Abstract

This article seeks to conduct an analysis of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s democratic erosion framework by applying it to the empirical case of Germany. This serves two purposes: to assess the comparative applicability of the framework in academic literature and conduct a brief assessment of the health of Germany’s parliamentary democracy. I argue that their framework alone is not sufficient: it fails to consider important aspects of democratic realities and is at times self-contradictory. It still offers valuable insight but is not able to account for changes in German democracy since the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) has been in power. As a radical right-wing actor, the AfD has significantly influenced German party competition and the political system as a whole by reviving competition and changing parliamentary culture. Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework is unable to take this into account when judging democratic erosion but remains helpful as a starting point when assessing the normative status of democracies.

 

Keywords: democracy, Germany, AfD, norms, parliament

 

1. Introduction

A major increase in right-wing populism has been plaguing liberal democracies in recent decades. France’s Front National, Donald Trump, and the United Kingdom’s Independence Party (UKIP) are some examples. Germany, too, finds itself among them: the rise of the radical right wing Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) has not passed by without a trace. Its immediate success in three federal parliaments after its founding in 2013, followed by its 2017 entry into the German Parliament Bundestag as the third most popular force (Decker, 2022) have provoked questions about the stability of Germany’s democracy within the bigger picture of recent democratic decline (Diamond, 2021). Recent literature has explored the reasons for this phenomenon and ways to stop it, with Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) developing a framework of democratic erosion to explore the state of US democracy under Donald Trump in their book How Democracies Die (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018).

 

The following article aims to evaluate the question of how useful this normative framework is to assess democratic stability in a comparative perspective, using the example of Germany. To explore this, the article will commence with a section on Levitsky and Ziblatt’s theory and popular criticisms of it, followed by an evaluation of the AfD as norm-defying political actor and how established German parties react to it based on Meguid’s (2005) framework of niche party success. The penultimate section will outline which consequences this has for German democracy.

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2. How democracies die – a normative perspective and its criticisms

 

Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) propose a democratic backsliding framework based on the erosion of democratic norms among political elites. Their theory is one of slow democratic death under the surface, as opposed to a sudden end through major events like coup d’etats or revolutions. To enable this, they understand the architecture of democracy as consisting of a hard legal-institutional structure and a soft structure of norms and expected behaviours within this. Their key argument is that democratically elected leaders undermine the latter soft architecture, resulting in democratic backsliding. The two norms key to democratic survival within their larger framework are mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. Mutual toleration refers to rivals accepting that “as long as they play by constitutional rules, […] the other has an equal right to exist, compete for power and govern” (ibid.: 102), which includes rival parties respecting each other and accepting that their respective opponent has a role to play in the democratic system. The latter, institutional forbearance, means that “rulers exercise their institutional powers with restraint” (Pérez-Liñán in Berman et al., 2018: 1101), not pushing the law to its limits. One of the other norms described by Levitsky and Ziblatt is the concept of gatekeeping: politicians excluding extremists from the democratic process, therefore acting as a filter to protect democratic arrangements.

 

Existing criticisms of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s work include their focus on elites, a failure to elaborate on the reasons for democratic decline, and a lack of recommendations around how to ‘save’ democracy. On the other hand, Levitsky and Ziblatt’s work has been viewed positively for its accessibility to general readership (Pérez-Liñán in Berman et al., 2018: 1101) and that the book is “exceptional in its diagnosis of the declining observance of democratic norms, and how this informs our current predicament” (Parker in Berman et al., 2018: 1099). The focus on elite actors is valued by some, but most see this aspect as too monocausal, ignoring the inherently bottom-up nature of democracies and nongovernmental actors being key to upholding them (Berman, Connolly in Berman et al., 2018: 1093, 1095). While this is a reasonable criticism, it fails to acknowledge that democracy is bottom-up only in an ideal scenario, but now practically less so as it has become easier for political elites to exert influence over those voting for them.  Kneuer (2021) also points out a general need for conceptual clarification and criticises the term ‘backsliding’ because of its implications of democratic reversal being accidental or involuntary (ibid.: 1446). However, critics fail to examine comparative applicability beyond the US: Although Bunce (in Berman et al., 2018: 1103) classifies Levitsky and Ziblatt’s work as an excellent comparative approach with both modern and historical examples, there is a lack of research employing their theory and examining the framework’s feasibility in an empirical context. This article aims to contribute to filling this gap, looking at the example of Germany.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The AfD in parliament

 

The AfD is the first German extreme right-wing actor since the times of Nazism. It rose to prominence in the mid-2010s and is now established in the political landscape. Initially, the party’s ideological standing was subject to academic scrutiny, but it is now consistently classified as a radical right actor (Heinze, 2021: 136). In earlier stages, this classification was mainly normative due to the party’s narrow immigration focus, but it recently began tackling different socio-cultural issues like the labour market (AfD, 2016: 35) and has now been established at the far-right of the political spectrum. Rensmann (2018) locates the AfD as typical among its kind in a comparative context within the ascent of rightist, authoritarian nativist-populist movements in western Europe.

