Snap Elections in Germany and the Fate of Europe

The American Council on Germany, NYU’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, and Deutsches Haus at NYU present “Snap Elections in Germany and the Fate of Europe,” a moderated conversation among Hans Kundnani (Boston University/London School of Economics) Rahsaan Maxwell (NYU), Joyce Mushaben (Georgetown University), and Steve Sokol (ACG).

At the end of last year, the coalition of the SPD, the FDP, and the Greens, which had been in power in Germany under the leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) since 2021, fell apart, leading to snap federal elections that are scheduled for February 23. The coalition partners had been increasingly at odds as they navigated complex domestic and international issues. Though the collapse of this three-party alliance did not come as a surprise to many observers it happened at a time of intense political challenges for Germany, the European Union, and the world at large. Given these circumstances, the question of how the German electorate will vote next month and what kind of new government this choice will bring about is of keen importance. The result of the German elections will, however, be hugely influential not only for the future of Europe but for the transatlantic relationship as well, which will also be shaped by the incoming U.S. government. This conversation will shed light on the factors that led to the demise of the coalition government, consider possible outcomes of the upcoming German election, and speculate about the fate of Europe (and beyond).

Hans Kundnani is an Open Society Ideas Workshop fellow, an adjunct professor at Boston University and a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics. He was previously the director of the Europe programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in London, a senior Transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a visiting fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York York University and a Bosch Public Policy Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, D.C. and has taught at the Collège d’Europe and at New York University. Hans is the author of three books: Eurowhiteness. Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (London: Hurst, 2023); The Paradox of German Power (London/New York: Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2014), which has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish; and Utopia or Auschwitz. Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (London/New York: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2009). He studied German and philosophy at Oxford University and journalism at Columbia University in New York, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He tweets @hanskundnani.

Rahsaan Maxwell (moderator) is a Professor in the Department of Politics at New York University, whose research focuses on a range of issues related to diversity, political behavior, national boundaries and immigration, mostly in Western Europe. He is currently writing a book on support for immigration in Europe.

Joyce Marie Mushaben received her Ph. D. from Indiana University in 1981. A Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Comparative Politics (Emerita) at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, she is now an Adjunct Faculty member in the BMW Center for German & European Studies at Georgetown University and serves on the International Advisory Board of Gender5 Plus, an EU-oriented feminist think-tank. Having spent over 18 years living and researching in Germany, her early work focused on new social movements (peace, ecology, feminism, anti-nuclear protests, neo-Nazi activism), German national identity and generational change. She then moved on to European Union developments involving women’s leadership, gender policies, citizenship, migration and asylum policies, Euro-Islam debates and comparative welfare state reforms. Her books and monograph publications include Identity without a Hinterland? Continuity and Change in National Consciousness in the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1989 (1993); The Changing Faces of Citizenship: Integration and Mobilization among Ethnic Minorities in Germany (2008);  Gendering the European Union: New Responses to Old Democratic Deficits (with Gabriele Abels) (2012); Becoming Madam Chancellor:  Angela Merkel and the Berlin Republic (2017); and What remains? The Dialectical Identities of Eastern Germans (2023). Her current book-in-progress is tentatively titled, Becoming Madam Europe: Ursula von der Leyen and the Pursuit of Gender Equality (forthcoming 2025).

Steven E. Sokol has been the President and CEO of the American Council on Germany since 2015. Previously, he served as President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and prior to that he was the Vice President and Director of Programs at the American Council on Germany. Earlier in his career, Dr. Sokol served as the Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, was the Head of the Project Management Department at the Bonn International Center for Conversion GmbH (BICC), and a Program Officer in the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Earlier in his career, he also was a Program Manager at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and was a paralegal at Fulbright & Jaworski. He holds a Doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University as well as an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. He has also studied at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Dr. Sokol serves on several non-profit boards and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was awarded a Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) for his work to strengthen German-American relations.