by Jochen Szangolies

Last Sunday, on the sixth of September, for the first time in more than 80 years, a far-right extremist party won the majority of votes in a German state election, and has a realistic chance at leading the state government of Saxony-Anhalt. (They had previously won the majority in the 2024 Thuringian state election, but had no chance of forming a government because none of the other parties would join them in a coalition.) While narrowly missing the absolute majority, at 43.8% they very nearly equaled the combined result of the CDU, SPD, Grüne, and Linke (of 44% according to the preliminary count). In particular, the conservative CDU, party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has lost more than half their share of the vote compared to the last election. These losses are attributed by many to vastly unpopular reform plans and a general perception of failing to meaningfully engage with the needs and concerns of the majority of the electorate (mostly those having to work for money, instead of having money work for them). Merz holds the historically lowest approval rating for any German Chancellor: around 80% of Germans are dissatisfied with his performance.

There are, as always in such a situation, conciliatory voices: perhaps the work of government might demystify (‘entzaubern’) and expose a party that has little to offer except inflammatory rhetoric and beer hall populism. Perhaps the promises made on the campaign trail will evaporate in the harsh light of political reality. Perhaps disillusioned voters will turn away again from a party that fails to deliver. Perhaps, that is, no Bad Thing will happen. I deeply hope this optimism will prove true. But I do believe it is misguided: in Germany, a democracy explicitly engineered to prevent a repeat of fascist terror, a ‘confirmed right-wing extremist’ (‘gesichert rechtsextrem’) party will most likely lead a state government. That is the Bad Thing, happened.

Germany, here, is not an isolated case. Democracy has been on retreat in large parts of the world. Autocrats, and particularly right-wing populist movements in Europe and beyond, are on the rise. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, narratives of ‘the end of history’ and the victory of liberal democracy seemed to herald an era of global democratization. But history seems to stubbornly continue. So how did we get here from there?

Erik Hoel, neuroscientist and occasional cultural commentator at his substack The Intrinsic Perspective, pinpoints the year 2012 as the turning point for many long-running trends, especially in regard to a shocking decline of mental health, particularly pronounced among teenagers and young adults.

And indeed, looking at long-running trends of autocratization vs. democratization, we again find the approximate turning point in the year 2012. Is this an accident, or is there something more behind it? I think that the possibility of a link here is at least worth investigating.

Now, if there is a correlation between A and B, and you suspect this to be more than chance, you can either look at possible ways that one causes the other, or you can look for a common cause of both. While it is not completely implausible that democratic backsliding has effects on mental health (mine certainly took a hit last Sunday), nor that a widespread mental health crisis fuels at least some form of dissatisfaction with the status quo, the causal story seems weak in either case. Autocratization may lead to mental health decline, but what explains the rising autocratization? Declining mental health might make one vote against the current order, but why is mental health declining in the first place? Read more »