Disenchantment with Politics (November 2025)

The survey on political apathy was conducted by infratest dimap on behalf of the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government. During the survey period from November 10, 2025, to November 30, 2025, the German-speaking population aged 14 and older in private households was surveyed in 750 telephone interviews (CATI) and 769 online interviews (CAWI) on the following topics: Attitudes toward democracy and politics, reasons for distrust (political, social, and economic, or personal and life-related), political information-seeking behavior, and the Federal Government’s communication. Respondents were selected through random sampling (RDD method for telephone surveys, stratified random sampling for online surveys). The findings are supplemented by results from 30 qualitative online individual interviews with politically disengaged and disillusioned individuals aged 18 and older, which Ipsos conducted on behalf of the Federal Press Office. 1. Relationship to democracy and politics: interest in politics; awareness of political issues; satisfaction with democracy; views on democracy as a form of government; Implementation of various aspects of democracy in Germany (courts treat all people equally; parliamentary elections are free and fair; courts can prevent those in power from exceeding their authority; the rights of minorities are protected; the various political parties are clearly distinct from one another; the media have the right to criticize the government; the government follows the will of the people; politicians are attentive to people’s problems; everyone has the right to freedom of expression); politics and political self-perceptions (core segmentation questions); agreement with various statements regarding performance evaluations (All in all, I am satisfied with politics in Germany; German democracy works well on the whole), perceptions of responsiveness (politicians care about the well-being of our country; the parties only want voters’ votes—they aren’t interested in their views; politicians address issues that are important to our country) and political self-efficacy (people like me have no influence on our country’s politics anyway; politics is so complicated that you can’t understand what’s going on; I’m very interested in politics, I have more important things to do than concern myself with politics). 2. Reasons for distrust: political, social, economic: Moments of political disappointment; moments of political disappointment (open-ended), party affiliation. 3. Reasons for distrust: personal, life-course-related: Overall life satisfaction and satisfaction in the following areas: income or financial situation, health status, relationships with family and friends, professional situation; the influence of politics on individual life satisfaction; life transitions; life transitions (open-ended); social trust (in general, most people can be trusted; in reality, most people don’t really care what happens to their fellow human beings, there is a strong sense of solidarity in our society); most important problems in Germany (open-ended). 4. Political Information Behavior: Frequency of use of various media for political topics (e.g., public television, private television channels, radio, etc.), everyday political communication: Frequency of everyday political communication in various settings (at work, at school or college, in personal conversations with friends, within the family, while using social media online, during leisure time or hobbies); democratic attitudes within one’s own communication circle; credibility: conspiracy theories vs. official narratives. 5. Federal Government Communication: Use of the federal government’s information resources in recent months (on the federal government’s websites, on the federal government’s social media pages, in federal government brochures or magazines, on federal government posters, from interviews with government officials on television, in newspapers, or online); overall assessment of the federal government’s information resources; reasons for criticism of the federal government’s information resources (open-ended). Demography: Age; sex; household size: number of people in the household, number of children in the household; highest level of education attained; desired level of education; employment status or occupation; migration background of the respondent or their parents; net household income; assessment of net household income (ability to make ends meet). The following were additionally coded: Interview number; sample (CATI/CAWI); city/county; federal state; location size (political municipality size, BIK municipality type); weighting factor; segmentation of political attitudes.