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Who Governs in Deep Crises?

The Case of Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Wolfgang Merkel
Wolfgang Merkel*
Affiliation:
Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) and Humbolt University Berlin, Germany
*
E-mail: wolfgang.merkel@wzb.edu
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Abstract

The Berlin Republic of today is neither Weimar (1918–1932) nor Bonn (1949–1990). It is by all standards the best democracy ever on German soil. Nevertheless, during the COVID-19 crisis there was a shift from democracy as a mode of governance to what the controversial legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1922) affirmingly described as a “state of exception”; a state that is desired and approved by the people (through opinion polls). It was the hour of the executive. The parliament disempowered itself. There was very little, if any, contestation or deliberation during the first eight weeks of the COVID-19 crisis. This article reflects on the implications of this mode of governance on institutions and actors of democracy in Germany, and offers a way of assessing the wellbeing of democracies in times of deep crisis.

Keywords

authoritarian personalityCoronavirusCOVIDcritical citizencrisis of democracydemocratic sovereigntystate of exception

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