The failure of a political model, the exhaustion of a social compact, and the search for a democratic alternative
Across the Western world, election results are revealing a political shift that can no longer be dismissed as a passing wave of populism or a simple swing toward the extremes. Something more fundamental is happening. Centrism, understood not merely as a political position but as a governing philosophy and an organizing principle of public life, is facing a crisis of legitimacy. Parties that once occupied the commanding heights of politics-center-right, center-left, liberal and social democratic alike-are struggling to persuade voters that they still have the answers. Their authority is being challenged by growing public distrust, political disengagement and the rise of movements promising, in very different ways, to break with the established order.
This is not to suggest that every Western democracy is experiencing the same upheaval, or that voters everywhere are abandoning traditional parties at the same rate. National histories, electoral systems and economic circumstances differ. Yet a common pattern is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: a substantial number of citizens no longer believe that changing the government will meaningfully change their lives. Administrations come and go, campaign slogans evolve, political personalities are replaced, but the broad direction of economic policy remains remarkably consistent. The promise that each generation will enjoy a better life than the one before it-a promise that once helped sustain democratic legitimacy-has lost much of its credibility. For decades, centrism presented itself as the politics of reason: the middle ground between ideological extremes, the language of compromise, moderation and responsibility. It promised to reconcile economic efficiency with social justice, individual freedom with collective security, and private enterprise with the public interest. In practice, however, centrism increasingly came to mean something narrower. Governments of different political stripes converged around a largely shared economic framework: fiscal restraint, market liberalization, intensified competition, labor-market flexibility, lower taxes or lighter regulatory burdens for businesses, and an overriding concern with investor confidence.
These policies were not identical everywhere, nor were they implemented with the same intensity. But the convergence was real enough to shape public perceptions. Conservative governments defended it as economic realism. Center-left administrations often accepted its basic premises while promising to soften the consequences. The result was a political landscape in which voters could alternate between parties without necessarily being offered a meaningful alternative to the economic model itself. That convergence is now one of the principal sources of political disillusionment. For many voters, elections no longer seem to offer a genuine choice between competing visions of the economy and society. Parties may disagree sharply over immigration, crime, cultural questions or the role of the state in private life. Yet when it comes to the distribution of wealth, the balance between labor and capital, the future of public services or the limits of market power, the differences can appear surprisingly narrow. People vote for change and often find themselves confronted with a different administration pursuing much the same economic course.
The frustration is not simply psychological. It is rooted in decades of economic and social transformation. Globalization, industrial decline in many regions, insecure employment, stagnant wages for significant groups of workers, rising housing costs and the erosion of public services have altered the conditions under which millions of people live. Economic growth, when it occurs, does not necessarily translate into a better life for the majority. National indicators may look reassuring while households struggle with rent, medical bills, transportation costs and the price of basic necessities.
The condition of the middle class is central to this discussion, although it should not obscure the more precarious position of lower-income households. In its 2019 report, Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development documented a decline in the share of the population living in middle-income households across its member countries. On average, that share fell from 64 percent in the mid-1980s to 61 percent in the mid-2010s. The OECD also found that median incomes had grown more slowly than those of the wealthiest households, while the cost of essential elements of a middle-class lifestyle-housing in particular-had risen much faster than earnings.
These figures do not mean that the middle class has disappeared, or that every Western country has experienced the same pattern. They do, however, point to a weakening of the economic security that once underpinned middle-class confidence. More recent evidence on housing affordability reinforces the concern. Gallup reported in 2025 that, across OECD countries, a median of only 43 percent of respondents were satisfied with the availability of good, affordable housing in their communities in 2024. The figure was well below the levels recorded in many previous years. Housing is not merely another consumer expense. It is the foundation on which people build families, establish roots and plan for the future.
What is at stake, then, is not income alone. It is the ability to build a life with some measure of stability and predictability. For much of the postwar period, a steady job offered a reasonable prospect of securing a home, raising children, enjoying a degree of leisure and retiring without constant financial anxiety. Those expectations have become increasingly difficult to sustain. Younger generations, in particular, are discovering that a college degree does not guarantee a job commensurate with their qualifications, that homeownership is beyond reach in many urban areas, and that hard work does not always lead to greater security. Social mobility, long regarded as one of the defining promises of Western democracies, has become more uncertain.
