Alternative For Germany Research Articles

MIGRANTS AS FLOATING SIGNIFIERS IN AND THROUGH RIGHT-WING POPULIST POLITICAL STYLE: THE CASE OF THE AFD

This article focuses on how and in which ways migrants are taken into the right-wing populist agendas, specifically analysing how migrants are represented in the right-populist style of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Party. At a time when populism studies have increased gradually and attained maturity, the impact and contribution of the populist actors by means of their discourse and style on the representation of certain groups should not be neglected. In addition to this, the ways migrants have been represented by the populist actors can be ranked among the subjects which need to be investigated not only for Turkey which hosts millions of migrants and people with Turkish heritage living in Europe but also for the Turkey-European Union (EU) relations in the long-term. The relevant literature suggests that migrants are represented in Europe within negative frameworks rather than positive. This study is designed to ascertain the contributions of the right-wing populist parties to the existent discourses and representations, accordingly, analysed how and through which representation strategies migrants have been in the right-wing populist style. For this study, the AfD and its representation strategies concerning migrants have been chosen and the party campaign visuals of the AfD posted between 2013-2021 have been considered and the ones which are overtly related to the migrants have been focused on to reach the argument of the article with primary coding for an initial analysis. The key findings of the article suggest that negative representation of migrants has been sustained by the right-wing populist party AfD and the existent pejorative representations have been reinforced, moreover migrants have been constructed as floating signifiers in and through right-wing populist style with strategic usages.

Considering Narcissism and Collective Identification via Places of Memory

Set against the background of the persistent success at the ballots of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and recently attempted assassinations based on racist and anti-Semitic ideologies this paper addresses two aspects of Theodor W. Adornos work: the social causes of fascism as well as Germany’s accounting for its national socialist past. Taking Adorno’s theory of the constitution of the subject in capitalist societies into consideration, the text will focus on the question in what way social causes of Germany’s national socialist past are also part of contemporary negotiation processes of places of memory for its victims as part of the collective identification connected to the place-making. By establishing a perspective of social psychology this should demonstrate how capitalist relations of production are indirectly connected with places of memory, via subjective reasoning.

Christentum und Islam als Gegenpositionen rechtspopulistischer Identitätsstiftung. Bemerkungen zum Religionsdiskurs der AfD

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit Wahlplakaten und Wahlprogrammen der rechtspopulistischen Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) und untersucht diese Textsorten daraufhin, welche Rolle das Thema Religion spielt. Dafür wurde ein Korpus mit Plakaten und Programmen aus dem Zeitraum der Jahre 2016-19 zugrunde gelegt. Berücksichtigt wurde dabei nicht nur die Bundestagswahl 2017, sondern auch alle Landtagswahlen in diesem Zeitraum sowie die Wahl zum Europäischen Parlament 2019. Da Wahlplakate als multimodale Texte aufgefasst werden können, wurde zunächst eine Bildrecherche durchgeführt. Diese ergab, dass nur wenige unmittelbar religionsbezogene Motive verwendet werden. Gleiches konnte für die Bildlichkeit in den Wahlprogrammen festgestellt werden. Deutlichere Ergebnisse erbrachte die Analyse der Lexik. Für beide Textsorten konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass religionsbezogene Lexik mit Islam-Bezug im Vergleich zu solcher mit Referenz zum Christentum eindeutig dominiert. Die Auswertung der Lexik belegt ferner, dass die Thematik Judentum in beiden Textsorten keine nennenswerte Rolle spielt. Hinsichtlich der Einbettung in Diskurse zeigt die Kontext- und Metaphern-Analyse, dass die Bezugnahme auf Religiöses zur Stiftung und Abgrenzung von Identität und Alterität dient. In beiden Hinsichten wird dabei lediglich auf Vordergründiges und Äußerliches referiert. Christliches als Eigenes bleibt hier gänzlich unspezifisch, Islamisches wird hingegen für ein Bedrohungsszenario genutzt. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Glaubensinhalten findet dabei in keinem Falle statt. 

