Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller, “Making Sense of the Unprecedented 2021 German Elections”

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Well before voting day in Germany on September 26, this election was already breaking historical records: Angela Merkel, the country’s longest-serving chancellor, is the first incumbent not to run again; for the first time, there are not two but three candidates from three parties to succeed her — all of whom have been frontrunners in the polls. Also for the first time, the next coalition government is likely to involve not two but three parties, in an unprecedented number of variations. Never has it been so difficult to predict who will be Germany’s next leader, and how s/he will govern, and with whom. What will all this uncertainty mean for Germany, for Europe — and for American purposes?

Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller is an expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy. She is the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. From March 2020 to December 2020, she was a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe. She held the Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress from October 2019 to March 2020. She served as the inaugural Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at Brookings from 2014 to 2019. Previously, she worked at the German Marshall Fund and at the German wekly newspaper DIE ZEIT.

Nils Ringe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence for Comparative Populism. His research and teaching interests are European Union politics (in particular the institutions of the EU), legislatures, political parties, social networks, and elections.

Co-sponsored by the Jean Monnet European Union Center of Excellence for Comparative Populism and the Center for German and European Studies.