The many crises of democracy

The number of people living in liberal democracies is declining. The democracies that remain, meanwhile, are fragile, not least because many people view politics and political parties with scepticism. Steffen Mau, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science in Göttingen, analyses the many reasons behind these developments and suggests how democracies might retain or regain their appeal.

To the point

• External crises: Successful autocracies have emerged as powerful adversaries to liberal democracies
• Internal crises: Large sections of society are barely involved in decision-making processes and do not feel adequately represented. 
• Solutions: Democracies must demonstrate that they are legitimate and efficient forms of government.  

Reports, academic studies, and the available indicators all point in the same direction: democracy is not in particularly good shape. The number of autocracies is rising, while that of liberal democracies is in decline, notwithstanding the recent electoral setback for Viktor Orbán, the self-styled champion of “illiberal democracy.” According to The Economist’s respected Democracy Index, only 45 percent of people worldwide still live in a democracy. In the latest survey, from 2025, just 25 countries were classified as “full democracies.” But even established, full democracies are becoming restive: discontent is growing, and ever larger segments of the public are throwing their support behind populist parties. Democratic institutions – free and equal elections by secret ballot, the separation of powers, freedom of expression, and competition among political parties – remain intact. Yet there are signs that the quality of democracy is eroding. Seen in this light, even established democracies can be said to be in crisis.

A longing for freedom

This crisis has been a long time coming, even though the collapse of state socialism in 1989 initially seemed to point in a very different direction. After all, it was the longing for freedom and political participation that drove people in the state-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe into the streets. There was mounting criticism of an ossified social order and of the ruling authorities’ refusal to allow the public a share in political decision-making. The transfer of power in Central and Eastern Europe was a democratic revolution and a repudiation of one-party rule and dictatorship. The transition from state socialism to democracy and a market economy was often difficult. At the time, however, few doubted the long-term “triumph of the West” and of “liberal democracy.” Their global ascendancy seemed assured; the only remaining question appeared to be how long it would take other countries to follow the same path toward democratisation.

Today, the outlook is far bleaker. The Western model of democracy no longer seems destined for universal adoption. As right-wing populist and far-right parties gain ground, concern is growing that democracy’s achievements could be trampled underfoot. During the 2025 coalition negotiations in Germany between the CDU and SPD, Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder even spoke of “democracy’s last bullet.” To get a clearer sense of the situation, however, it may be better to speak not of the “crisis of democracy,” singular, but of “crises of democracy,” plural.

External crises

First, crises can be internal or external. Although the two are closely intertwined, they can be distinguished analytically. The external dimension of these crises lies first in the new political assertiveness and economic strength of authoritarian challengers. Just as democracy’s global advance has stalled, and in some places even gone into reverse, so too have powerful adversaries emerged to challenge liberal democracies. For a long time, liberal democracy was seen as superior to other political systems. In light of China’s economic and technological successes, that claim is no longer so easy to make. Democracy may still have strong normative appeal. However, there is waning confidence that the model is, overall, more effective or that it has something of an “evolutionary superiority.”

If China were to overtake the West economically, it would seriously undermine the West’s aura of superiority. What might happen if authoritarian regimes become increasingly successful at providing their own populations with order, stability, and economic prosperity? What might happen if they prove more effective and more adaptable in the face of global challenges? Would their own populations then set aside their desire for freedom and political participation? And what would be the repercussions for people living in democracies if their countries suddenly began falling behind economically? The geopolitical landscape has also shifted. Many countries – strikingly, even some in the West – are calling the rules-based international order into question and asserting their own interests more forcefully than ever. Democracies committed to the rule of law and to international treaties struggle to hold their own in a world of rival powers.

Internal crises

Within democracies, we are currently confronted with a range of crisis symptoms. Across the Western world, democracies are facing a crisis of legitimacy and participation: people are losing confidence in the system’s fairness and in the effectiveness of democratic representation; social actors are increasingly reluctant to give the democratic order the baseline loyalty it needs to function. The loss of trust is generated through the media, but it also reflects changes in the structures of political representation. Many people feel deeply removed from the workings of politics. Large segments of society have little involvement in decision-making and feel neither seen nor heard. Parliaments have also become markedly less representative of the societies they govern. It is true that parliaments now include more women and people with family histories of migration. However, access to elected office has become more strongly skewed by social class. Lawmakers are disproportionately drawn from degree-dependent professions, higher income brackets, and well-connected social circles. Civil servants, legal professionals, and social scientists dominate; legislators from “ordinary” occupations, or without a university degree, are now rare. Political scientist Armin Schäfer describes this as “a loss of political equality.” A further key development is the weakening of national parliaments as international organizations, and the European Union have gained influence. Decision-making authority is being transferred to levels farther removed from the public. When decisions on national policy in fact rest with institutions such as the European Commission, expert panels, and the International Monetary Fund, ordinary people have even less say in democratic decision-making.