 

While Schroeder et al. (2018: 99) argue that there is a dichotomy between parliament-oriented and movement-oriented federal AfD factions, the party behaves similarly in most state parliaments and the nationwide Bundestag, exhibiting norm-breaking behaviours that contest the established party system. It is a niche challenger in parliament, using it as a stage instead of to achieve legislative progress. The party fits Meguid’s (2005: 347) description of a niche party as one of the “new political parties” that have “gained popularity on the basis of previously overlooked issues such as the environment, immigration, and regional autonomy” (ibid.).

 

The AfD has extremely low professionalism, provoked a change in parliamentary debate culture, and occupies an unusual parliamentary role. Even though it is a comparatively young party, having been founded in 2013, it has had remarkably slow professionalisation of its parliamentary work and no noticeable interest to improve this, as well as lacking subject expertise (Heinze, 2021: 138). There are stark contrasts between their campaign promises of being “fully committed to fundamentally renewing our country” (AfD, 2016: 6, own translation) and the work carried out in parliament. Combined, the aforementioned low topic competence, little procedural knowledge, and at best semi-professional demeanour and working mechanisms (Schroeder et al., 2018: 98) mean that the AfD has achieved minimal legislative change.

 

It has, however, provoked a notable shift in parliamentary debate culture. Their strategy involves provocation and aggressive rhetoric (Heinze, 2021: 140) that revolves around a strong symbolic orchestration instead of solving legislative issues. Rensmann (2018: 65) observes that the party uses parliament mainly to communicate its ideology and for performative protest that makes its voters feel heard. According to Heinze (2021: 146), the typical pattern of AfD parliamentary behaviour is to provoke more emotional debates and use the resulting images to enable self-victimisation on their media channels (Rensmann, 2018: 65) while actually verbally attacking others and enacting a performative antagonism that furthers polarisation: "With harsh rhetoric, insults and taboo-breaking, it regularly tries to turn debates in its favour” (Heinze, 2021: 139, own translation). Rensmann (2018: 65) found that the AfD often bullies other Members of Parliament and its MPs display open disapproval of parliament itself. Schroeder (2018: 99, own translation) argues that, "since the AfD has been involved in state parliaments, a more emotional, more polarising and more nervous mood has set in”. There have been more ‘critical interjections’, frontier formation, a higher number of calls to order and rebukes, the latter mainly directed against the AfD as main provocateur (Schroeder et al., 2018: 98).

 

Considering the points made in the preceding two paragraphs, the AfD is an unusual parliamentary actor. On the surface, it seems to be fulfilling its opposition duty in acting as government control through the use of minor parliamentary tools (Heinze, 2021: 146). However, Heinze (ibid., own translation) suggests that “the AfD is more interested in targeted provocation and media staging than in actually addressing and solving political problems”. Thus, its key parliamentary goal is attention-oriented provocation, with plenaries being a stage to perform for party members. However, there is extremely poor attendance and contribution to parliamentary committees due to a lack of expertise (Schroeder et al. 2018: 99), even though these committees are crucial parliamentary working organs.

 

4. Gatekeeping – fit for purpose?

 

An infrequently addressed issue with Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework is that some of the norms are contradictory, especially gatekeeping, but simultaneously accepting one’s opponent as legitimate and reasonable. Established parties’ reactions to the AfD illustrate the struggle to unite these and demonstrate how Levitsky and Ziblatt’s recommendations of gatekeeping do not align with established frameworks for dealing with niche parties.

 

The attitudes and behaviours of other established German parties towards the AfD can mediate “the direct or indirect influence they can exert on […] the entire political system” (Heinze, 2021: 135, own translation). Meguid’s (2005) typology is widely used to analyse niche party success (Heinze, 2021: 135). She proposes a spatial theory about the success of niche party actors, where she differentiates between dismissive, accommodative, and adversarial strategies. For Meguid, a dismissive strategy constitutes established parties’ refusal to recognise the niche party and its key issue, therefore “signal[ling] to voters that the issue lacks merit” (ibid.: 349), which could reduce its salience and therefore lead to lower niche party success. What Meguid does not mention but becomes evident in Germany is that this is not necessarily desirable because the niche party’s supporters will feel increasingly excluded, which, in the AfD’s case, would play conveniently into its populist anti-establishment rhetoric of claiming that “[t]he secret sovereign is a small, powerful political leadership group [that] is responsible for the undesirable developments of the past decades” (AfD, 2016: 8, own translation).

