Analysis of the 2025 Bundestag elections. Part 2 of 4: Representativeness of the parties and the Bundestag

Andranick S. Tanguiane

No 168, Working Paper Series in Economics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management

Abstract: This is the second out of four papers on the 2025 German federal elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 Bundestag elections. We estimate the policy representation ability of the 29 parties that participated in the 2025 elections and of the 2025 Bundestag. For this purpose, the parties' Yes/No answers to 38 topical questions are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then the party indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority) are constructed. Assuming that the Bundestag position on the 38 issues is determined by the Bundestag majority, the Bundestag indices of popularity and universality are estimated as well. The main conclusion is that the representativeness of the parties in the Bundestag and the Bundestag as a whole (before coalition-formation) has significantly decreased since 2021. In particular, the former election winner, the SPD, is now ranked 16 instead of 4 in 2021, having the mean index (popularity + universality)/ 2 = 56.3% instead of 65 % in 2021, and the mean index of the Bundestag is now equal to 48.5% instead of the former 61.1%. As for the currently ruling coalition of the CDU/CSU + SPD, its compatibility of 52.8% is greater than that of the former ruling coalition of the SPD + GRÜNE + FDP1, which was equal to 45% (which resulted in the coalition collapse). The mean representativeness index of the current ruling coalition is however significantly lower (51.5% compared with the former 61%).

Keywords: Policy representation; representative democracy; direct democracy; elections; coalitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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