Moralised disputes over who is entitled to what

The social conditions on which democracy rests are also changing in fundamental ways. In the social-democratic theory of democracy, the assumption was that democracy provides those who lose out in the market with opportunities for positive social mobility. The expansion of the welfare state and the introduction of progressive taxation are seen as expressions of this relationship between the market and democracy. Today, the classic distributive conflicts that were central to the emergence of democracy are being reconfigured and also being supplemented by new conflicts. Criticism of inequality persists, but it has had limited political impact. Conflicts over distribution are recast as moralised disputes over who is entitled to what. Instead of redistribution between rich and poor, the focus is now on welfare fraud, the costs of immigration, identity politics, and the entitlements of welfare recipients at the bottom of the income distribution. Identity politics, in particular, absorbs a great deal of political energy by turning issues into emotionally charged terrain and consistently diverting attention from more tangible concerns, such as affordable rents, adequate incomes, and the cost of living. Widening inequality is not merely a consequence of feelings of political powerlessness and alienation, it also helps produce these feelings.

The challenge of right-wing populism

Right-wing populism also poses a fundamental challenge to democracy. While far-right thought often openly rejects core principles of the democratic order, right-wing populism seeks to make incremental changes to how that system works. Right-wing populists claim to speak for the “true will of the people,” while portraying elected political elites and opposing views as illegitimate or suspect. The legitimacy of courts, the media, and parliaments is called into question; fundamental rights are curtailed. The rise of right-wing populism can be traced both to economic change and to cultural developments. Globalization, economic restructuring, and automation are creating economic insecurity, and substantial segments of the workforce are coming to see themselves as being “left behind” by these developments. On the cultural front, this involves a sense of loss of traditional values, of identity, and of recognition, brought about by cultural liberalisation, growing diversity, and immigration. In this context, what Jürgen Habermas called the “new structural transformation of the public sphere” is giving polarizing actors ever more room to shape public sentiment and exploit it for their own ends. In September’s state elections due to be held in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, there is now a real risk that the AfD could emerge as the largest party, or perhaps even enter government. This would mark a serious rupture with the Federal Republic’s democratic tradition.

Interestingly, throughout the Federal Republic’s history, there has always been a segment of the population with broadly authoritarian leanings. For many years, however, mainstream politics managed to absorb and contain these sentiments. Today, however, this is no longer the case: far-right and right-wing populist actors are highly adept at exploiting discontent, resentment, and authoritarian impulses, intensifying them and turning them against the core commitments and norms of liberal democracy. They benefit from the sense of overload, blurred boundaries, and mounting complexity that accompanies today’s social transformations. Growing numbers of people say they are exhausted by the pace and depth of social change; it is hardly surprising, then, that appeals for reform and transformation are often met with scepticism.

Politics as a "pizza delivery service"

What people expect from politics has changed, too. Political scientists distinguish between input legitimacy (political decisions are legitimate because they are reached democratically) and output legitimacy (decisions are legitimate when they produce beneficial results for people); from this perspective, the question of who benefits has become increasingly significant. “The government must deliver” is a widely voiced demand and a legitimate expectation, but it also carries risks. After all, with limited resources and seemingly endless problems, governments are finding it increasingly difficult to fully meet the public’s expectations. That is one reason, though by no means the only one, that we increasingly hear warnings against treating politics like a “pizza delivery service.” A politics that cannot also draw on input legitimacy, which is to say on the binding force of democratic procedures themselves, will inevitably disappoint a public treated as customers.

No less significant is democracy’s crisis of effectiveness, usually discussed in terms of “state capacity.” Can state institutions effectively carry out the work entrusted to them? Can excessive regulation, and the growing tendency to turn an increasing number of issues into legal matters, end up exacerbating certain problems? When the state’s capacity to implement decisions and deliver services effectively is impaired, society may withdraw its trust, with consequences for democracy itself.

It is clear that we are not dealing with a single crisis of democracy, but with a complex constellation of multiple crises. Very few of these problems have simple solutions; many of the crises are substantive rather than superficial. Liberal democracies nevertheless have the capacity to adapt to new challenges. To do so, they must be resilient at their institutional core while remaining open to democratic innovation. At the same time, democracies must demonstrate that they are not only legitimate forms of government, but also efficient ones. This will only succeed if politics makes good on its claim to be an active, formative force, and if there are state institutions that can consistently demonstrate their effectiveness. If, on top of that, democracies manage to safeguard prosperity and economic success, there is no need to fear for the future of democracy; if we fail, still fiercer storms may lie ahead. Since there are many who would benefit from a crisis of democracy, those who are merely waiting for a chance to destabilise it, we cannot let matters reach such a point.

This article appears in issue 2/2026 of our MaxPlanckResearch magazine. (Please do not reprint it without our prior permission).