Violence against politicians: “A major reason is feelings of powerlessness”

In a world with many complex problems, many people no longer feel represented by democratic parties, says political scientist Merkel. Violence against politicians acts as a kind of self-empowerment.

tagesschau.de: Politicians from several parties have been attacked in recent days. Are we seeing a new stage of brutalization in our society?

Wolfgang Merkel: We should be careful with the term new stage. But what we are seeing is a continued increase in verbal attacks, social media attacks. And we are actually seeing an increase in physical violence, especially against the almost defenseless politicians at the local level.

tagesschau.de: Where does this willingness to resort to violence over political disagreement come from?

Merkel: A key reason is feelings of powerlessness and the widespread feeling of not being heard, not counting, not being represented. Then there is something like a moment of self-empowerment in the act of violence itself. So: I can do something, I count, I am an active subject and not an object of dark politics.

“New driver from radicalization”

tagesschau.de: Why does this feeling of powerlessness exist?

Merkel: That’s not easy to say. One factor is certainly that there are increasing numbers of people in Germany, but also throughout Europe, who no longer feel represented by the established democratic parties. Whether this is objectively the case is not really relevant. It is the subjective feeling of not counting.

Right-wing populist parties right up to the right-wing radical milieu, i.e. parties of an anti-democratic character, are able to nestle in this representation gap. The rise of right-wing populism is also a response to the feeling of not being represented by the established parties.

We have a new driver of polarization, radicalization, and brutalization in the political game: the far-right parties and especially their fringes. It is not the official politicians from the AfD, FPÖ, Rassemblement National, and whatever the parties are called, but rather it is their fringes who are radicalizing themselves from this milieu towards physical violence.

“Extraordinary amount of complex problems”

tagesschau.de: Where do you see the cause and the effect in the structure of right-wing populism and violence?

Merkel: The reason is that the established democratic politicians clearly cannot “deliver” and convey: We are there for you too. And then there is this: We are currently living in times of an extraordinary accumulation of the most difficult political problems, some of which cannot be solved at all, at least not solely by the nation state.

Think of the climate issue, the migration issue, the corona pandemic or war. It is not necessarily the incompetence of politicians, but rather the nature of these problems. The character is transnational, solving it takes time and requires coordination and cooperation between the nation states.

With the interaction of an extraordinary accumulation of complex problems that cannot be adequately solved, the perception is: Politics is not delivering, and for me it is not delivering at all. Many people think that, too many people in our society.

“There were always protests, including large ones”

tagesschau.de: Was it different in the past decades?

Merkel: In 1968, a large wave of protest swept across the western states, and we also had that in Germany – Berlin and Frankfurt and other cities. There were repeated protests, including large ones.

But the spread of the feeling of powerlessness is something that has continued to expand over the last ten or twenty years. What I want to say is: It’s not just smaller protest groups that are rebelling against the existing conditions. It’s a social trend.

We are experiencing a continuous drift towards polarization. And it’s not just right-wing radical parties that are driving this, but there is everyday brutalization in social networks. The more radical you formulate something, the larger the number of followers you will get. This is a disastrous algorithm that further drives polarization.

Today we see the effects of disappointment, a clearer feeling: I’m not being heard, I have to do something about that. And this is expressed not so much in political organization or waves of protests, but often in violence on the fringes. This is an important democratic difference.

Some sociologists say there is actually no polarization and division. I think the strength of right-wing populism and day-to-day events deny these positions. We have polarization, we can even measure it. And it is not isolated in Germany or in Saxony and Thuringia, but has become a phenomenon in our western democracies. And that’s why we shouldn’t think that it will disappear tomorrow.

“Radicalization especially young men”

tagesschau.de: Four young men aged 17 and 18 are suspected in the attack against SPD European politician Matthias Ecke in Dresden. Are we also seeing radicalization among young people in particular?

Merkel: I can’t say anything about the specific case. We all still know far too little. What we see, however, is that young people are no longer automatically the progressive, driving forces of our society, as they were in previous decades. We see a drift to the right and sometimes radicalization of young people, especially young men. This applies equally to the USA and Western Europe.

tagesschau.de: The interior ministers of the federal states are now calling for criminal law to be tightened. Do you see this as a helpful measure?

Merkel: Basically, this is initially an attempt that is as ritualistic as it is helpless. And it doesn’t necessarily help the credibility of these political callers if they recite it like a litany of all these acts of violence. Litanies damage the credibility of politics.

I believe we have sufficient criminal law options to punish and prosecute acts of violence. But that is not enough. This is narrow, administratively bureaucratic thinking, and not particularly democratic, to believe: ever tougher laws create a solution. Because at some point we will wake up and live in an illiberal society of our own making.

Stricter laws do not change the willingness to radicalize, nor the distrust of politicians and among the people themselves. The horizontal loss of trust is particularly plaguing our societies.

“Be prepared to enter into debates and discourses”

tageschau.de: What steps do we need to take as a democratic society?

Merkel: We have to be ready to enter into debates and discourses. Day after day across milieus. We have to open our discourses. It is not enough to say every time: I am in possession of the right position, I am in possession of the truth, you are the fake producers. You are the ones who do not stand on the basis of the free-democratic basic order – and to top it off: you are fascists, we won’t talk to you. That’s the wrong way.

Tolerance is a painful thing. And we have to distinguish between who is a violent perpetrator, a right-wing ideologue and who is a follower or protest voter. We don’t need to exercise tolerance for the former. But in the latter case very well. The idea is one of discursive inclusion rather than verbal exclusion.

tagesschau.de: In your opinion, is there still a way back from this development?

Merkel: Naturally. History doesn’t always go in one direction. But political decision-makers must be asked to fulfill at least two points: They must present efficient solutions to the serious problems and these solutions must be fair. So they must be able to be understood by the overwhelming majority of the population as a fair solution and actually be one. Otherwise we will again have a situation in which it is said: These are the privileged ones, the aloof ones, the politicians up there.

We should understand history and social development in cycles rather than in clear, sloping or ascending levels. But what we are currently seeing is a shrinking of the sensible discourses that we have in our society – in foreign and domestic policy. A “friend-enemy mentality” prevailed. That’s the wrong way. Especially in dark times, it’s about reason and communicative action: in politics, society and the world of life.

The interview was conducted by Belinda Grasnick.