The German New Right and Its Think Tanks

This article presents an analysis of how think tanks of the German New Right have sought to expand the reach of the New Right into far-right electoral politics, specifically those embodied by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Informed by social network analysis and document analysis, the research focuses on the years between 2013 and 2017, the period that saw the foundation of the AfD, its shift to the right toward embracing nationalist-völkisch positions, and its entry into the Bundestag. The data show that only a few New Right think tanks have strongly engaged with the AfD for the purpose of changing ideology, personnel, or policy. Most of these think tanks are well-networked with other actors, such as magazines and campaign groups from the wider far right.

Persuasive communication on the Facebook account of the “Alternative für Deutschland” Saxony

Recent surveys and political research have shown that the acceptance of the political programmes of populist parties, such as the “Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)”, is relatively high amongst the population of the three eastern German federal states, especially in Saxony, where the AfD won nine of the 13 rural districts during the local elections in May 2019. Thus, it seems relevant to take a closer look at the persuasive discourse of a so-called populist party. In its public discourse, the AfD responds to the fears and concerns of those people who tend to use social media platforms to gain information when making political decisions. The aim of the article is to show which verbal and visual resources characterize the persuasive discourse of the AFD Saxony on their Facebook account. For this purpose, we propose a qualitative, multimodal analysis of selected entries which the party uploaded on its Facebook account between November 2018 and March 2019.

Rethinking the German nation as German Dasein: intellectuals and Heidegger’s philosophy in contemporary German New Right nationalism

ABSTRACT Most scholarship on far-right parties focuses on populism while largely ignoring the role of intellectualism. Disregarding the increasing support by well-educated voters, much of this literature appears to presume that populism and intellectualism in the far-right are separate rather than complementary phenomena. Against this view, this article uses Skinner’s concept of ‘innovating ideologists’ to explore the role of Heideggerian philosophy in the interplay between German New Right (GNR) intellectualism and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) populism. To do so, Heidegger’s conception of ‘people’ is outlined before turning to the GNR’s use of these concepts in articles, books and speeches, by both GNR intellectuals and leading AfD members. The analysis shows that GNR and AfD actors refer to Heideggerian philosophy both in the context of intellectual circles and to wider audiences to legitimize an exclusive idea of nationhood based not on the illicit idea of race but on a more acceptable idea of history. The findings suggest that intellectualism and populism in the German far-right are closely connected. The article concludes that neglecting GNR intellectualism means underestimating the GNR’s and AfD’s capacity to bring about social change.

The functionality of affects: conceptualising far-right populist politics beyond negative emotions

By focusing on negative affects, such as anger, fear and hate, a normative critique of affective politics tends to overlook the ambiguity and situated nature of affective politics. This paper suggests embracing the ambivalences that characterise the emotional dynamics in political arenas; therefore, it emphasises the functionality of affects. The study adopts a post-dualistic understanding of political affects based on the conceptual devices of Sara Ahmed and Kathleen Stewart to analyse the affective practices and performances of the German political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). An ethnographic lens and analytical focus on the affective politics of far-right agents beyond negativity can permit more subtle nuances and highlight potentially overlooked facets of enactment and performance that have contributed to the successes of far-right political organisations in Europe and the US. The paper ultimately argues that the use of ‘ordinary’ affects produces legitimacy, renders far-right politics appealing and contributes to the normalisation of far-right discourse.

How the 2017 Federal Election in Germany Affected Satisfaction with Democracy among AfD Voters

Dissatisfaction with democracy is among the central determinants of voting for a populist radical right party, such as the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). At the same time, elections have been shown to increase political satisfaction, especially when voters see themselves as winners of the election. In this article, we ask, first, whether voters of the AfD have partly been reconciled with democracy during the 2017 federal election in Germany in which the party entered the Bundestag for the first time since its foundation. Second, we investigate which individual level factors conditioned the change in democratic satisfaction among AfD voters. Our empirical analysis, which is based on panel survey data from the 2017 Germany Longitudinal Election Studies (GLES), shows that AfD voters experienced a stronger increase in support for the political regime than any other voter group. Moreover, policy congruence with the AfD on socioeconomic issues as well as identifying with a party other than the AfD enhanced this boost in satisfaction with democracy. Our findings point to the importance of political representation and opportunities for protest-based voting behaviour regarding public support and the legitimacy of democratic political systems.

