"A New Dynamic" for Democracy? Democracy Reforms in the Federal Republic of Germany between Populist Demands and Governmental Strategies

Western European democracries today face the challenge of populist parties. These parties construct a dichotomy between the (common) people with its allegedly unified political will on the one hand and the political elite refusing its implementation on the other. This aloofness of the political establishment is seen as constitutive for various crisis-laden developments in all sorts of policy areas. Criticism of the instititions and processes of representative democracy is thus logically prior to other issues such as migration, identity and globalisation, as central as these may appear on the agenda of various populist political parties, and should therefore be taken more seriously than seems to be the case both by researchers interested in understanding populis, and by governing parties aiming to fend off populist challengers. Based on the general reaction strategies of governing parties to the rise of populist parties - ignoring, delegitimising, adapting -, the question arises whether governing parties leave the issue of democracy reform to the populists without a fight, delegitimise their questioning of the institutional status quo and take on the role of its rigorous defenders, or react with programmatic adaptation. The latter strategy can be further differentiated into the partial adoption of populist proposals for democracy reform on the one hand and the development of their own proposals for improving democracy on the other. The question of democracy policy positioning of governing parties will be answered with a view to the German case, drawing on the elction programmes for the 2013, 2017 and 2021 federal elections, the subsequent coalition agreements as well as media reports and parliamentary documents on the actual democracy policy actions of governments, non-populist and populist opposition.