It is therefore a mistake to dismiss protest voting as irrational, or to explain it away as the product of misinformation and political manipulation. There is genuine social anger, and it has identifiable causes. When people feel they are working harder for less, paying taxes without receiving public services that meet their needs, or struggling to give their children opportunities that previous generations took for granted, confidence in democratic institutions begins to erode. Democracy cannot survive indefinitely on the promise of stability. It must also demonstrate that it can improve people’s lives.
Access to health care, education, transportation, affordable food and decent housing is not a secondary concern. It is the material foundation of citizenship. In many countries, long waits for medical treatment, shortages of doctors, overstretched hospitals and deep regional disparities have reinforced a sense of abandonment. Similar concerns arise around public schools, public transportation, local infrastructure and basic government services. Citizens are not necessarily demanding an all-powerful state. They are asking for a government capable of fulfilling the essential responsibilities that justify its existence. Yet over several decades, much of the political debate has increasingly equated responsible government with cutting spending and constantly searching for savings. Fiscal discipline matters. No country can indefinitely ignore its debt, and not every public expenditure is automatically justified. But deficit reduction is not, by itself, an economic or social vision. When fiscal consolidation weakens hospitals, schools, research institutions, transportation networks or essential infrastructure, the long-term cost to society can outweigh the short-term savings.
The issue is not whether governments should spend responsibly. It is what they choose to protect, what they choose to neglect, and whose interests ultimately guide those decisions. Public investment in health, education, housing, research and infrastructure should not be treated simply as a burden on the public accounts. These are investments in the productive capacity, social cohesion and long-term resilience of a country. A government that cuts the foundations of future prosperity in order to improve the appearance of its immediate finances may be balancing its books while weakening the nation.
The growing influence of private economic interests over public policy also deserves closer scrutiny. Businesses play an essential role in creating wealth, innovation and jobs. That is beyond dispute. But the prosperity of corporations does not automatically translate into prosperity for society as a whole. When productivity gains fail to produce meaningful improvements in wages, when profits are directed disproportionately toward dividends and financial returns rather than productive investment, and when essential services become inaccessible to growing sections of the population, an imbalance takes hold. The problem is not the existence of markets. It is the assumption that market logic should determine almost every aspect of human life. This has created a fundamental contradiction at the heart of centrist politics. Political leaders regularly call for national cohesion, individual responsibility and collective effort. Yet they sometimes accept as inevitable the inequalities that make such effort increasingly difficult for large parts of society. They ask citizens to adapt to economic change without always providing the protections, training and investment needed to prevent adaptation from becoming a form of social regression. They celebrate freedom of choice while neglecting the material conditions that make genuine freedom possible. Europe offers a particularly revealing case study. The European Union cannot be held solely responsible for the economic and social difficulties facing its member states. National governments retain substantial authority over taxation, housing, health care, education and the organization of public services. But it would be equally misleading to pretend that the European framework has no influence over national economic choices. European integration has progressively organized a significant part of economic policymaking around fiscal discipline, monetary stability, market competition and the integration of national economies. These principles helped create a common economic space and brought substantial benefits. They have also, in certain circumstances, narrowed the room available to governments seeking to pursue different economic strategies.
The reform of the European Union’s economic governance framework, adopted in 2024, illustrates the tension. The new rules introduced national medium-term fiscal plans and allow adjustment periods to be extended, in some circumstances, in exchange for commitments to reforms and investment. European institutions have defended the reform as a way to reconcile sustainable public finances with growth and long-term investment. It would therefore be inaccurate to describe it as a straightforward return to the austerity policies of the past. Nevertheless, the underlying question remains: will member states have sufficient flexibility to finance the social, industrial, technological and environmental transformations they urgently need? Or will the pressure to reduce public debt once again push long-term investment behind immediate budgetary targets?
Europe cannot be reduced to a common market, a single currency and a collection of fiscal rules. It must also be a political and social project. Yet many Europeans have come to feel that major economic decisions are made at a distance, expressed in technical language and presented as necessities from which there is no escape. When economic choices are effectively removed from democratic debate, the European Union risks appearing not as a source of protection and solidarity, but as another constraint imposed on its citizens.
