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Thesis Chapters by Josh Levesque

There are “Nazis again in parliament” (Associated Press, 2017). So said Green Party co-leaders Ce... more There are “Nazis again in parliament” (Associated Press, 2017). So said Green Party co-leaders Cem Özdemir and Katrin Goring-Eckardt as Germany’s Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany or AfD) claimed what can only be described as a victory in German parliament. Words that were hardly ever expected to be uttered again in Germany have now made headlines. With the September 24th, 2017 federal election, the AfD capitalized on its recent regional successes and entered Germany’s federal parliament—the first time a far-right party has done so in Germany since 1933. Founded in Dresden in 2013 on the basis of Euroscepticism, the AfD’s platform has since shifted to an emphasis on anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political discourse. In doing so, the AfD, along with their non-political arm PEGIDA, challenge the status quo of German collective identity articulated and reinforced by the dominant discourse of Germany’s two largest parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social-Democrat Party Deutschland (SPD). Not only has the AfD set a precedent for a far-right entry into Germany’s parliament, polling in at over 13% (Stone 2017), it has done so overwhelmingly, having taken its place as the third largest party in Germany in terms of seats held in the Bundestag. The question is: What explains the conditions of possibility for radical right-wing populism to re-emerge, given Germany’s history? In other words, how is it possible, for this position to be articulated? While many scholars offer up economic explanations or talk about how the political opportunity was right, none of those explanations offer up an understanding of how this rhetoric resonates with parts of the German population, despite efforts to completely bury such sentiments. Discourse helps to formulate and map conditions of possibility, and I argue that by mapping the changing discourses in Germany, we can trace how the changes in the conditions of possibility allowed for the success of the AfD and PEGIDA.

There are “Nazis again in parliament” (Associated Press, 2017). So said Green Party co-leaders Ce... more There are “Nazis again in parliament” (Associated Press, 2017). So said Green Party co-leaders Cem Özdemir and Katrin Goring-Eckardt as Germany’s Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany or AfD) claimed what can only be described as a victory in German parliament. Words that were hardly ever expected to be uttered again in Germany have now made headlines. With the September 24th, 2017 federal election, the AfD capitalized on its recent regional successes and entered Germany’s federal parliament—the first time a far-right party has done so in Germany since 1933. Founded in Dresden in 2013 on the basis of Euroscepticism, the AfD’s platform has since shifted to an emphasis on anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political discourse. In doing so, the AfD, along with their non-political arm PEGIDA, challenge the status quo of German collective identity articulated and reinforced by the dominant discourse of Germany’s two largest parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social-Democrat Party Deutschland (SPD). Not only has the AfD set a precedent for a far-right entry into Germany’s parliament, polling in at over 13% (Stone 2017), it has done so overwhelmingly, having taken its place as the third largest party in Germany in terms of seats held in the Bundestag. The question is: What explains the conditions of possibility for radical right-wing populism to re-emerge, given Germany’s history? In other words, how is it possible, for this position to be articulated? While many scholars offer up economic explanations or talk about how the political opportunity was right, none of those explanations offer up an understanding of how this rhetoric resonates with parts of the German population, despite efforts to completely bury such sentiments. Discourse helps to formulate and map conditions of possibility, and I argue that by mapping the changing discourses in Germany, we can trace how the changes in the conditions of possibility allowed for the success of the AfD and PEGIDA.