The Party Politics of Anti-COVID Parties: Locating DieBasis and Its Populist Appeal in the German Party System

Clanek analyzuje volebni podporu středových populistických stran v Ceske republice. Na zakladě dat z narodnich volebnich studii a s využitim vybraných teorii volebniho chovani nejde volebni podporu těchto stran vysvětit pomoci tradicnich konfliktnich linii, ale pťedevsim pomoci hodnoceni valencnich charakteristik.

In nahezu allen historischen und modernen Wahl- und Parteienstudien gehen die Autoren von einem Zusammenhang zwischen der Sozialstruktur und dem Wahlverhalten bzw. der Entwicklung des Parteiensystems aus. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht hier ein Lücke zu schließen, indem die Entwicklung der Parteienlandschaft in den Jahren von 1912 bis 1924 in Abhängigkeit von der Sozialstruktur rekonstruiert wird. Ein Vergleich der Wähleranteile mit sozialstatistischen Merkmalen zeigt, wie (in)stabil das deutsche Parteienwesen in dieser Umbruchsphase gewesen ist. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, in welchem Maße die strukturellen Größen Katholikenanteil, Industrialisierung, Verstädterung und Arbeiteranteil die Wählermobilisierung in diesem Zeitraum bestimmen. (pmb)

Germany’s relatively stable party system faces a new left-authoritarian challenger: Sahra Wagenknecht’s Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party. First polls indicate that for the BSW, election results above 10% are within reach. While Wagenknecht’s positions in economic and cultural terms have already been discussed, this article elaborates on another highly relevant feature of Wagenknecht, namely her populist communication. Exploring Wagenknecht’s and BSW’s populist appeal helps us to understand why the party is said to also have potential among seemingly different voter groups coming from the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and far left Die Linke, which share high levels of populist attitudes. To analyse the role that populist communication plays for Wagenknecht and the BSW, this article combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative analysis covers all speeches (10,000) and press releases (19,000) published by Die Linke members of Parliament (MPs; 2005–2023). The results show that Wagenknecht is the (former) Die Linke MP with the highest share of populist communication. Furthermore, she was also able to convince a group of populist MPs to join the BSW. The article closes with a qualitative analysis of BSW’s manifesto that reveals how populist framing plays a major role in this document, in which the political and economic elites are accused of working against the interest of “the majority”. Based on this analysis, the classification of the BSW as a populist party seems to be appropriate.

Ever since the early years of the Federal Republic, the German debate about political parties and the party system has been almost obsessed with the theme of crisis. Contrary to what seems to be the dominant view from within Germany, this article argues that, by and large, the German party system has performed well. Gordon Smith's centrality thesis can explain why this has been the case. However, there are indications that the future may not be so benign.

Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Germany and the Comparable Political Party Experience Sclerotic or Dynamic Institutions? C. S. Allen Chapter 2. The German Party System, 1850-1996 H-G. Betz Chapter 3. The German Party State: A Reassessment M. W. Richter Chapter 4. The Major Parties: Dealignment and Realignment in Post-Cold War Germany H. Kreikenborm Chapter 5. Agents of Democratization and Unification: Political Parties in the New German States A. L. Phillips Chapter 6. Institutional Elasticity in Changing Political Order: The East German Non-Profit Sector and its Contribution to Political Integration W. Seibel Chapter 7. Unification and the Changing Fortunes of Germany's Parties of the Far Right J. Leslie Chapter 8. Green Trumps Red: Political Identity and Left-wing Politics in the United Germany A. S. Markovits and S. J. Silvia Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index

Social media has contributed to the spread of populist political communication, yet we still lack systematic knowledge of the contextual factors affecting its use. In this study, we investigated how and to what degree platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and party characteristics (populist vs. non-populist parties; political ideology) affected the use of populist communication by Norwegian political parties on social media during the 2021 national election campaign. Based on a tripartite conceptualisation of populist communication consisting of people-centrism, anti-elitism, and the exclusion of out-groups, we conducted a standardised content analysis of the official social media accounts of nine parties and their party leaders. Populist communication was overall rather rare, being most widespread on Facebook and least widespread on Twitter. Which parties used populist communication the most depended on the platform, and it was not always the populist Progress Party [Fremskrittspartiet] that communicated in the most populist manner. Parties located towards the fringes of the political party spectrum used more populist communication. Anti-elitism was more widespread among left-wing parties, and almost exclusively the right-wing Progress Party excluded out-groups.