This is especially troubling because the challenges facing Europe require precisely the kind of ambitious collective action that the Union was designed to make possible. The energy transition, industrial renewal, scientific research, defense, secure supply chains, agricultural policy and the fight against inequality cannot be addressed effectively through a loose collection of national initiatives. They require common investment, a coherent industrial strategy and genuine solidarity among member states. The point is not to set fiscal responsibility against public investment. It is to recognize that the quality of public spending, and its contribution to Europe’s future, must matter as much as its immediate cost.
The political stakes are considerable. If the European Union cannot demonstrate that it protects its citizens through economic transformation, international crises and growing inequality, it will leave the field open to those who advocate abandoning or dismantling the European project. The answer cannot be to dismiss every criticism of the Union’s current economic arrangements as populism or nationalism. Democratic scrutiny of European policy is legitimate. Indeed, it may be essential to the Union’s political survival. The European elections of June 2024 exposed the scale of the challenge. Right-wing and far-right parties made gains in several countries, while liberal and Green groups lost ground. The center-right European People’s Party remained the largest political group, and the combined strength of the main pro-European parties was sufficient to preserve a parliamentary majority. But the balance of power had shifted. The far right had strengthened its position, while the liberal Renew Europe group and the Greens suffered significant losses. The result was not the disappearance of the European political center. It was evidence that its authority could no longer be taken for granted.
France made the crisis particularly visible. President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly after the June 2024 European elections, followed by the legislative elections that summer, exposed the fragility of his governing coalition and the fragmentation of the political landscape. In the United States, Donald Trump’s victory in the November 2024 presidential election demonstrated, in a different national context, the power of a disruptive political message to mobilize voters who no longer identify with traditional parties or institutions. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany party made significant gains in the 2024 European elections. Other European countries have seen nationalist and radical movements become durable features of their political systems.
These developments should not be treated as interchangeable. The American political system is not the European parliamentary system, and the motivations of voters in France, Germany or the United States are not identical. But across these different contexts, a common question emerges: why are so many citizens prepared to support movements that promise to overturn the political arrangements that have governed their countries for decades? Centrist parties often answer by framing the choice as one between reason and irresponsibility, moderation and extremism. It is a convenient argument, but it avoids the more difficult question: why have voters lost confidence in parties that claim to represent the only responsible way to govern? Condemning public anger is not enough. Its causes must be understood. Defending democratic institutions is not enough, either. Those institutions must regain the capacity to act and the social legitimacy on which their authority depends. Immigration has become one of the most powerful and divisive issues in this political realignment. It now occupies such a prominent place in public debate that it can overshadow economic and social questions. Pressures on housing, schools, public services and employment are frequently attributed to immigration, even though they also reflect long-standing failures of planning, investment and economic policy. There is a legitimate need to debate immigration levels, border management, integration, the capacity of public institutions and the resources required to support newcomers. Refusing to acknowledge those questions is politically naïve. But immigration policy cannot serve as a substitute for social and economic policy.
Treating immigration as the universal explanation for the problems facing Western societies shifts responsibility away from the political and economic decisions that helped create them. It diverts attention from the distribution of wealth, the structure of taxation, housing policy, industrial decline, labor conditions and the funding of public services. At the same time, refusing to discuss practical difficulties associated with immigration leaves the issue to movements that exploit it as their principal instrument of political mobilization. A mature democracy must be able to address these questions without generalization, stigmatization or manipulation.
The growth of the radical right is driven by several forces that reinforce one another: economic insecurity, a sense of downward mobility, distrust of institutions, cultural tensions, fear of the future and resentment toward political elites. Nationalist movements have often proved effective at turning these anxieties into a simple narrative: the nation is under threat from outside forces and from leaders incapable of defending it. Their electoral success does not make their diagnosis correct, nor does it mean their proposed solutions can resolve the problems they identify. But it would be dangerous to believe that moral condemnation alone will make the underlying causes of their appeal disappear.
