Two in three Germans are dissatisfied with how democracy functions in their country, according to the latest Leipzig Authoritarianism Study, conducted by researchers at Leipzig University in cooperation with the Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Otto Brenner Foundation.
The findings, published on Wednesday, show that satisfaction with democracy as experienced in everyday life has fallen to just 33.3%, down from 42.3% in 2024. It is the lowest level recorded since researchers began measuring the indicator in 2006.
Discontent is particularly pronounced in the former East Germany, where only 22.8% of respondents expressed satisfaction, compared with around 36% in the west.
More than half of Germans expressed at least some sympathy for either “nostalgic idealization of the past” or “apocalyptic expectations of the future,” according to the study.
The survey involved 2,507 respondents interviewed between March 16 and June 3.
The findings follow an INSA poll showing that 82% of Germans were dissatisfied with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his government. Some 60% said their personal circumstances had worsened since he took office.
Merz became chancellor following Germany’s February 2025 snap elections, promising to revive the struggling economy. However, economic difficulties have persisted, while his government has increased military spending, maintained financial and military support for Ukraine, and advocated reforms to Germany’s welfare system.
The chancellor has urged Germans to work more and argued that the “welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed.”
Merz refused to change course after his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered crushing defeats to the anti-immigration, Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) in September’s regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Merz himself described the latter result as a “disaster.”
The CDU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, have called for a formal review that could pave the way for a ban on the AfD following its sweeping victories in both eastern states. The party denounced the move as an attempt to suppress political opposition and undermine democracy.
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