Alternative For Germany Research Articles

Societalized Politics in the German Civil Sphere: The 2015 “Refugee Crisis” and Post-Potsdam Civil Backlash

AbstractThis article introduces a theory of societalized politics to investigate crisis events in the German civil sphere between 2015 and 2024, and to proffer an answer to the disputed question of the preconditions that facilitated the rapid rise of right-wing populism in the German context. Drawing on civil sphere and societalization theory, the article specifies the foundational cultural elements, or binary cultural codes (BCCs), upon which German political elites crafted meso-level narratives to contest and manage strains in the civil sphere. Through an analysis of communicative and regulative institutions’ responses to the arrival of refugees in 2015, and the publication of the Correctiv.org report and the backlash protests it inspired in 2024, the article charts the rise of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and explains its success as due in part to its leaders’ capacities to represent themselves and their supporters as embodying the BCC’s civil democratic signifiers. Introducing a theory of societalized politics, the analysis demonstrates a processual approach to the construction and contesting of crisis events that emerge within the civil sphere itself. The article also introduces a civil sphere theory of right-wing populism, which frames the phenomenon as the elevation of nativist, primordial signifiers born foremost of the noncivil spheres of ethnicity and religion. It concludes by arguing that while the German civil sphere is in flux, the post-Potsdam civil protests indicate a significant portion of the nation’s publics remain committed to universalistic, civil democratic principles.

EVOLUTION AND PROSPECTS OF THE «ALTERNATIVE FOR GERMANY»

In recent years, the populist Alternative for Germany (AfG) party, which systematically opposes the ruling mainstream parties, has become active on the German political scene. In contrast to the approach of the mainstream parties, the AfG’s views on governance and engagement with the European Union now pose a threat to the coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Alliance 90 / The Greens because of the increasing popularity of right-wing populists among the German electorate. In autumn 2025, Germany will hold federal elections to the Bundestag, which will determine the political course of the country for the next 5 years. The purpose of this article is to assess the prospects of the Alternative for Germany party in the Bundestag elections in 2025.A significant part of the article is devoted to reviewing the ideological evolution of the party, which has gone from a minor moderate party to the leading opposition force in the country. This is essential in order to understand the implications of the current rise in social tensions and scandals around Alternative and how this may affect its future political sustainability. Authors provide a forecast of the party’s chances of success in the parliamentary elections and assess the risks that the AfG may face during the electoral struggle. The conclusion is made that the chances of the Alternative for Germany party to enter the government in 2025 will depend on its capacity to timely eliminate the accumulated internal contradictions, such as the excessive radicalisation of the party and the lack of a unified ideological component among its leaders.

Support for a right-wing populist party and subjective well-being: Experimental and survey evidence from Germany.

With the rise of populism in many countries, including Germany, it is more important than ever to better understand the causes and consequences of populist support. Using two experiments within the context of a large panel survey, we study how support for the German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is associated with subjective perceptions of personal and financial well-being. In both experiments, we rely on priming the identity of AfD supporters, once in a controlled manner and once in a natural setting. We document a causal relationship from AfD support to diminished well-being for new and marginal AfD supporters. Our findings challenge the prevailing assumption that causality moves unidirectionally, from life dissatisfaction to support for populist parties, and suggest that early interventions focusing on positive messages are particularly promising to win voters back into the mainstream.

Contestations of Liberal Globalism and the Rise of the Retrograde Party

The crisis of the liberal order opened up space for ideas that only some years ago had appeared out of time. During globalization’s heyday, parties that called for a rollback of liberal globalism were either stuck in a marginal position or unable to implement fundamental reforms. This has changed as the main political approaches toward liberal globalism are now being publicly and electorally contested. We argue that this has triggered the rise of a phenomenon we refer to as retrogradism. This article applies the concept of retrogradism to the case of the German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It argues that we may be witnessing the rise of a new type of political party that pursues a retrograde agenda. We suggest that the current debate on the AfD fails to take into account that its defining features may be its politics of time and its retrograde opposition to liberal globalism.

Collaborative Mistrust: The Communicative Function of Alternative Facts in Social Media Interactions

Understanding social media discourses as conversations and interpreting them as such allows reconstructing the communicative function of alternative facts as a practical achievement making a difference in interactive sensemaking. Using the documentary method approach to conversation analysis for interpreting the doing of alternative facts in conversations on the Facebook pages of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), this article shows: (1) doing alternative facts has to be understood in the context of identity performances which bracket questions of facticity; (2) doing alternative facts is part of an overarching conversational dynamic of “suspicious investigation” held together by a shared orientation toward un-truthing mainstream reality construction; (3) and this dynamic immunizes itself against critique via identity performance and identity misrecognition.