The electoral rise of unorthodox parties (UOPs) in recent East European elections raises some puzzling questions about electoral dynamics in new democracies. Why did the power alternation of the mid-1990s not result in party-system consolidation, as suggested by some earlier studies, but instead give way to a much more chaotic environment in which established mainstream political parties lost considerable ground to new political formations based on personalist and populist appeals? Why did this reversal in Eastern Europe happen during a period of economic recovery, remarkable Western integration progress, and a broad acceptance of electoral democracy as the only game in town? This article suggests that these electoral dynamics can be explained by focusing on the interaction between protest voting and election sequence. While protest voting to punish unpopular incumbents has been a widespread but understudied practice since the collapse of communism, the beneficiaries of these protest votes have changed in recent elections. Whereas in the first two generations of postcommunist elections, disgruntled voters could opt for untried mainstream alternatives, in third-generation elections (defined as elections taking place after at least two different ideological camps have governed in the postcommunist period) voters had fewer untried mainstream alternatives, and therefore opted in greater number for unorthodox parties. This explanation receives strong empirical support from statistical tests using aggregate data from seventy-six parliamentary elections in fourteen East European countries from 1990 to 2006, survey evidence from twelve postcommunist elections from 1996 to 2004, and a survey experiment in Bulgaria in 2008.

The article presents results of a study on the dynamics between Donald Trump’s use of terms that relate COVID-19 to China and news media publications concerning this use. Qualitative content analysis with elements of discourse analysis was conducted to 1) describe the case as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19, and 2) illustrate the following hypotheses with the help of empirical material: 1) News media and the dynamics of political communication based on the difference of friend and enemy help legitimizing populist claims and directing public attention toward them while feeding into a narrative of a diffuse category of threats that creates objects ofangstand thereby enhances social cohesion. 2) With resources derived from popular culture, populists exploit the culture of political correctness, which is facilitated through the ascription of authenticity. The hypotheses emerged in the course of organizing and preliminarily examining the data collected for an ongoing broader study on populist communication and its repercussions in different public spheres in view of the following assumptions: 1) Political communication is guided by the distinction of friend and enemy. 2) In populist communication, this distinction appears as the difference of ‘the people’ and allegedly corrupt elites, including news media. 3)Angstenhances social cohesion among the audiences of populist speakers directly or mediated by fear. 4) Populist communication is more likely to produce a type of fear that populists benefit from when it depicts the elite as a diffuse category composed of various interlinked enemies. Trump’s contextualized use of the following terms in the time period between March 13 and September 15, 2020, was examined: China flu, China plague, China virus, Chinese plague, Chinese flu, Chinese virus, Wuhan virus, and Kung flu. 38 speeches from Trump’s election campaign or rallies, 28 talks at presidential events or meetings, 47 interviews, 37 press conferences, 35 tweets and seven re-tweets as well as selected news media responses were subjected to analysis. The case has been successfully described as a type of populist discourse on COVID-19 and both hypotheses have been illustrated with empirical material.

The KGParl lead joint network: “Parties and Party System after 1990” is investigating the constitution and the transformation of a new German party landscape after the reunification of 1990. The first focus is on the establishment of party political structures in the five new German states after the system transformation in 1989 and the unification in October 1990. It is trying to analyze the different expectations in East and West Germany and the competing influence of the established West German parties, which extended their organizations into the territory of the former GDR, in building what soon was seen as an “East German party system”. Also, the effects and repercussions of these processes in eastern Germany on the all-German party system will be examined: Was there a sort of co-transformation occur in western Germany? Did the reunification perhaps even accelerate the fragmentation of the “old” federal German party system that has been evident since 1983, when a new, young party, the Greens, succeeded in entering the German Bundestag for the first time?