The left, meanwhile, faces a historic responsibility. It cannot regain lasting credibility simply by defending the achievements of the past or offering a slightly modified version of centrist economic policy. It must present a coherent program that addresses people’s everyday concerns: wages, housing, health care, schools, transportation, economic security, taxation, working conditions and the prospects of younger generations. It must also demonstrate that social justice and the ecological transition are not competing priorities, but complementary parts of a common vision for society. It is revealing that proposals challenging established economic assumptions are so often branded as extreme. Political language is never neutral. Describing every proposal for greater redistribution, stronger public services or a reassessment of market mechanisms as “far left” can become a way of avoiding the substance of the debate. The label is made to do the work of an argument. This does not mean that every left-wing proposal is reasonable, financially sound or workable. Such proposals should be examined with the same rigor applied to those of other political movements. But a democratic debate requires that the existing economic order can be challenged without the challenge itself being dismissed as illegitimate.
Social democratic parties bear particular responsibility. By accepting many of the basic assumptions of economic liberalism while promising to soften its harshest consequences, they have sometimes blurred their own political identity. Some of their traditional working-class voters have consequently concluded that these parties no longer offer a meaningful alternative. This is not exclusively a French phenomenon. It reflects a broader transformation of European social democracy, which has struggled to reconcile international competitiveness, European integration, social protection and popular expectations. The answer is not to recreate an industrial world that no longer exists. It is to develop a credible politics of social progress suited to contemporary economic realities.
But criticism of centrism should not be confused with a rejection of moderation itself. Compromise is essential to democracy. Pluralistic societies cannot function indefinitely through the permanent victory of one political camp over all others. Yet compromise is meaningful only when it reconciles competing interests and produces outcomes that people can reasonably accept. When it becomes a mechanism for preserving the same economic arrangements, regardless of the costs borne by those least able to absorb them, it ceases to be a democratic virtue. Moderation cannot mean paralysis, any more than responsibility can mean simply accepting the constraints of the existing system. There is another question that deserves attention: what becomes of individual freedom when the material conditions needed to exercise it steadily deteriorate? Freedom is not limited to the right to vote, express an opinion or start a business. It also means being able to obtain medical care without financial ruin, get around, find a place to live, receive an education, choose one’s occupation and avoid becoming entirely dependent on an employer or on the financial circumstances of one’s family. A society can preserve the formal institutions of political freedom while allowing economic dependencies to grow to the point where those freedoms become increasingly hollow.
The treatment of social protest provides another measure of this crisis. In several European countries, demonstrations and civic movements have faced restrictions, surveillance and police interventions that have raised serious questions about the protection of civil liberties. In a report published in July 2024 examining the right to protest in 21 European countries, Amnesty International documented patterns that included stigmatizing rhetoric, restrictions on peaceful assembly, unnecessary or excessive force, arbitrary arrests and intrusive surveillance. This does not mean that every police intervention is illegitimate. Public authorities have a duty to protect people and prevent violence. But the distinction between maintaining public order and imposing disproportionate restrictions on civil liberties must remain at the heart of the rule of law.
When governments appear more concerned with controlling dissent than understanding its causes, they deepen the distrust they claim to be fighting. A demonstration is not necessarily a threat to democracy. It can be one of democracy’s most direct expressions, particularly when citizens feel that ordinary channels of political representation no longer allow them to be heard. The democratic response to protest cannot be exclusively police-based or judicial. It must also be political: listening, negotiating, explaining and, when necessary, changing course.
The crisis of centrism is therefore, at its core, a crisis of representation. Traditional parties have sometimes lost sight of the distance separating them from large sections of the population. They continue to speak about competitiveness, credit ratings, structural reforms and fiscal credibility, while citizens speak about rent, bills, medical appointments, transportation and wages. These concerns are not incompatible. But the two worlds no longer meet often enough. Politics risks becoming an exercise in public relations, in which governments try to persuade people that their decisions are necessary rather than demonstrate that those decisions serve the public interest. Changing political leaders or rearranging electoral alliances will not, by itself, resolve this impasse. A genuine renewal requires putting social conditions back at the center of public policy. That means reconsidering taxation, reducing inequality, guaranteeing effective access to essential services, investing in education and health care, developing an ambitious housing policy and restoring a better balance between the returns to labor and the returns to capital. It also means giving local communities the resources to shape their own economic futures, rather than allowing the divide between prosperous metropolitan areas and neglected regions to grow wider.
