Radical Right Popularism in Germany: AfD, Pegida and the Identitarian Movement

Abstract

The current political climate appears to create accentuated divisions among various incompatible world views. In a globalized world, faster dissemination of information is much faster via social media and other sources like has never experienced before. A local incident may rapidly turned into an international crisis. For instance, a civil war in Syria now has deeply impacted the politics and social structures of many counties around the world. In this social environment tacking with various types of violent extremism and radical popularism have become increasingly challenging. These radical worldviews may be manifested in either end of the political spectrum, namely right or left, based on ethnicity or exploitation of religion. Following the terror attacks of 9/11 security services and public have focused on the threat posed by terrorist groups such as DAESH and Al-Qaeda. However, threats of violence also remain significant in the case of violent extreme right as well as left group. Challenges in tackling violent right-wind extremism is a complicated matter as they may not be seen as a significant security threat in the west. For example, despite a number of terror attacks carried by right supremacists in the USA, this group has not been listed as a terror group by the state. Also, the terror suspects are more likely to be described as mentally disturbed and disgruntled people should they be white. In other to counter violent extremism, whether based on ideology, ethnicity, or exploitation of religion, we need to systematically examine the root cause of such violent tendencies. In this regard, rising radical right popularism in the West calls for a comprehensive examination of this social movement.