The Russian-Ukrainian war has shattered the European far right. The opposing influences of Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin

ABSTRACT This study analyses the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on the European far right by examining the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party and the Swedish Sverigedemokraterna (SD). The political and geopolitical choices of the AfD and SD are contextualized in the political history of the two parties, in the influences that thinkers such as Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin have on the European right, and in the context of geopolitical change taking place at the international level. A dichotomous reality of the European far right emerges with opposing political and geopolitical visions. On the one hand, the Westernist and Atlanticist extreme right, which is based on white supremacism and the West's indispensability to place itself at the helm of the world order, whose army is identified with NATO, on the other hand, an anti-American, Eurasianist, pro-Russian extreme right and that sees in the end of the American unipolar order an opportunity. Two components of the European far right that are irreconcilable and that focus attention on the inappropriateness of looking at the movements and parties of the European far right as if they were a single ‘black thing’.

Traitors or Allies. German Right-Wing Movements and the Memorialization of the National Conservative Resistance to Hitler

After the Second World War, most former Nazis were certain that they (and their Führer) would have won the war if there had not been a national-conservative opposition among the traditional elites, i. e. diplomats, bureaucrats, and the officer corps.It took the West German political mainstream years to adopt the notion of resistance to Hitler as part of a positive tradition. By 1990, however, it had become received wisdom that men like Colonel Claus Graf Stauffenberg were positive examples of how some, albeit very few, had stood up against injustice and repression. Only on the extreme right fringe could authors still defame the resisters as traitors.The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), started in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party, was soon hijacked by elements of the far Right. One example is the New Right’s discussion of the resistance. While some proclaim that “Stauffenberg was a traitor”, others claim the 1944 opposition for their own heritage. By harnessing it for their cause, the memory of the conspiracy and its generally positive connotations in German public opinion, the German New Right is attempting to attract centre or centre-right voters who are disappointed with Angela Merkel’s pro-European policies.

Where the Sun Rises in the East: (Post-)Communist Remembrance in Germany’s Right-Wing Counter-Public Sphere

This article uses qualitative discourse analysis to examine how the (post-)communist past is remembered in right-wing counter-publics. If memory serves the historical legitimation of the political order, its challengers would be expected to use this part of history to prove the legitimacy of an alternative order. The memory discourse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and German unity in the newspaper Junge Freiheit and the magazine Compact serves as a case study. Both publications consider themselves mouthpieces of a far-right readership in Germany and represent positions close to that of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The results show that hegemonic narratives can be found in both publications but that the East and its history are discursively valorised. Against the backdrop of the failure to develop an all-German post-communist memory culture, this article provides clues as to which “historical” arguments fall on fertile ground in right-wing counter-publics and help grow right-wing politics.

EXPLAINING THE RISE OF ALTERNATIVE FÜR DEUTSCHLAND (AFD) IN GERMANY WITH FAILED PROMISES OF UNIFICATION

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rise of a far-right political party, Alternative Für Deutschland (AfD), particularly in the eastern part of Germany, in relation to the failed promises of Unification in 1990. Despite the fact that a plethora of literature has primarily focused on the social consequences of immigration and populist rhetoric for the rise of the AfD in German politics since 2013, the paper critically questions why the AfD has a particularly stronghold in Germany's Neuen Länder (New States). The paper suggests, based on a political economy analysis that incorporates Durkheim's theory of anomie, that the gradual withdrawal of early euphoria in German Unification and its transformation into economic grievance and political distrust under neoliberalism has created anomic tensions in society, a condition that far-right politics can exploit. In other words, while German unification created euphoric expectations for the future, these expectations were not met under neoliberal conditions. It is, therefore, concluded that the persistence of unequal economic power between East and West Germany, as well as political underrepresentation of Eastern Germans, has exacerbated anomic tensions. As a result, the rise of the AfD is not a pathological issue, but rather can be explained in terms of unmet social demands among Germans.

Natural allies? Varieties of attitudes towards the United States and Russia within the French and German radical right

AbstractThis paper contributes to a growing literature on the international political world views and foreign policy agendas of European radical right parties with data from in‐depth interviews with current and former elected representatives of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Rassemblement National (RN), focusing on their attitudes towards the United States and Russia. Despite very different party structures, the interviews point to a common pattern of intra‐party variation. Those who display deeper attachment to ‘elite’ and ‘people’ categories shaping interpretations of political events, revealed by attachment to conspiracy theories, showed inclination to more radical foreign policy agendas. This includes a stronger inclination to move away from traditional US‐led Western or NATO allies and security frameworks and a stronger preference for cooperation with Russia. For those less deeply committed to notions of malign elite conspiracy, anti‐American thinking was less prominent. For them, a sense of shared values and therefore cultural kinship with Western democracies retains relevance, and attitudes towards Russia are notably more cautious. This highlights the diversity of worldviews within the radical right, including with respect to the boundaries of transnational kinship.

