Political psychology: Why extremist parties are thriving and what democratic politicians can do against it

On September 6, 2026, Germany's eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt held elections for its state parliament. The big winner: The right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, which garnered 43.8% of the votes; more than ever before.

It's still unclear who will govern the state because the AfD does not have an absolute majority.

But it was a landslide win for the AfD, whose Saxony-Anhalt branch is classified as right-wing extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, and that worries many Germans.

The day after the election, Chancellor Friedrich Merz from the conservative CDU said he was "deeply shocked" by the election results. "Not only did something change in Saxony-Anhalt yesterday but throughout all of Germany."

Merz's CDU lost more than half its share of the ballot compared to the last state election in Saxony-Anhalt. The CDU dropped from 37.1% in 2021 to 17.2% in 2026.

Two weeks later, at state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20, 2026, the CDU didn't even make the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

It was the first time ever for the CDU; they got only 4.9% of the vote in the northeastern state. The strongest party was once again the AfD with 38.2%.

That same day, in the city state of Berlin, the socialist Left Party won the election and will likely govern Germany's capital. In Berlin, the CDU was the second-strongest party and the AfD came in third. 

Why Germany's political center is losing ground

Germans worried about rise of far-right and far-left parties

These state elections show that parties on the extreme ends of the political spectrum are growing stronger in Germany.

The country has experience with both extreme right- and left-wing governments: the Nazis that led Germany into World War II and the Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ruled then-East Germany from 1949 until 1989.

A return to extreme politics is a scary proposition for some people.

In a representative monthly survey called "What worries the world?", the polling institute IPSOS found that almost one fifth of Germans (18%) said they were worried by growing extremism in the country when they asked about 1,000 people between the ages of 16 and 74 years in March and April 2026.

Generally, people in Germany are concerned about where their country is going. In the IPSOS survey, 82% said they saw Germany as moving in the wrong direction.

How to measure a country's mood

Asking people about their fears or worries is just one way to take the nation's temperature.

But there are many ways to measure politically relevant emotions in the population. 

Kerstin Pahl, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, told DW that possibilities include quantitative and qualitative surveys, as well as analyzing online discourse and the content people share on social media. It's also possible to read a nation's sentiment by observing real-life displays of emotions, like public protests and demonstrations.

For researchers like Pahl, it's also interesting to see how political issues can come to symbolize much more than their material or factual meaning.

"People may see their region's ailing infrastructure not just as proof of a lack of investment, but also as a sign that they have been forgotten [by their leaders]," said Pahl.

Affective polarization: political opponents become the enemy

Extremist parties winning a higher percentage of the votes is what we see on the surface. Below that lie two kinds of societal polarization: Affective and ideological polarization.

"Affective polarization is a growing hatred for the political opponent. Most studies investigated this in the context of the US between supporters of the Democrat and the Republican Party," Eva Walther, head of the social psychology department at the University of Trier, Germany, told DW. "When this happens on the party level, it's a problem."

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Politicians of different parties often have to work together and reach compromises. They don't need to like each other, but they should treat each other with respect, Walther says.

"When this respectful attitude starts crumbling, it's a problem for democracy," she added.

Ideological polarization: Which problem is the most pressing?

The other phenomenon, ideological polarization, is when society is split into distinct groups based on what issues people view as the most pressing problem for them.

For example, many people to the right of the political center in Germany see migration as the biggest problem, while many people to the left of the political center say it's the climate crisis.

When different crisis situations occur at the same time, such as migration and climate change, researchers refer to "poly-crises".

Poly-crises intensify ideological polarization, making it even harder for societies to find a common way forward.

"At the moment, we have the climate crisis overlapping with an affordable-energy-crisis, more of an economic problem," Walther said.

In the eyes of those for whom the climate crisis is the most urgent issue, fossil fuels should be abandoned as soon as possible. But for those most concerned with affordable energy, relying only on renewable energy sources would needlessly raise prices.

People want politicians to take their problems seriously

The belief that a politician is competent and willing to tackle major challenges, to act, is a big factor in how much people trust democracy.

But that's also what makes overlapping crises so hard to manage: No matter which problems politicians attempt to solve first, one part of the population will be disappointed.

"Poly-crises make it difficult for politicians to act, which means that people have less trust that politicians can solve the problems important to them," Walther said.

Right-wing extremist parties, however, aim to "satisfy people by giving them simplified answers to complex problems," added Walther.

This leads people to believe that extremist politicians can solve their problems ― which in turn leads to growing polarization.

But politicians from democratic parties can learn from clinical research to tackle this dilemma, according to Walther.

"When a person is in pain and goes to see a doctor, it's important that the doctor recognizes the patient's pain," she said.

Even if the doctor can't instantly solve the issue and make the pain go away, showing that they take the issue and the patient seriously is crucial. And the same goes for politicians.

"They need to make people's needs the first priority in their daily work," Walther said. "People want to be seen, so it's important for politicians to make it clear that they see and understand their problems."

Whether it's a doctor failing a patient or politicians failing the electorate, patient and electorate are likely to scream — and that's a signal we can all read.