The ‘Alternative for Germany’: The rise of right-wing populism at the heart of Europe

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Lees
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Party System ◽  
German Society ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Alternative Für Deutschland ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Strong Performance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Alternative For Germany

This article charts the rise of the ‘Alternative for Germany’ ( Alternative für Deutschland or AfD) from its inception in late 2012 to its unexpectedly strong performance in the 2017 Federal election. In terms of the ‘inward’ aspect of Euroscepticism, the article considers the impact of the emergence of successively more hardline leaderships in 2015 and 2017, which led to a shift beyond opposition to aspects of the European integration process to a more profound critique of German society and politics. In terms of the ‘outward’ aspect, it assesses the significance of these developments in the wider debates around Euroscepticism and populism. The article concludes that the AfD’s Euroscepticism is now nested within an ideological profile that increasingly conforms to the template of an orthodox European right-wing populist party. It argues that the widely unanticipated level of electoral support for the AfD in the 2017 Federal elections and its status as the main opposition party in the Bundestag is a systemic shock and potential critical juncture in the development of the German party system and the contestation of European integration in the Federal Republic.

Germany: From Stable Coalition Camps to New Complexity

2021 ◽  
pp. 247-283
Author(s):  
Marc Debus ◽  
Holger Döring ◽  
Alejandro Ecker
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This chapter aims at presenting the characteristics of cabinets in Germany, in particular for the cabinets formed since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The chapter covers two decades of coalition dynamics and an era that has led to significant changes in German politics in general and the German party system in particular. The electoral support for the two catch-all parties – Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) decreased in that time period, while the increased number of parliamentary parties and the increasing vote share for the smaller parties resulted in a more complex bargaining environment. We also discuss changes in the policy profiles of the parliamentary parties and how potential coalitions are discussed during election campaigns. The chapter provides first a brief overview on the institutional setting in which parties in Germany act and which influences the government-formation process, as well as the daily business of coalition governance. In a second step, we outline recent dynamics in the structure of the German party system. The final section summarizes the findings, considers if an overall trend in terms of changes in coalition governance exists in Germany, and discusses the impact of the parliamentary presence of a left- and a right-wing ‘pariah’ party—The Left and the Alternative for Germany—for coalition politics in Germany in the future.

scholarly journals Wpływ mowy nienawiści zawartej w wypowiedziach przedstawicieli partii Alternatywa dla Niemiec na zmiany zachodzące w systemie zarządzania mediami w RFN

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kamińska-Korolczuk
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Media Management ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Media ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Alternative For Germany

The impact of hate speech contained in the statements of the Alternative for Germany party representatives on changes taking place in the media management system in Germany The purpose of the article is to present the introduced legal solutions regulating the functioning and management of the media system in Germany, which came into force under the influence of changes in political communication. A case study is presented examples of hate speech in the discourse of the party of the new right-wing populism –Alternative for Germany (Alternative fur Deutschland, AfD). The party uses rhetoric which until now has been marginal in the German media and since the refugee crisis it has become an increasingly common form of expression. The analysis was conducted against the backdrop of events that influenced the Bundestags to adopted Law improving law enforcement in social networks (Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken, Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, NetzDG). The analysis leads to the conclusions that the new right-wing populism changed the style of communication on the German political scene, which is not without influence on the decisions making by the legislator to introduce specific legal provisions regulating the management and framework of discourse in the social media in this state.

Activity of modern right-wing radical parties in the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-173
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Political Radicalism

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption. Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.

scholarly journals The Centre Does Not Hold: Coalition Politics and Party System Change in the Netherlands, 2002–12

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huib Pellikaan ◽  
Sarah L. de Lange ◽  
Tom W.G. van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
The Impact

Like many party systems across Western Europe, the Dutch party system has been in flux since 2002 as a result of a series of related developments, including the decline of mainstream parties which coincided with the emergence of radical right-wing populist parties and the concurrent dimensional transformation of the political space. This article analyses how these challenges to mainstream parties fundamentally affected the structure of party competition. On the basis of content analysis of party programmes, we examine the changing configuration of the Dutch party space since 2002 and investigate the impact of these changes on coalition-formation patterns. We conclude that the Dutch party system has become increasingly unstable. It has gradually lost its core through electoral fragmentation and mainstream parties’ positional shifts. The disappearance of a core party that dominates the coalition-formation process initially transformed the direction of party competition from centripetal to centrifugal. However, since 2012 a theoretically novel configuration has emerged in which no party or coherent group of parties dominates competition.

scholarly journals The phenomenon of the growing popularity of the right-wing Eurosceptic party «Alternative for Germany» in modern Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
G.E. I Ibragimova ◽  
◽  
A.M. Karamanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
German Politics ◽  
The Status ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Right ◽  
Alternative For Germany ◽  
High Support