“We need to rediscover our manliness…”

AbstractThis essay analyses the use of the term “gender madness” and “lost manliness” in the discourse of the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AFD). It draws on analyses of public statements, policy papers, manifestos and public speeches. It argues that the “gender” theme constitutes a discoursive cluster that is used link otherwise eclectic policies. Furthermore, it is utilised to articulate certain folkish and ethno-nationalist ideas while at the same time helping to avoid open references to extremist language. By presenting itself as the custodian of traditional heterosexuality and family values the AFD creates yet another dimension of the populist dichotomy of “us” versus “them”. This is underpinned by a sophisticated media strategy that seeks create an image of authenticity and immediacy between party and supporters. On the whole, the piece analyses and explains the central importance of “anti-genderism” in the discourse of the populist right in Germany.

‘Understanding’ for Russia in Germany: international triangle meets domestic politics

‘Understanding’ for Vladimir Putin’s Russia is present across Germany’s political spectrum, in business sectors, and within society/the electorate at large. It was boosted by the outcome of the 2017 election which saw a far right party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), join Die Linke, a far left party, as a ‘pro-Russia’ force in parliament. Together they obtained 22% of the vote. Voices in centre parties also urge ‘dialogue’ and conciliation with Russia. Extra-parliamentary advocates are more strident in their support. Germany’s vulnerable coalition government is confronted by Russian disinformation exploiting historical memory, discontent with policies, and scepticism towards the US, a situation exacerbated by the Trump administration. This combination of developments generates a multidimensional, underestimated, and partly realised potential for more destabilisation of Western alliances and Eurasian security.

The AfD\u2019s Winning Formula \u2014 No Need for Economic Strategy Blurring in Germany

Western European Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) have addressed the dispersed socio-economic status of their electorates by blurring their economic positioning. This contribution analyses the rise of the German PRRP Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) between 2013 and 2017 and the role of its economic policy platform. In contrast to its European peers, the AfD shows few signs of economic strategy blurring. The party offers clear antiredistribution policies that are matched by AfD voters’ preferences: even the least affluent AfD supporters have stronger preferences for lower redistribution than the most affluent non-AfD supporters. For AfD supporters with lower socio-economic positions this means that they support economic policies that are against their economic interests. Extreme authoritarian cultural policies spiced up with criticism of the establishment and combined with a general opposition to redistribution can be identified as the AfD’s winning formula. Within the Western European PRRP party family, this winning formula directed at supporters with lower socioeconomic positions constitutes an exception.

„Wir gucken zuerst auf uns“ – nur wie lange noch? Parteienwettbewerb bei der Kandidatenaufstellung zur Bundestagswahl 2017

The rise of the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has changed the German party landscape and challenged the other Bundestag parties . So far, this has not been paid attention to when looking at how parties fulfill their recruitment function, i .e . how they select candidates for elections . This study investigates whether and how the AfD has influenced their rivals’ nomination processes in 2017 . By drawing on guided interviews with members of the selection bodies, strong inertial forces within the established parties in terms of the selection mode became obvious . Similarly, candidates for the Bundestag were largely chosen according to internal party criteria despite increased inter-party competition . Those results notwithstanding there are initial signs that voter-related selection criteria might be weighted stronger in the future . This could be due above all to declining membership figures, changing conditions for competition in the districts and enhanced polarization within the parties .

„Salz in der Suppe“ oder „Klimakiller“? Empirische Befunde zum Wandel der parlamentarischen Streitkultur nach dem Einzug der AfD in die deutschen Landtage

In order to analyze whether the entry of the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) into parliaments has changed parliamentary debate culture a content analysis of budget debates for the period 2012-2017 is conducted, where the frequency of interruptions and the use of uncivil utterances during the speaker’s interruption in seven German state parliaments are measured before and after the entry of the AfD . The measured changes to developments in the two German states where the AfD did not succeed in moving into the state parliament are compared . The frequency of interruptions - and thus the conflictual nature of parliamentary debates - has increased as a result of the presence of the AfD . However, there are no indications that the increase in incivility is related to the entry of the AfD into the state parliaments . The likelihood of the AfD’s confrontational appearance increases with its parliamentary significance (e .g ., the share of seats) . By contrast, it is irrelevant for the appearance of the AfD in parliamentary debates whether they are more movement-oriented or more parliament-oriented .