A long-term industrial strategy is equally essential. The energy transition and technological transformation cannot be left entirely to market forces. They require investment, education and retraining, protections for workers, and a strategy for economic resilience that does not become a justification for national isolation. Europe has considerable potential in this regard. Its common market, scientific capabilities, infrastructure and human resources could provide the foundation for a shared industrial and social project. But that will require collective priorities that go beyond competition among member states.
A renewed European project should rest on several straightforward principles: the capacity to make common investments in essential public goods, a coordinated industrial policy, stronger protections for workers, meaningful social convergence among member states, and more transparent democratic oversight of economic decisions. This does not require ignoring financial constraints. It requires recognizing that rules are instruments designed to serve political objectives, not ends in themselves. A Europe capable only of asking sacrifices of its citizens, without offering them a shared sense of purpose or a credible future, will eventually lose the public support on which its existence depends.
Ultimately, the meaning of political action itself must be restored. Governing is not simply a matter of managing inherited arrangements or reassuring financial markets. It means choosing a collective direction, balancing competing interests and accepting responsibility for those choices before the electorate. Public policy cannot be judged solely by whether it meets accounting targets. It must also be evaluated by its effects on people’s lives, the cohesion of society and the ability of future generations to build a secure and meaningful existence. The decline of centrism is not necessarily desirable if it leads to permanent polarization, authoritarianism or increasingly simplistic political debate. Nor is the disappearance of the political center inevitable. But the end of its intellectual and political dominance could create an opportunity for democratic renewal. Centrist parties will not regain credibility by repeatedly warning that their opponents are dangerous or irresponsible. They will regain it only by reconsidering their own choices and acknowledging that policies defended in the name of realism have sometimes produced insecurity, frustration and deepening inequality.
Western democracies now face a choice that goes beyond the traditional divide between left and right. They can rebuild a social compact grounded in protection, justice, freedom and democratic participation. Or they can allow an increasingly bitter confrontation to take hold between populations that no longer trust their institutions and political forces that claim to speak for them without necessarily offering lasting solutions. The challenge is not to replace one dogma with another, or to substitute one economic orthodoxy for an ideological one. It is to restore politics to its fundamental purpose: enabling a society to decide collectively what kind of future it wants. Citizens are not necessarily asking for miracles. They want their work to provide a decent standard of living, their children to have a better future, public services to meet their needs and their voices to count in the decisions that shape their lives.
For a long time, centrism claimed to represent the point of balance between the competing aspirations of Western societies. But an equilibrium that no longer adequately protects the vulnerable, allows inequality to widen and progressively narrows the scope of democratic choice cannot remain legitimate indefinitely. By insisting that its policies were the only possible ones, centrism helped make the case that a break with the existing order had become necessary.
The greatest danger facing Western democracies may not, then, be the disappearance of the political center. It may be that, in its determination to preserve an economic order presented as inevitable, centrism has helped make its own rejection inevitable. The question now is not simply who will govern tomorrow, but whose interests they will serve, what priorities they will pursue and what kind of society they intend to build. That is the question any political movement claiming to offer a genuine alternative will have to answer.
References and documentary sources
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class, OECD Publishing, May 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1787/689afed1-en
Gallup, Benedict Vigers and John Reimnitz, “Housing Affordability Crisis Hits Wealthy Economies,” April 29, 2025. https://news.gallup.com/poll/659834/housing-affordability-crisis-hits-wealthy-economies.aspx
European Parliament, “2024 European Election Results,” composition of the Parliament for the 2024–2029 term. https://results.elections.europa.eu/en/european-results/2024-2029/
Congressional Research Service, “The June 2024 European Parliament Elections,” Insight IN12361, updated July 2024. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF/IN12361/IN12361.4.pdf
Council of the European Union, “Economic Governance Review: Council Adopts Reform of Fiscal Rules,” April 29, 2024. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/04/29/economic-governance-review-council-adopts-reform-of-fiscal-rules/
Amnesty International, Europe: Under Protected and Over Restricted: The State of the Right to Protest in 21 European Countries, July 8, 2024. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur01/8199/2024/en/