Democracies are not adequately equipped to deal with large-scale crises like the pandemic and climate change.

Beyond the German Election (8): THE NEW INSTITUTE fellows on the politics of Covid.

The pandemic has raised fundamental questions about the way our democracies work, ranging from the role of parliament, the relationship between science and politics, issues of executive overreach, and the fragmentation of public opinion. These questions will remain with us until they are addressed, and they pose a challenge to the new German government. To open pathways towards addressing these issues, THE NEW INSTITUTE maps some of the positions in this contested field of discourse.

The revival of the nation-state

The approach to the Covid pandemic by the European Union was neither coordinated nor effective. We saw the delegation of responsibilities to a civil servant in Sweden (expertification), a separate corona cabinet in France (executive centralization), and shift of leadership to the federal level in Germany (executive federalism). None of these strategies are satisfactory. Open questions remain: How are the role of parliaments to be defined? Is federalism, in Germany, part of the problem or the solution? What if the courts become political actors while the government tries to avert political responsibility? Moreover, as science has acquired an increased significance for politics, due care must be taken for the separation of these spheres. 

The specter of climate change politics

Like Covid, climate change is a large-scale crisis for which democracies are not adequately equipped, not least in terms of their ability to adequately represent various positions in society. Apparent is the incapacity of multi-level governance structures or one can say the different temporalities within levels that often impede unified responses. Because of politically wilful blindness, technocratic solutions are taking the place of more precise assessments and corresponding responses, to the detriment of all. Will states of emergencies become the general solution, within which exceptions to the rule become the rule (lobby-driven exceptionalism)? This is where right-wing populists come in: They are the anti-necessarians, reluctant to act, increasing in strength. The open question now is whether the pandemic will be exemplary for drastic action on climate change or the reason for inaction.  

The silence on the Left

The Left has been strikingly absent as an opposition to state power, a position that has thus been taken up by the Right. Here are some potential reasons for the Left’s silence: it wanted to demonstrate that it can take on responsibility; it played out its critique at an epistemic level; it feared that its criticism of restrictions would be associated with the libertarian right. This is relevant on both theoretical and structural levels: What you say now about the emergency treads a path to what you will say about future emergencies. Where will the Left go in the post-pandemic world? Will it go to a party? Will it be revolutionary? Will it dissipate? Will the left-right divide change for good?

The democratic challenge

Given these multifaceted, urgent, and transnational challenges, moving forward requires redefining and adjusting how democracies function. We can start by trying to answer the following questions: 

• What picture of the political landscape do we arrive at when we add up the handling of the pandemic with the likely effects of climate change on societies? 

• What political lessons can be learned from the pandemic for climate change? 

• How can democracies be prepared to deal with large-scale crises? 

• What kind of democratic institutional setup is most feasible in light of the declining trust by citizens in current arrangements? 

• How can the diminished democratic space between technocratic governance and the libertarian or populist right be reclaimed? 

• What has led to the decline of this space in the first place? 

• How do we explain the alienation within the acquiescent citizenry from political institutions and the decline of a vibrant civil society? 

• What changes within political institutions and beyond are required to adequately represent, reengage, and include citizens? 

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