 

Secondly, established parties can adopt an adversarial strategy where they recognise the niche party’s issue but adopt an opposing stance, which is likely to draw more attention to the niche party, making its key issue decisive for voting decisions and reinforcing the niche party’s issue ownership, which is likely to result in its increased success (ibid.: 349). Lastly, an accommodative strategy refers to established parties taking a stance on the same issue dimension as the niche party, thereby undermining its distinctiveness. This gives voters a greater party choice, usually making them more likely to remain loyal to the established party with more legislative experience, which is overall likely to generate less support for the niche party (ibid.).

 

The following section will analyse German parliamentary dynamics under Meguid’s framework. There is lively debate among established actors on how to react to the AfD (Heinze, 2021: 133), with initial attempts to use dismissive exclusionary strategies in federal parliaments. This was largely unsuccessful because it fuelled the party’s anti-establishment rhetoric and still does whenever established parties explicitly mention the AfD in attempts to protect democracy (AfD, 2018). Established parties underwent a learning process of realising that the AfD’s priority is self-staging, not effective policy work (Heinze, 2021: 146).

 

Dismissive strategies are not effective in the German case, so they have largely come to use a strategy Schroeder et al. (2018: 110) call “Abgrenzen, statt Ausgrenzen” (Delimit instead of exclude). It entails realising the need for increased professionalisation of other parties’ parliamentary reaction patterns and offering political alternatives to citizens, which is necessary to defeat the AfD through an accommodative response on their issue dimension. The AfD still remains excluded on other parliamentary levels: Stecker et al. (2019) find in their quantitative analysis that it is isolated based on applause as mode of approval, it rarely applauds other parties or gets applauded by them. They find the reverse pattern for critical interjections, with the AfD being interjected disproportionately often by MPs of established parties (ibid.).  This is another demonstration of the shift in political culture through the AfDs disruptive polarising strategies described by Rensmann (2018: 62).

 

Considering the bigger picture, only an accommodative strategy seems to be effective for work with the AfD in parliaments – when established parties initially instinctively chose dismissive or adversarial strategies, the AfD gained more power and approval through using claims of political exclusion to fuel its populist anti-establishment rhetoric. While most parties still refuse to directly work with the AfD for ideological reasons, strategies have generally shifted towards being more accommodative since the AfD’s move into the Bundestag in 2017.

 

In Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework, these reluctantly accommodative reactions could be seen as an erosion of norms: established democratic actors failing to gatekeep and the AfD (as an openly extremist, anti-liberal democratic party) now is a major political actor. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that democratic norms have been upheld by the established parties: they enacted mutual toleration by accepting the AfD as legitimate rival. This points to inconsistencies in Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework that decrease its value as a comparative political tool to identify democratic deficiencies.

 

Looking at Germany’s democracy apart from normative analysis, there have been notable changes in both political system and culture through the emergence of the AfD. Nonetheless, considering indices like Freedom House (2022), Germany’s score has been consistently high in recent years. The AfD has insubstantial policymaking influence as an opposition party and because other parties frequently reject its policy proposals – the vast majority of debated proposals are unsuccessful, with only one AfD proposal having been passed as law in the previous election period (DIP, 2023). Some argue that its emergence might have reanimated German party competition: electoral participation has risen since the AfD has been a serious national parliament competitor in 2017 (Decker, 2022), it has filled a representation gap right of the conservative CDU, and forced established parties to improve reactions to societal developments (Schroeder et al., 2018: 110). Nonetheless, accommodative strategies, as necessary as they were short-term, have led to a normalisation of the radical right, something Mudde (2019) vehemently warns of - “it is the creeping adoption of radical right-wing positions and rhetoric that is successively undermining the cornerstones of liberal democracy” (Heinze, 2021: 147, own translation).

 

5. Conclusion

 

In this article, I have sought to conduct a timely analysis of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s normative framework using Germany as an empirical case. This has the dual purpose of seeking to assess the comparative applicability of their framework while conducting a brief assessment of the state of German parliamentary democracy. The former has a clear outcome: Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework is at times inconclusive, self-contradictory, and not strictly applicable to empirical cases when contrasted with other frameworks like Meguid’s (2005) one of niche party success. Meguid’s framework, however, largely reinforces existing insights about changes in the German political landscape under the AfD. This, again, demonstrates that Levitsky and Ziblatt’s framework alone is not sufficient: it might explain democratic erosion in some cases, but is not suited for attempts to assess the health of our democratic arrangements outside of the specific empirical context it was created for. It does contain helpful pointers as to what to look out for, but other aspects than the erosion of norms can lead to democratic decline, which they ignore. Looking at the state of Germany’s democracy is more inconclusive: the AfD has certainly provoked notable change, but it is hard to judge whether this has been for the better, through increased voter choices and party competition, or for the worse, through eroding democratic norms and normalising the radical right. This should be the subject of further comparative investigation.