"Advanced democracies increasingly operate under a deficit-populism double bind, understood as a structural no-win situation where centrist parties are caught between the imperative of fiscal sustainability and strong social and political demands for more spending, in a context where populists exploit any move they make. Citizens demand new social protection and investments in response to globalisation, climate change, demographic ageing and digitalisation, while high public debt and tax competition severely constrain governments' fiscal room for manoeuvre. This article diagnoses how these pressures, together with rising zero-sum thinking, feed populist narratives and push centrist parties towards symbolic politics. Building on contemporary ordoliberalism in the tradition of the Freiburg School, we sketch an alternative reform agenda. It places institutional deficits at both the lower and upper ends of the income and power distribution centre stage, and advocates strengthening competition, the rule of law and subsidiarity while broadening citizen and consumer sovereignty. We argue that an updated ordoliberalism can foster inclusive, positive-sum thinking among citizens and thereby help to stabilise liberal democracy under conditions of permanent stress."

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