It has now been ten years since the German people elected the National Assembly which gave them the Weimar constitution. A decade of self-government under this liberal and democratic charter has rather definitely established the lines of party cleavage and the general features of the party system, and the time seems ripe for a survey of the system with a view to elucidating its principal characteristics. The present article is concerned only incidentally with party history before the revolution of 1918, and also not primarily with the party programs of today. It has to do, rather, with what Lord Bryce once referred to as “the pathology of party government,” and also with what political scientists have now come to recognize as the heart—one might say the thermostat—of popular government, namely, party organization and machinery. Parteiwesen is the German word, and it refers to the practical operation of the party system.Why should Germany be the subject of such a study? There are several very good reasons. Since the overthrow of the imperial régime, Germany has been operating under a very progressive constitution. In many respects it is the most advanced constitution in the world. Political parties are required to operate such a system based on popular rule, and the party system developed in the Reich is so unique and interesting, so illustrative of many problems which are now troubling political thinkers the world over, that it warrants close study. Then again, by throwing light on the motive power and the nerves of the government, we will be better able to understand how the government itself operates. In brief, we find in Germany a new government operated by means of a new party system. The experience of an intelligent and powerful people with such a system should be useful to everyone interested in the problem of popular government.

Russian parties and the political internet

The recent Bundestag election in Germany warrants consideration for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the results are indicative of several trends developing since unification and that will continue to play an important, if not ever increasing role in German politics. These developments include the intensifying fragmentation of the German party system and German voters' growing electoral volatility, both of which are hampering the parties' ability to form government coalitions. In the following article, we distill five fundamental aspects of the election. Building upon this analysis, we explore their meaning as well as potential impact on the German party system and partisan competition, as well as coalition patterns. At the same time, we address the overarching question of whether—and if so, to what extent—German politics is experiencing a trend toward bipolarity between a center-right and left camp and whether such an antagonistic model will be a passing phase or is indicative of a more established five-party system in Germany.

Abstract: This study analyzes the context‐dependency of populist communication and asks whether there are variations in populist communication for representatives of different kinds of parties. In contrast to previous research on European populism, which mostly considers only the right‐wing, this study includes the entire scope of political parties; thus allowing for the possibility of the diffusion of populism in contemporary politics. The empirical contribution is a multilevel analysis of speeches in non‐public and public forums (closed parliamentary committees, open parliamentary floors, and the talk show ‘Arena’) on immigration and asylum amendments in Switzerland. A so‐called populist party, the Swiss People’s Party, played a significant role in drafting the legislation. Analysis reveals that a) different public settings influence populist communication differently; b) a non‐populist party, the Christian‐democrats, employs more populist communication on average than any other party and its populism is employed more consistently across contexts than that of the Swiss People’s Party; c) but when speaking in media forms, the Swiss People’s Party employs substantially more populist communication than any other party. Thus, the type of public forum does not uniformly contribute to higher levels of populist communication, but rather the effect of forum type varies substantially by party.

How does a political system rebuild after a cataclysmic military defeat? How can a society, and its political infrastructure, resurrects itself or, in the case of Germany after World War II, be resurrected in such a way as to ensure long-term political stability? Politics After Hitler is the first book to demonstrate the importance of America, Britain, and France in the development of party politics in Germany after 1945. In the wake of the war, rightists of all descriptions, Communists, nationalists, and founders of small splinter parties all came under intense and deliberate pressure from the Western occupying forces. The occupiers arrived in Germany in 1945 without firm plans for reviving German politics and were forced to improvise by hastily constructing a licensing system for new parties. The Allies then used their licensing powers to limit and steer party politics in desirable directions, disempowering reactionary and hypernationalist forces, diluting fears of a Communist revolution, and preventing the political fragmentation that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic a generation earlier. Based on extensive archival research, Politics After Hitler concludes that interference by the occupying forces made a stable and moderate party system in the FRG much more likely than has previously been assumed. The Allied occupation of Germany was therefore a resounding success in helping move the German political system toward the stability it enjoys to the present day.

The results of the 2009 Bundestag election and subsequent Land elections suggest that the German party system is changing fundamentally. A few facts suffice to corroborate this statement: Volatility has now reached levels that were last recorded in the 1950s; turnout in national elections has reached an all-time low; the two large parties have had unprecedentedly poor results in the Bundestag elections while all three smaller parties reached more than 10 percent. The article shows that German catch-all parties are about to lose their hold on the electorate and, as a result, can no longer rely on being the senior parties of government. The article analyses these changes systematically using a range of quantitative indicators covering the entire post-war period. It shows a seminal erosion of the forces which have stabilized the German party system in earlier decades and discusses the repercussions for the functioning of German party democracy.