Alternative für Deutschland. From the streets to the Parliament? (original) (raw)
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The State of Populism in Europe in 2017
The year 2017 was marked by important symbolic changes in German politics. For the first time in the history of the Bundesrepublik, the right-wing populist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland/Alternative for Germany) was able to enter the German federal parliament, the Bundestag, receiving 12.6% of the votes cast.110 However, in spite of the party’s aggressive propaganda touting its own success, and the temporary doomsday mood in the German and European public, the electoral support and political influence of right-wing populist players is far more limited in Germany than in several key western and northern democracies. On the one hand, AfD has definitely shifted the party-system’s and party competition’s centre of gravity to the right, and its parliamentary presence contributes significantly to the fragmentation of the party-system and to the increased complexity of government formation. On the other hand, AfD’s electoral support remained far below its high-water mark of 16-17%, measured in the polls during the summer and autumn of 2016. As it is effectively held in political quarantine by all other parties, and since those votes that express systemic protest remain divided between right-wing and left populist parties (Die Linke/The Left Party), the AfD’s influence on national politics remains modest in comparison with several other European radical right-wing populist parties. Although the German party system is definitely moving closer and closer to the Austrian model, instead of resorting to exaggeration or moral panic, the challenge posed by AfD should be treated with a sense of proportion. Radical right-wing populism in Germany is catching up, but it still plays only at the bottom of the European league.
The Political Quarterly, 2020
The article sheds light on one of the key developments in recent German politics and relates it to the broader debate on the electoral success of the far right. The rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany) is also a story about Germany's internal political divide three decades after 'reunification' as the party is about twice as strong in the east than in the west. The article analyses the country's east-west divide, strongly visible in widespread sentiments of societal marginalization among eastern Germans. The key socio-structural differences between the east and the west relate to matters of economics, migration, and representation-and provide a setting suitable to AfD strength in the east. In explaining the party's electoral success in eastern Germany, the article echoes recent scholarship rejecting narrow explanations for the strength of 'populism', and instead highlights its multiple causes.
The Role of Historical Memory: The Development of Populism in Germany and France
2017
This dissertation intends to explore possible reasons for the observed discrepancy between the popularity and electoral success of right-wing populist parties in France, from 1980 to 2017, and the relative failure of similar parties in Germany during the same period. To this end, the effects and persistence of populist parties in both countries will be compared, and it will be argued here that the main determining factor in the success of populist movements will be due to each nation’s historical context, the nature of each nation’s dominant historical discourse, and the manner in which national identity is constructed. In the extant literature, the rise of populism is generally attributed to either economic or sociological factors. By utilising Mill’s method of difference, this dissertation aims to show that neither of these previous explanations are useful for understanding the varying popularity of right-wing populism in two countries where the underlying economic and sociological conditions are essentially similar. In this dissertation, the method of process-tracing will be applied to these historical factors, in order to understand how the trauma of Nazism in Germany has come to stigmatize populist discourse, and how such stigmatization is absent in contemporary France. In contrast, the positive image that the French hold regarding the country’s colonial legacy, as well as the white-washing of the actions of the fascist Vichy Regime, have allowed right-wing populist movements to gain a far stronger presence in French politics, especially when compared to the situation in neighbouring Germany. In addition to this, an in-case comparison between the states of former East and West Germany, will be conducted in order to strengthen our understanding of the importance of common historical narratives for the rise of populism.
Let the people rule! Definitions and theories of populism (April 2017)
Liberal democracies are in a fragile state. Simplistic populist messages of us vs. them with often-xenophobic undertones and attempts to undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions can count on a receptive audience and a transformed (social) media landscape in Europe. In some countries such as France and Austria populist parties have moved beyond the fringe and have run as serious contenders in nationwide elections, in Hungary and Poland they actually govern. A considerable part of the European population could imagine living in authoritarian systems. They find some aspects of such governance appealing, such as tight surveillance, compromised individual liberties, and uniform structures of society, and look admiringly for current and historical role models. For some this echoes the 1930s, when fascism in Europe was on the rise and received considerable support from sympathisers even within developed democracies, such as the British Union of Fascist of Oswald Mosley or Charles Lindberg, who played an influential role in the isolationist America First Committee in the USA. Nonetheless, to compare today’s populists with yesterday’s fascists is a stretch, though. One might argue that it is even slanderous, given their still limited role, more benign attitudes and some legitimate concerns they articulate. Still, the challenges for liberal democracies are real and are at the heart of the analysis in this collaborative volume by researchers from CIDOB and other think tanks and institutions.
New Populism in Germany - Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
2020
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is reaping more success today in Germany than the other parties in the political sphere. In this present work I intend to approach this new and successful party that arises from the right (its founding members belonged to the CDU) but is considered from the beginning a populist, Eurosceptic and anti-systemic party. I will first define three basic concepts: populism, anti-system parties and Euroscepticism, and then I will immerse myself fully in the historical events that date back to 2010 which led to the formation of AfD. Later I will mention the refugee crisis of 2015 that made this party reach its highest peak in the Bundestag elections in 2017 and finally I will analyze the present of the party, its last designation of presidents and then I inquire about AfD voters in Germany: what are their interests and what moves them to vote for a right-wing party, with a radical and extremist tendency, a phenomenon that has not happened in Germany since World War II. Undoubtedly, for this work there was a lot of research in academic articles, essays, books in paper and electronic versions and mainly in German and other newspapers, that showed from the zero hour the impact that gave AfD in the German society, in Merkel’s government and in the rest of Europe, generating a mixture of insecurity, fears, return to the past and self-criticism of certain sectors of politics, who are wondering until today what wrong decisions have been taken in order to generate this discontent in a certain part of German society, almost 30 years after its re-unification. This society is once again inclined to vote for a party with racist, xenophobic and anti-immigration phrases, whose members (some of them) evoke for a (new) racial cleansing of Germany, want to return to the nation-state borders in Europe, relativize the Holocaust or minimize the Nazi past. AfD is a party that is indifferent to the catastrophes of the past (from both Germany and Europe), is aimed at the "common" German citizen, but from its manipulation from fear (fear towards the immigrant, towards the loss of identity German, towards the future of the nation). Will the German society and its politicians be able to react before it's too late?
The European Far Right: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Jobbik is one of the most successful radical right wing political organizations in the European Union. Since its foundation in 2003, the party has grown to become an influential player in Hungary’s political scene as well as a role model for other radical movements on the continent. Jobbik’s growth to alarming proportions occurred relatively quickly and sent shockwaves through the European intelligentsia, especially because Jobbik is not the type of extremist party that Western Europe is used to. This essay will examine the key distinguishing features of Jobbik and analyse the major differences between Jobbik and the far right in Western Europe.