How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: 'Highjacking' Hashtags in Times of COVID-19

Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of 'hashjacking'; the use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one's own social media agenda. For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of 'hashjacking' in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by 'hashjacking' COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts.

“We Should Stop the Islamisation of Europe!”: Islamophobia and Right-Wing Radicalism of the Russian-Speaking Internet Users in Germany

AbstractStarting from 2015, the Russian-speaking residents in Germany have expressed their anti-refugee position in the form of rallies and rising voting support for the right-wing populist party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Due to the absence of social cues, unlimited space, immediate responses, and minimal censorship online, platforms for communication have reflected the offline mobilization and became the major platforms for the spreadability of discriminatory discourse. This article sets out to investigate why Russian-speaking internet users residing in Germany justify anti-refugee discourse and how they construct the notion of “others.” Based on the netnographic analysis of the chosen online discussions and conducted interviews with its members, this article argues that, with the appearance of new “others,” Russian-speaking migrants have redefined their symbolic boundaries in order to draw the line between the incoming migrants and themselves—people with a migrant background. In many ways, participants of the analyzed discussions employed the politicized civilizational rhetoric that allowed them to redefine existing categorizations. This research explores, for the first time, the reasons lying behind the online populist activity of the Russian-speaking residents in Germany.

Political geography lecture: Social forms, spatial forms, and the New Right. Celebrating Capital at 150 and explaining the rise of the AfD

The federal elections of September 2017 that swept the authoritarian-nationalist political party with leanings toward the extreme right, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), into the national parliament marked a significant change in Germany's political landscape. The platform of the AfD is built on three pillars: nationalism/racism, sexism/homo-/transphobia, and neoliberal market-radicalism/utilitarianism. This lecture proposes a form-analytical approach to historical-geographical materialism that pays proper attention to both the social forms and the spatial forms of capitalism to shed light on how the principle of abstract equality is challenged by the AfD in a selective manner within these three pillars. Bringing together two branches of Marxist theory—form analysis in the tradition of the West German state derivation debate and Marxist theories of the production of space—it argues that the socials forms of capitalism are productive in that they both veil and make processable the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, but that this productivity faces substantial obstacles that are inscribed into the spatial organization of capitalism, i.e., its spatial forms—namely territory, scale, and (a reactionary understanding of) place. Drawing on these theoretical deliberations, the three pillars of the AfD platform are discussed. Although the abstract equality of market individuals is fully embraced by the AfD and its constituency, women and L.G.B.T.Q.I. people are denied the full realization of the potential of the principle of abstract equality. In particular, nonmembers of the ethnically and territorially defined demos are denied abstract equality altogether. Taken together, this lecture argues that the way in which the social forms of capitalism face substantial obstacles in the spatial forms within which they are organized helps to explain why a party with one core theme—a nationalist and racist position on migration, refugees, and Islam—can be so successful in the current conjuncture.

Justice for the People? How Justice Sensitivity Can Foster and Impair Support for Populist Radical‐Right Parties and Politicians in the United States and in Germany

Many people argue that support for populist radical‐right political agents is motivated by people feeling “left behind” in globalized Western democracies. Empirical research supports this notion by showing that people who feel personally or collectively deprived are more likely to hold populist beliefs and anti‐immigration attitudes. Our aim was to further investigate the psychological link between individuals' justice concerns and their preferences for populist radical‐right political agents. We focused on stable individual differences in self‐oriented and other‐oriented justice concerns and argue that these should have opposing correlations with preferences for populist radical‐right parties. We tested our hypotheses in two national samples, one from the United States (N = 1500) and one from Germany (N = 848). Sensitivity to injustice towards oneself enhanced the likelihood of preferring Trump (United States) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) (Germany) via increased anti‐immigration attitudes and increased populist attitudes. Sensitivity to injustice towards others reduced the likelihood of preferring Trump and AfD via decreased anti‐immigration attitudes. We discuss our findings in regard to how stable individual differences in the evaluation of fairness can motivate intra‐ and interpersonal political conflicts in modern western societies and how politics and mass media can fuel these conflicts.

