The Ambivalent Effects of Germany’s Cooperative Federalism on Democratic Resilience

In comparative research, Germany is seen as the embodiment of cooperative and administrative federalism, in which cooperation between the federal government and the constituent units (states) is often mandatory. The entangled federal structures are reflected in a vertically integrated party system, wherein party branches exist at all levels of government while maintaining interdependence. Parties, as the main actors in federal systems, thus create multilevel channels that facilitate the moderation of federal as well as party-political conflicts, which is widely considered to enhance democratic performance. However, with the increasing electoral success of populist and extremist parties in state and federal parliaments, the German model of consensual federalism has come under pressure – not in spite but because of its multiple checks and balances. This is all the more imminent, as the new left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has recently joined two state governments, while the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is still excluded from government formation. This paper spells out how populist and extremist parties can exploit the German model of federalism to subvert democracy. We illustrate this by studying three basic institutional features of federalism. First, we show how decision-making rules in the second chamber, the Bundesrat, can potentially be utilized by extremist and populist parties in state coalition governments to obstruct federal lawmaking. Second, we demonstrate that the institutionalized system of intergovernmental bodies provides numerous opportunities to render institutions dysfunctional. Third, because federal and EU law is generally implemented by the states in their own responsibility, German state governments, or individual ministries led by populists and non-democrats, are able to counteract federal legislation. The paper concludes with some suggestions on how the German federal system could be made more flexible and resilient against populist and extremist parties, while also reflecting on the limitations of legalistic approaches to securing democracy.