Membership boom in parties: Five insights in graphics

For decades, this trend was considered virtually irreversible: The number of Germans involved in political parties continues to decline. The collapse of the traffic light coalition last November changed the situation for the first time. This is shown by new data compiled by Berlin political scientist Oskar Niedermayer for his comprehensive annual party study, which has been made available to the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND). They provide insight into membership trends, regional roots, and the social structure of the parties. Five key findings at a glance:

On the evening of November 6, 2024, the traffic light coalition collapsed when SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his Finance Minister Christian Lindner and announced new elections. This prospect apparently led to a mobilization unseen for a long time: Just weeks after the end of the traffic light coalition, individual parties reported record numbers of new members.

The final statistics show: At the end of 2024, membership numbers across all Bundestag parties had increased by 3.2 percent compared to the previous year.

It may sound small, but it's historic: Such an increase hasn't been seen in a quarter of a century. Since census records began in 1990, membership numbers have steadily declined, with tiny exceptions in the election years of 2013 and 2017. The 2021 election campaign, which brought the traffic light coalition to power, failed to mobilize even a significant number of voters.

However, the historic increase did not affect all parties. The AfD saw the largest increase, with membership increasing by around 30 percent in 2024. A similar increase was already seen in 2023. The AfD evidently benefited from the frustration and crises of the traffic light coalition era.

The Greens also recruited strong members in 2024, with an increase of 23 percent. This trend had begun in 2017, but was interrupted by a two-year stagnation during the traffic light years. The Left Party also gained members: +17 percent.

The losers include the two other traffic light parties, the SPD and the FDP. The Social Democrats' membership decline continued at roughly the same pace as in previous years, costing them their position as the party with the most members. That party is now the CDU again. However, on balance, both parties have been losing members for decades.

The already small FDP lost around 6 percent of its members in 2024 - in contrast to the election year 2021, when the Liberals had grown by a good 17 percent.

Women make up about half of the population, but they remain underrepresented in the political parties: Nowhere do they even come close to 50 percent of membership, except in the Green Party, where 45 percent are female. The Left Party accounts for 40 percent, and the SPD for about a third.

The AfD and FDP have the lowest female representation, with only one-fifth of their membership. This gender structure is reflected in the parties' electorate.

Younger people also play a smaller role in the parties. In the CDU/CSU and SPD, more than 40 percent are older than 65, and about a tenth are under 35. The Left Party is comparatively young (a good 40 percent younger than 35), and the Greens also have a rather young age structure, with relatively few people over 65.

The large number of young people in the Left Party makes it the "youngest" party, with an average age of 45. The SPD is the "oldest" party at 63. Between them are the CDU and CSU at 61, the AfD at 54, the FDP at 50, and the Greens at 49.

An East-West divide is evident across all parties: there are significantly fewer party members per 1,000 inhabitants in East Germany than in the West.

This also applies to the AfD. Relative to population, membership is significantly smaller in all eastern states than in the west – even though it receives much higher vote shares in the east. Apparently, even the AfD is having trouble recruiting staff in the east.

The finding is consistent with a political science observation: In the territory of the former GDR, the commitment to individual parties is much less pronounced than in the old federal states – not only in voting behavior, but apparently also in personal involvement in parties.

Social scientists see the reasons for this in different experiences of democracy: For decades, East Germans experienced parties not as a “transmission belt” of democracy, but as an instrument of a dictatorship.

Even their original democratic experience, the peaceful revolution of 1989, was not mediated by political parties. Unlike in the post-war West, democratization did not occur as a process driven by "popular parties." In the lasting perception of many East Germans, it emerged from an act of self-empowerment by the people.