Populist Elements in the Election Manifestoes of AfD and UKIP

Abstract The term populism is omnipresent in current political science and political discourse. This paper discusses how so-called “populist” discourse is linguistically construed in the 2017 election manifestos of the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the British United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). It does so by operationalising populism concepts from political science, specifically the difference between exclusive and inclusive populism. In order to investigate how “populist” discourses depend on the respective political culture of a discourse community, these categories are employed in a corpus based comparative politico-linguistic analysis. Based on a corpus of German and British election manifestos from 2017, the paper demonstrates that both UKIP and the AfD combine elements of in inclusive populism based on demands of a democratic renewal, and an exclusive populism based on the idea the people as a homogeneous ethnos. The discursive realisation, however, differs because of general historic and political differences such as Britain being a state of four nations and the AfD aiming to avoid a rhetoric known from Germany’s past. Particularly pronounced are differences in the delineation to the enemy “European Union” as both parties link their euro-sceptical discourse to different central signifiers of the German and British political culture.

What Drives the Right-Wing Populist Vote? Topics, Motivations and Representations in an Online Vox Pop with Voters for the Alternative für Deutschland

Abstract In a recent study (Miglbauer, Marlene and Veronika Koller (2019). “‘The British People have Spoken’: Voter Motivations and Identities in Vox Pops on the British EU Referendum.” Veronika Koller, Susanne Kopf and Marlene Miglbauer, eds. Discourses of Brexit. Abingdon: Routledge, 86–103.), we investigated vox pops (short for ‘vox populi,’ i.e. ‘voice of the people’) with self-declared Leave voters in the run-up to the 2016 British EU referendum. The study presented here complements this research with a comparative perspective, exploring the motivations expressed by voters for the German right-wing populist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). On the day of the 2017 general election, the German news website Zeit online (ZON) invited its readers to say why they voted AfD. Although the AfD voter profile and the ZON readership profile are noticeably different, the question elicited 468 replies numbering a total of around 59,000 words, which we compiled into a corpus. Working with corpus analysis software AntConc 3.4.1w, we first prised out topics and motivations by analysing this collection of online vox pops for word frequencies as well as collocates and concordances for selected lexical units, before manually grouping the different lexemes into ten topics. In a second step, we manually analysed the data for social actor representation (van Leeuwen, Theo (2008). Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) and appraisal (Martin, James R. and Peter R. R. White (2005). Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.). The results of the analysis show that next to previously documented motivations for right-wing populist votes – e.g. in-group bias and rejection of the Other as morally deficient (Heinisch, Reinhard (2008). “Austria: The Structure and Agency of Austrian Populism.” Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell, eds. Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 67–83.) –, the group of AfD voters represented in the written vox pop have specific additional reasons, namely a focus on German chancellor Merkel as an ‘anti-hero’ and a belief of being victimised by the media. An additional, unexpected finding was that a number of posters to the dedicated comment forum explicitly distance themselves from perceived stereotypes of right-wing populist voters. Our findings therefore also problematise previously identified characteristics of right-wing populist discourse as anti-elitist and anti-intellectual (Wodak, Ruth (2015b). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Los Angeles: SAGE.) and call into question the support from workers, and associated fears of wage pressure and competition for welfare benefits, as one of the main factors in the success of right-wing populism (Oesch, Daniel (2008). “Explaining Workers’ Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland.” International Political Science Review 29.3, 349–373.).

Sprachliche Persuasionsmittel der rechtspopulistischen Propaganda gestern und heute

Persuasion is the central element of political propaganda of all times. From a historical point of view, it is a fact that, especially in conflict situations, the hegemonic actors adopt specific techniques and language choices for purposes of propaganda. The question of interest is in what ways and to what extent they are used in a targeted manner in order to influence different types of low- and middle-class audiences. A well-documented example is the persuasive use of language in Nazi propaganda before and during World War II. In this context, our question is whether past and present-day propagandistic and electoral campaigns make recourse to the same linguistic devices and strategies in order to persuade their intended audience. To this purpose, we shall concentrate on Hitler’s propaganda by primarily drawing on Victor Klemperer's (1933–1945) diaries and compare his linguistic observations to a corpus of campaigning speeches and programs by the German right-wing populist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland).