The Current Column

Democracy Protection in Germany

What Is Needed to Safeguard Democratic Institutions?

Nowack, Daniel
The Current Column (2026)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), The Current Column of 14 September 2026

Bonn, 14 September 2026. Tomorrow is International Day of Democracy, yet democracy is under pressure across the globe. In Germany, too, right-wing populism is challenging the liberal democratic order as seldom before.

The regional chapter of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), deemed by the country’s domestic intelligence agency to have a proven right-wing extremist agenda, obtained the most votes in the elections to the regional parliament held a week ago in Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD looks set to be part of the new regional government. It is also polling high in other federal states and at federal level. Against the backdrop of this threat to democracy in Germany, it is worth considering what insights can be drawn for Germany from research on autocratisation and from international efforts to protect democracy: in order to make democracy more resilient, bold steps need to be taken to protect its political institutions but also, where necessary, to restructure them, as these institutions form the pillars and cornerstones supporting a democracy.

Pillars and cornerstones of a democracy: the framework of political institutions

The framework of democratic institutions in Germany can be described from a variety of perspectives. With regard to the AfD forming part of regional governments, however, public discourse is currently particularly focusing on federalism. If a federal state is governed by a party that is hostile to democracy, federalism can aptly be described as the flooded watertight compartment of a leaking ship: although federalism limits the attack on democratic structures to a single federal state, it can also hinder governance at federal level. Above all, however, the relevant research does not provide any indication that federalism in itself makes democracies more resilient to democratic erosion. While federalism has few options for countering democratic erosion in India, for example, it is proving to be a key protective mechanism in the United States. In India, the governing party can dominate the institutions to such an extent that it can attack federal structures itself and can even revoke the status of federal states. By contrast, in the United States, the fact that elections are administered by the federal states helps prevent them from being usurped and manipulated.

Conversely, in Germany, a regional government can attack or restructure a number of key institutions, for example parts of the education system, the regional judiciary, the media, the police and the administrative apparatus. As was observed with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States, it is not enough to merely hope that such attacks on institutions will be stopped in good time just because they are unlawful, since the damage to institutions is often inflicted too rapidly and is also often irrevocable. Instead, it is important to counter and, if possible, block attacks on institutions immediately.

Countering and blocking attacks on institutions

Ways of countering attacks include suspending federal and EU financing if a federal state violates the liberal democratic order. Sanction mechanisms of this kind have proved to be powerful, for example in addressing democratic erosion in Poland and Hungary using the EU’s Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation. Yet sanction mechanisms alone are often not sufficient and they risk exacerbating political and social polarisation. Attacks on institutions must therefore also be blocked by well-conceived reforms of political rules.

These include the parliamentary reform in Saxony-Anhalt in April of this year. Changes to majority voting provisions and blocking minorities are a double-edged sword, however. Both democratic and non-democratic parties can use them for their own purposes with different majorities. Instead of concentrating on majority voting provisions and blocking minorities, it can therefore be more useful to incorporate “delays” into political processes through institutional or constitutional rules. This can be done by prolonging either the decision-making process itself or the period after which decisions take effect. Amendments to the Netherlands Constitution do not come into force until they have also been approved by the next elected parliament, for example. When a law is passed in Denmark, a referendum on the new law must be held if one third of the members of parliament so require. Although provisions with a delaying effect of this kind make democratic negotiation processes more laborious, they also integrate further protective mechanisms into a country’s institutional framework. 

Willy Brandt is claimed to have said that our democracy must be vigilant and combative and must constantly renew itself. This is now truer than ever.