As the academic explains, this dynamic is also affecting the population at a sociological level, with significant mistrust in democracy and growing pessimism about the future.
 
Professor Decker, my first question is about the SPD. It is one of Germany’s main political parties, but today the polls are not good. It seems to be a deeper crisis for social democracy in Europe and, in particular, in Germany. How do you understand this crisis: in ideological terms, as a lack of leadership...?

It is probably everything. And it is a very deep crisis. But it began after the SPD coalition with the Greens. When the party returned to power in 1998 and Gerhard Schröder became chancellor, the SPD won more than 40% of the vote. When Schröder finally lost the election in 2005, after seven years in office, the SPD still received 35%. Then the decline really began.

The 2021 election was an exception. Olaf Scholz became chancellor with only 25% of the vote. The campaign was almost perfect, but the victory was mainly due to the complete failure of the SPD’s competitors, especially the CDU/CSU, and also to the weakness of the Greens. The SPD won the chancellorship by a margin of only 1.4 points.

So that was an exception in a long-term development that can only be described as decline. And, of course, this fits with the broader trajectory of European social democracy. There are differences between countries, but if you look at Germany, France, Austria or even the Scandinavian countries, social democracy as a party family has been in crisis for more than 20 years. Spain may be the exception.

Specifically in Germany, why is the SPD struggling so much? Olaf Scholz was chancellor and the party struggled. Now the SPD is still part of the government, although it no longer holds the chancellorship, but it is not doing well in the polls or in state elections. Why?

There is a leadership problem. After Andrea Nahles resigned as party chair, the SPD had to elect a new leadership. For the first time, it decided to adopt a dual leadership structure: one man and one woman as co-chairs. It was the same organisational principle the Greens had introduced from the beginning, when the party was founded in 1980.

At the time, that was a good decision, because the SPD was the junior partner in the coalition with the CDU/CSU. We had three grand coalitions under Angela Merkel. That was a big problem for the SPD because even the things the party managed to push through, such as the introduction of the minimum wage, were attributed to Angela Merkel. Merkel remained very popular after 12, 13 or 14 years in office. So the SPD was in a losing position.

The new leadership then decided that Olaf Scholz, who had been finance minister in Merkel’s last government, should be the SPD’s candidate for chancellor. That proved to be the right decision. Norbert Walter-Borjans, Saskia Esken and the general secretary, Lars Klingbeil, prepared a strong electoral campaign. The slogan was "respect": respect for ordinary people, for people who work hard every day. That was a very good campaign decision.

"If elections were held today, the CDU/CSU and the SPD would not have a majority together. The Greens would also have to be part of the coalition"

But now the dual leadership structure is a problem, especially because the two party leaders, Lars Klingbeil and Bärbel Bas, are also part of the government. Klingbeil is finance minister and Bärbel Bas is labour minister. She has to implement reforms in which the SPD must compromise with the conservatives. It would have been better if at least one of the SPD leaders had stayed outside the government.

That makes it difficult for the Social Democrats to explain to voters what their ideas are, what their identity is and what distinguishes them from the Christian Democrats. The party is a prisoner of this coalition. That is also the difference with the Spanish situation: in Germany, there is no alternative in the party system to this coalition.

If elections were held today, the CDU/CSU and the SPD would not have a majority together. The Greens would also have to be part of the coalition. So we would have a coalition of democratic parties in government and two fringe parties in opposition. That is not good for democracy. It may be an advantage for the party that holds the chancellorship, the Christian Democrats, but it is again a losing situation for the SPD.
 
You said something interesting about Angela Merkel: how she managed to keep her popularity high. The numbers for the CDU/CSU are striking: 43% of its voters do not believe it can fix the economy. We have discussed why the SPD is failing to compete properly. But what about the CDU/CSU?

Chancellor Merz is very unpopular. He is a somewhat old-fashioned conservative politician. Merkel avoided reforms. There were no major reforms of the pension system or health insurance because she knew reforms are unpopular and that voters punish you if you are too ambitious.

That is different now, because Germany needs those reforms. But the concept of what a reform of the welfare state should look like is very different in the two major parties. That is one reason.

The other reason is that Merkel understood how the media system works in a democracy. She was experienced and knew how to govern. She had already been a minister in Helmut Kohl’s government, in different ministries, including environment and women’s affairs. Neither Merz nor Klingbeil had been in government before. So this German government performs poorly in a technical sense. Both parties are blamed for this. Mistrust in government has grown, and the government is now as unpopular as the traffic-light coalition was in 2023 and 2024.

So far, we have been describing the decline of the SPD and the Union in different ways, but they converge because they govern together. Do you think Germans may get tired of this grand coalition logic, of seeing the two main parties as interchangeable? This also raises the issue of the AfD, as a party that can build a message against the central bloc.

In Germany, we have the cordon sanitaire, the Brandmauer. This means there will be no cooperation between any of the democratic parties —especially the conservatives— and the radical right AfD, either at the state level or at the federal level.

I have learned that in Spain there are regional governments formed by the conservatives with Vox. That will not happen in Germany. It is not possible. Of course, there are some politicians in the Christian Democratic parties, especially in the east of the country, who ask: why not? But if that happened, Christian democracy would split. The party would not survive a decision to enter a coalition with the radical right.

"Democracy means that voters have the chance to vote out a government and get another one"

That is why I call it a real dilemma. The parties are prisoners of this coalition. But there are differences between the federal level and the states. We have different government compositions in the Länder. There are left-wing coalitions in city-states such as Hamburg and Bremen, and this may happen again in Berlin. There are conservative coalitions in Bavaria. And there are coalitions between conservatives and Greens in two of the most important states: Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Democracy means that voters have the chance to vote out a government and get another one. At state level, there is some alternation. But I am afraid this is not the case at federal level. There, the competition is mainly about who will be the strongest party in a coalition. If there is a coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the stronger party claims the chancellorship.

That is very important. The party that holds the chancellorship is in a better position than the junior partner. But the problem for the SPD is that, in the polls, the Christian Democrats are at around 25%, while the SPD is only at 12%, 13% or maybe 14%. The gap between the two parties is growing. The Social Democrats do not have a real chance of becoming the strongest party again, except in a situation like 2021. But, as I said, that was an exception and it will not happen again.

That is a real problem, because democracy also depends on having a strong democratic opposition. Now the opposition is the AfD, which is not democratic, and Die Linke. I would not call Die Linke an anti-democratic party, because it accepts the rules of parliamentary democracy. But even the Social Democrats are not willing to cooperate or form a coalition with Die Linke at the federal level. For example, Die Linke opposes rearmament, and Germany now has to spend more on the Bundeswehr, on the army. They would never agree to that. So a coalition is not possible.

This is a real problem, and I do not know the solution. The only solution would be for the two main parties to regain support and trust. But at the moment there are no signs of that.
 
In Saxony-Anhalt there will be elections and the polls show the AfD at around 40%. In order to form a government, the CDU would have to make a coalition with almost all the other parties, including Die Linke, with whom they disagree on fundamental issues. Across Europe, there is a debate about how to stop the radical right from growing. If the cordon sanitaire is not going to break in Germany, what is the future?

In Saxony-Anhalt, we will have very difficult elections. The same applies to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where elections will also take place in late summer. There may be one candidate from the AfD and one candidate from the democratic camp.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, that candidate could be the incumbent minister-president, Manuela Schwesig, who is a Social Democrat. CDU voters may decide to vote for Schwesig, even if they would normally prefer their own party, because they want to prevent the AfD candidate from winning. That is an absurd situation.

"It is not entirely unlikely that the AfD could win an absolute majority of seats with only 41% or 42% of the vote"

This may also lead to a situation in which smaller parties fail to reach the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament. If they are not represented, the whole democratic camp is weakened. It is not entirely unlikely that the AfD could win an absolute majority of seats with only 41% or 42% of the vote. That is what the polls show. It is a very serious situation.

Perhaps some voters, if they really think about what may happen if they vote for the AfD candidate and the AfD as a party, may decide not to do it. But that is only something one can hope for. It is not certain. And this situation is also the result of the poor performance of the federal government, where the two parties are not really able to work together on the basis of trust. They do not trust each other. I am not very optimistic that this will change in the next few months.

Many expected Germany, after the elections, to lead Europe, especially with Ukraine and Trump, at a time when Macron was also struggling in France. That leadership has not arrived. From Spain, Merz’s performance in the White House was highly criticised. And, at the same time, in Washington they did not like what Merz had to say recently on Iran. Why do you think Merz has struggled to develop a solid foreign policy agenda?

There is a relatively stable consensus among the democratic parties on what Germany has to do in foreign policy. We have to support Ukraine. Of course, there are differences on details, for example on how much to spend on the military. There may be differences between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. And, because of our history, Germany’s view of Israel is very different from the view held in Spain, even among conservatives and especially among socialists.

But if you look at eastern Germany, the parties that oppose military support for Ukraine are not only the AfD. They also include Die Linke and the new Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht. They are conservative on migration issues, but very pro-Putin. This position has significant support, especially among the eastern German electorate. That makes it very difficult for the democratic parties to use foreign policy issues to become more popular. They are on the defensive even on these issues.

In any case, for the German public right now, although these issues are interconnected, the main concerns are the economy, problems in the labour market, and reforms of health insurance and the pension system.
 
Why has the German economy been underperforming? What kind of reforms are coming, and how will citizens react to them, especially with elections ahead?

If you ask that question, you should also ask why the German economy performed so well five, six or seven years ago. We had cheap gas from Russia. We were very successful in selling German products abroad, especially German cars in China. And we did not have to spend much on our security or on the military, because the United States did that for us.

All these conditions have changed dramatically for Germany in a very short period of time. That is also a problem. It is a question of time: the German economy has to adapt to these new conditions, and that will take time. That is why we are performing so poorly now.

"We lived in peace for many decades and thought that, after the end of the Cold War, there would be an era of eternal peace. That has changed dramatically"

You know what Bill Clinton once said: "It’s the economy, stupid." Everything depends on the economy. In Germany, I would say it is security in a broader sense. Security now also means peace. The war in Ukraine is closer to Germany than to Spain. It affects us more. War has returned to Europe. We lived in peace for many decades and thought that, after the end of the Cold War, there would be an era of eternal peace. That has changed dramatically. Germany is more affected by this than other countries.

We also have the problem of attacks in Germany. During the campaign, there were three attacks by asylum seekers. So migration is a major issue. In Germany, we also have a problem with Muslim migrants. Then there is the economy. Social policy depends very much on growth. Everything is intertwined.

This would be a very difficult and challenging situation for any government, and the main question is whether the economic situation in Germany improves. There are no real signs of that, although the government has been quite optimistic that it could change even this year. But then came the war involving Iran and Donald Trump’s tariff policy. Germany is more affected by tariffs than other countries. That is a problem.

And there are always elections. Governments are punished by voters, and regional elections often have the same effect as midterm elections. It is similar to what happened in Andalusia on Sunday: when the socialist government is not popular, voters turn to the conservatives or to right-wing parties.

You began with the SPD and asked about organisation. The SPD also has a problem because, on many of these issues, the party is divided. In many respects, there are two social democratic parties. Take migration: some in the SPD are not against a more restrictive policy, while others defend the rights of asylum seekers and humanitarian policies, what we call in Germany the welcome culture.

The same happens with economic and social policy. Some in the SPD say the first task is to improve the conditions for competition, the supply side of the economy. Others say there must be more redistribution, more social justice, and that the pension system has to be defended.

This is also a problem for voters. If you vote for the SPD, which SPD are you voting for? The party has to make compromises not only in government, because it is in a coalition with the conservatives, but also within its own ranks. That is not very attractive for voters. That would be my analysis.

How do German citizens see democracy and how do they look at the future?

We had a poll three years ago in which we asked voters how they looked at the future: whether they thought their children and grandchildren would be better off or not.

If you had asked the same question 50 years ago, when Spain became a democracy again and the 1970s were also a decade of crisis —the first oil crisis, terrorism, left-wing radical terrorism in Germany— 90% would have answered that the future would be better. They would have been optimistic. Now it is only 15%.

"Politicians must be able to convince voters that the future may be better"

And it is distributed equally across age, sex and profession. That is rather depressing, because this is what politics is all about. Politicians must be able to convince voters that the future may be better. A world with only renewable energy is better than the world we have today. Even a world with artificial intelligence may, in some respects, be better than the world we have today. But politicians are not succeeding in explaining that.

We also asked whether people were satisfied with the way democracy works in their country. Around 50% said yes and 50% said no. But what does that mean? There are many reasons to say that democracy does not work very well. Trust in the future is much more telling than trust in the functioning of the democratic system.

Of course, we also have to think about how democracy can be improved. That is part of the problem in Germany. The German discourse on democracy is only about how to defend democracy against its enemies, against the AfD. But we also have to ask how we can improve things: how to improve institutions, the political system as a whole, and how to create more possibilities for participation in politics, especially at the local level.

We have to ask these questions, but we do not do so because we are focused on defending democracy. We are on the defensive, and it is always a problem when you are on the defensive.
 
In Agenda Pública, the writer Andrés Ortega wrote an article titled "No one offers suggestive futures". I think that is what you are describing. First, we have to imagine where we want to be, and then figure out how to get there. Is that the first step?

Yes. How can we reach these goals? That is also necessary. But first: what are the goals? What is your vision of the future?

Some say Willy Brandt was a politician who had this kind of vision in Germany. His successor, Helmut Schmidt —I do not believe he really said it, but people say he did— supposedly said: if you have visions, you should go to the doctor. Brandt was probably more right. We need visions.

Pedro Sánchez, in a way, is able to tell people what a better society should look like. He is also a charismatic politician. In Germany, we lack this kind of politician. Merkel was popular, but she was not charismatic at all. Sometimes there are situations in which you need this kind of politician. But you cannot invent them if they are not there.

Thank you very much.