Normalization? German Theologians Respond to the Rise of the Far RightChristentum von Rechts: Theologische Erkundungen und Kritik [Right‐wing Christianity: Theological Explorations and Critique], Johann HinrichClaussen, MartinFritz, AndreasKubik, RochusLeonhardt, and ArnulfvonScheliha, Mohr Siebeck, 2021 (ISBN 978‐3‐16‐160005‐0), vi + 234 pp., pb €26.95Rechte Normalisierung und politische Theologie. Eine Standortbestimmung [Right‐wing Normalization and Political Theology: Defining a Standpoint], Jan NiklasCollet, JuliaLis, and GregorTaxacher

AbstractThe far right is on the rise across Europe. In Germany, the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has had striking success in several elections, establishing itself in parliaments across the country. Although Christianity comes up in the programmes and the politics of this party, theologians in Germany have been hesitant to engage the rise of the far right. In this review, I present two publications that put an end to this hesitation. Although I cannot cover each and every chapter, I aim to showcase the key concerns and the key concepts of both publications in order to stress the contrast between them. Both theologically and politically, the stakes are high. The question of how to respond to the rise of the far right, I suggest, cuts to the core of the conceptualization of the identity of Christianity.

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and its appeal to workers – with special reference to the Ruhr Region of Germany

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and its appeal to workers – with special reference to the Ruhr Region of Germany

Negotiating the boundaries of the politically sayable: populist radical right talk scandals in the German media

ABSTRACT The breaking of speech taboos by populist radical right (PRR) parties and the resulting talk scandals have received considerable attention, with provocative statements being seen as playing a central role in generating media attention and in shifting the boundaries of what is sayable. In Germany, breaches of taboos by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) have caused public outrage, with some claiming that the AfD follows a deliberate provocation strategy. This study examines the reactions to the AfD’s breaches of taboos as they play out in mainstream media. Focusing on reactions to five of the AfD’s most controversial statements, the study analyses 340 articles from the daily quality newspapers Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt. The analysis zooms in on identifying (1) reactions to the taboo-breaking statements and how the boundaries of the respective taboos are being negotiated by the AfD and its critics, and (2) reflexive discourse on the role of breaches of taboos in the AfD’s political strategy and on the role of the media in responding to them.

Closing the gap? The populist radical right and opinion congruence between citizens and MPs

Some observers argue that right-wing populist parties improve representation because they speak for groups that are otherwise under-represented. In that sense, populist parties might prove beneficial for democracy. However, we lack empirical studies that support this claim. In this paper, we undertake a first step to fill this research gap. We analyse whether the electoral success of right-wing populist parties increases opinion congruence between citizens and members of parliament. Looking at the case of Germany, we will examine whether the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which first entered parliament in 2017, led to higher congruence between MPs and citizens. In our analyses, we use two waves of the GLES candidate study conducted in 2013 and 2017 and match those to representative surveys of the population. We use twelve items to measure opinion congruence before and after the AfD entered parliament. The analyses show that overall congruence has increased partly because AfD-parliamentarians’ views on migration compensate for the previous over-representation of more liberal positions of established parties. However, beyond immigration, congruence between the AfD parliamentarians and survey respondents is not particularly high.

Implicit and explicit populist and anti-immigrant attitudes and their explanatory power for populist radical-right party support

Based on the assumption that disclosing explicit populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes and voting intentions for PRR parties may be inhibited by a social desirability bias, this paper aims at developing a measure for implicit populist attitudes (IAT) and at assessing its explanatory power for the prediction of PRR party support. Using data from a German online survey (N = 898), the populism-IAT is tested against corresponding direct measures of populist attitudes and anti-immigrant attitudes to predict voting propensity for the German PRR party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Results reveal that social desirability concerns indeed restrict the likelihood of reporting a high propensity of PRR vote; however, direct measures turn out as best predictors for self-reported voting intentions. Inconsistencies between implicit and explicit attitudes may indicate sensitivity to social (un-)desirability perceptions, when attitudes are displayed on the implicit but not on the explicit level. We find such incongruencies for 9% of our respondents regarding populist attitudes, and for 21% regarding anti-immigrant attitudes, indicating that the latter are considered even more undesirable. In light of our findings, we discuss the potential explanatory power of implicit attitudes for less deliberate forms of political behavior and the assumption of populist and anti-immigrant attitudes still being regarded as socially undesirable in Germany.

Analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) through the lens of four distinct profiles: radical, niche, anti-establishment, and party reputation, 2013–2017

After the 2017 election, the radical right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) became the Bundestag’s third-largest party. While the rise of the AfD drew scholarly interest, most publications analyzing its evolution were published during a period when the party was undergoing transition, the euro-crisis had decreased in prominence, and the party was going through an inner conflict between liberals and radicals. This article seeks to provide a systematic examination of how these developments have impacted the party from 2013 to 2017 and endeavors to answer the question of whether the AfD has become more mainstream by utilizing the framework devised by Akkerman et al. (2016) to assess party transformation along four key dimensions: 1) shifts in radical positions on key issues; 2) shifts from a niche to a socioeconomic-focused party; 3) shifts in the anti-establishment profile; and 4) shifts in party reputation. Through an analysis of internally and externally oriented material such as electoral manifestos, party documentation, published interviews with AfD leaders, and press releases, the article shows that the AfD has not shifted toward the mainstream. Instead, the party became more radical on the first three dimensions while demonstrating signs of mainstreaming on the fourth dimension in order to avoid legal action.

Theorizing Populist Radical-Right Foreign Policy: Ideology and Party Positioning in France and Germany

AbstractThe success of anti-establishment parties across Europe has fueled debate on the role of populism for foreign policy and its contemporary contestation. The almost-election of Marine Le Pen to the French presidency in 2017, the successes of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany's 2017 and 2021 federal elections, and the central role these populist radical-right (PRR) parties henceforth play in structuring political debate make their wider foreign policy positions an issue of central concern. Yet, we still lack a thorough understanding how populism and radical-right ideology jointly produce a distinct foreign policy positioning beyond European integration. This article tries to narrow this gap by conceptualizing PRR positioning on trade, climate change, development policies, hegemony, and security and defense issues. The comparative analysis of official documents and voting behavior reveals only subtle differences between the Rassemblement national and the AfD, while demonstrating broad commonalities that have the potential to inform research across other cases and world regions on PRR parties’ foreign policy positioning.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Support for the German AfD: Jumping the Populist Ship or Staying the Course?

Populist parties enjoy stable support in various European countries. The literature on the rise of populism argues that this support especially increases in times of crises. Surprisingly, the German right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) did not increase its support in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the party even lost 2.3 percentage points in the 2021 federal election. We address this puzzle and ask why the AfD has not been able to use the crisis to its advantage. Our main argument in answering this question is that, although the AfD pursued the classic populist strategy of fundamental opposition, the support base of the AfD is strongly divided on the preference towards measures containing the spread of COVID-19. This division is reinforced by individual affectedness by the pandemic. Introducing a novel weekly dataset on voter preferences, we show that the AfD support base is strongly divided on the issue with approval of the government measures being a significant and substantial contributor to vote switching away from the AfD. Using regional-level data and a difference-in-differences approach, we further show that western German regions hit especially hard by the pandemic display a lower AfD vote share than other regions. Our findings have important implications for the impact of exogenous shocks on electoral competition and also on the future of populist parties.

Far-right intellectual discourse about populism: the case of the German Institut für Staatspolitik

ABSTRACT Despite the ubiquity of work on the populism of the far right, explicit analysis of far-right populist strategizing and discourse about populism has been rare. This article explores such far-right reflections on populism through the publications of the German Institut für Staatspolitik, an organization at the heart of the intellectual Neue Rechte and close to parts of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). We find a sympathetic attitude towards populism, a rejection of mainstream anti-populism and a readiness to learn from left-wing theories of populism. Whilst partially overlapping with left populist critique of technocratic neoliberalism, Neue Rechte reflections about populism are decidedly embedded within an ecosystem of far-right nationalist and anti-liberal discourse. With nationalism seen as a precondition of successful populist strategy, the far right’s innate awareness of the ‘true’ national nature of ‘the people’ is seen as giving it a winning advantage over supposedly naïve left populists unable to grasp this ‘fact’.

Has neoliberal globalisation contributed to growing levels of nationalism across Europe?

ESAANZ ESSAY PRIZE WINNERThis paper addresses the contribution of neoliberal globalisation to the growing popularity and prevalence of nationalist movements in the past decade. The world has seen rising levels of populism and nationalism in recent years and Europe is no exception. Several European member states have seen parties of the far- right move from the outskirts of the political spectrum to the mainstream and into positions of leadership. To highlight the nationalist response to neoliberal conditions three emergent movements in founding EU member states will be analysed in detail: France’s Rassemblement National (RN), Italy’s Lega Nord (LN) and Movimento 5 Stelle (5SM) and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). This paper will argue that the conditions of neoliberal globalisation have contributed to the rise and prominence of nationalist movements in Europe.