The article examines the ascent of the party «Alternative for Germany» (AFD) from its creation in 2012 to a sharp jump in popularity in the parliamentary elections in 2017. Special emphasis is paid to the review of the strengthening of Eurosceptic rhetoric, criticism of modern German politics as a result of the arrival of farright politicians to the leading positions in the party. The article concludes that Euroscepticism has become one of the components of the broad populist platform of the party as the AFD has developed. Moreover, it is established that unexpectedly high support for the AFD by the German electorate and the party’s acquisition of the status of the main opposition force in the Bundestag becomes an important factor for the German establishment in the context of defending its position on further deepening the processes of European integration.

scholarly journals Kräfteverhältnisse in der Eurokrise

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (180) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Georgi ◽  
John Kannankulam
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Alternative Für Deutschland ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alternative For Germany

John Kannankulam and Fabian Georgi show, that the dominant authoritarian neoliberal fraction of the german Federal Government made a change of course in summer 2012. It quits with some ordoliberal principles and stops resistance against the mutualization of debt and expansive monetary policy. The alliance of a national-conservative and an ordoliberal fraction broke up. The contradiction within the (neo-)liberals and conservatives result in a foundation of a new right-wing party, the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). Anyway new conflicts arise and the Great Coalition of Merkel’s CDU and the Social Democrats hold on its hard-line (against greece): austerity. John Kannankulam and Fabian Georgi reconstruct the dynamics on the basis of four phases in which the authoritarian-neoliberal fraction prevail.

Brexit and Euroskepticism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Wind
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
World Order ◽  
First Century ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Member States ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Project ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Eu

Doomsdays preachers suggested that Brexit and Trump would mean the end of the liberal world order as we know it and thus the end of the EU. The research presented here suggests the opposite. Not only have Europeans turned their back to populism by voting yes to reforms and pro-EU-parties and governments in different member states over the past months, but Brexit and Trump also seems to have given a complete new momentum to the European project. This chapter demonstrates why Brexit cannot be generalized to the rest of the continent but is the result of a complicated and special British conception of what it means to be a sovereign state in the twenty-first century. Moreover, and paradoxically, surveys show that the greatest fear among Europeans today is not more European integration but right wing populism and European disunion.

scholarly journals Populism and International Relations: (Un)predictability, personalisation, and the reinforcement of existing trends in world politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 711-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Destradi ◽  
Johannes Plagemann
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
International Partnerships ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Global North ◽  
Different Shapes ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAs populists have formed governments all over the world, it becomes imperative to study the consequences of the rise of populism for International Relations. Yet, systematic academic analyses of the international impact of populist government formation are still missing, and political commentators tend to draw conclusions from few cases of right-wing populism in the Global North. But populism – conceptualised as a ‘thin’ ideology based on anti-elitism and anti-pluralism – takes different shapes across world regions as populists combine it with different ‘thick’ ideologies. To reflect such diversity and gain more systematic insights into the global implications of populism, we focus on cases of populist government formation in the Global South. We find that populists in power are not, per se, more belligerent or less willing to engage globally than their non-populist predecessors. Factors like status seeking or a country's embeddedness in international institutions mitigate the impact of populism. Its most immediate effect concerns procedural aspects: foreign policymaking becomes more centralised and personalised – yet, not entirely unpredictable, given the importance of ‘thick’ ideologies espoused by populist parties and leaders. Rather than changing course entirely, populists in power reinforce existing trends, especially a tendency towards diversifying international partnerships.

How right-wing populists instrumentalize news media: Deliberate provocations, scandalizing media coverage, and public awareness for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)

2022 ◽  
pp. 194016122110726
Author(s):  
Marcus Maurer ◽  
Pablo Jost ◽  
Marlene Schaaf ◽  
Michael Sülflow ◽  
Simon Kruschinski
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Output Analysis ◽  
Alternative Für Deutschland ◽  
Database Research ◽  
Alternative For Germany ◽  
Western Democracies

The rise of right-wing populist parties in Western democracies is often attributed to populists’ ability to instrumentalize news media by making deliberate provocations (e.g., verbal attacks on migrants or politicians from other parties) that generate media coverage and public awareness. To explain the success of populists’ deliberate provocations, we drew from research on populism and scandal theory to develop a theoretical framework that we tested in three studies examining the rise of German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) between January 2015 and December 2018. In Study 1, an input–output analysis of 17 deliberate provocations by AfD politicians in German news media revealed much more coverage about their attacks on migrants than about their attacks on political elites, although all were covered in predominantly scandalizing ways. Next, Study 2, involving media database research and an analysis of Google Trends data, showed that the provocations had increased overall media coverage about the AfD and influenced public awareness of the party

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