The Left Party and the AfD

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Olsen

In the 2017 German Federal Election. The Left Party (Die Linke, or LP) saw its vote share in eastern Germany seriously erode. The main culprit behind the LP’s losses was the Alternative for Germany (AfD): 430,000 voters who cast their ballots for the LP in 2013 voted for the AfD in 2017. Why was this the case? This article suggests that the AfD in 2017 was able to attract protest voters, largely in eastern Germany, dissatisfied with the state of democracy and the political establishment in Germany who once voted for the LP. The LP and AfD have become eastern German populist competitors.

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-499
Author(s):  
Roberto Heinrich ◽  
Stefan Merz ◽  
Anja Miriam Simon

The state election in Rhineland-Palatinate, which took place on the same day as the election in Baden-Württemberg, was safe to gain nationwide attention . It was perceived as a first test of the political mood for the federal election in the fall and, in addition, the first election held under Covid-19 pandemic conditions . Not surprisingly, the proportion of absentee voters increased significantly and reached a new nationwide high . The social democrats emerged as the strongest political force for the seventh time in a row with a share of 35 .7 percent of the vote . As in 2016, Minister President Malu Dreyer in particular guaranteed the SPD’s success . Despite slight losses, the SPD was well ahead of the CDU, which, with its top candidate Christian Baldauf, fell to a new historic low in Rhineland-Palatinate with a result of 27 .7 per­cent . The AfD did not benefit from the SPD and CDU losses and dropped to fourth place with 8 .3 percent . The election winners were the Greens, who achieved their second-best state election result of 9 .3 percent, and the Free Voters, who for the first time entered the Rhine­land-Palatinate parliament and won 5 .4 percent of the vote . The Liberals achieved a share of 5 .5 percent of the vote . For the first time, six parties are represented in the state parliament . Since none of the three coalition partners questioned a continuation of the coalition of SPD, Greens, and Liberals at any point in time, negotiations started quickly . The new government took office on May 18 .


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegfried Jutzi

A member of the Rhineland-Palatine state parliament failed in his appeal to the state Constitutional Court against his expulsion from the parliamentary group AfD (Alternative for Germany) . His parliamentary group had excluded him due to his contacts to right-wing extremists . Expulsions of this type are subject to a decision by the political group assembly, which must be taken in accordance with a minimum procedure under the rule of law and must be free from arbitrariness . The Constitutional Court regarded these conditions as given and emphasized that the parliamentary group had considerable room for maneuver in this respect which is not subject to constitutional control . This applies both to the investigation and to the assessment of the facts underlying the expulsion from the group .


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2020) (2) ◽  
pp. 359-394
Author(s):  
Jurij Perovšek

For Slovenes in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the year 1919 represented the final step to a new political beginning. With the end of the united all-Slovene liberal party organisation and the formation of separate liberal parties, the political party life faced a new era. Similar development was showing also in the Marxist camp. The Catholic camp was united. For the first time, Slovenes from all political camps took part in the state government politics and parliament work. They faced the diminishing of the independence, which was gained in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and the mutual fight for its preservation or abolition. This was the beginning of national-political separations in the later Yugoslav state. The year 1919 was characterized also by the establishment of the Slovene university and early occurrences of social discontent. A declaration about the new historical phenomenon – Bolshevism, had to be made. While the region of Prekmurje was integrated to the new state, the questions of the Western border and the situation with Carinthia were not resolved. For the Slovene history, the year 1919 presents a multi-transitional year.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Ruth Roded

Beginning in the early 1970s, Jewish and Muslim feminists, tackled “oral law”—Mishna and Talmud, in Judaism, and the parallel Hadith and Fiqh in Islam, and several analogous methodologies were devised. A parallel case study of maintenance and rebellion of wives —mezonoteha, moredet al ba?ala; nafaqa al-mar?a and nush?z—in classical Jewish and Islamic oral law demonstrates similarities in content and discourse. Differences between the two, however, were found in the application of oral law to daily life, as reflected in “responsa”—piskei halacha and fatwas. In modern times, as the state became more involved in regulating maintenance and disobedience, and Jewish law was backed for the first time in history by a state, state policy and implementation were influenced by the political system and socioeconomic circumstances of the country. Despite their similar origin in oral law, maintenance and rebellion have divergent relevance to modern Jews and Muslims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Muhannad Al Janabi Al Janabi

Since late 2010 and early 2011, the Arab region has witnessed mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and other countries that have been referred to in the political, media and other literature as the Arab Spring. These movements have had a profound effect on the stability of the regimes Which took place against it, as leaders took off and contributed to radical reforms in party structures and public freedoms and the transfer of power, but it also contributed to the occurrence of many countries in an internal spiral, which led to the erosion of the state from the inside until it became a prominent feature of the Arab) as is the case in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quraysha Bibi Ismail Sooliman

This paper considers the effect of violence on the emotions of IS fighters and the resultant consequences of those emotions as a factor in their choice to use violence. By interrogating the human aspect of the fighters, I am focusing not on religion but on human agency as a factor in the violence. In this regard, this paper is about reorienting the question about the violence of IS not as “religious” violence but as a response to how these fighters perceive what is happening to them and their homeland. It is about politicising the political, about the violence of the state and its coalition of killing as opposed to a consistent effort to frame the violence into an explanation of “extremist religious ideology.” This shift in analysis is significant because of the increasing harm that is caused by the rise in Islamophobia where all Muslims are considered “radical” and are dehumanised. This is by no means a new project; rather it reflects the ongoing project of distortion of and animosity toward Islam, the suspension of ethics and the naturalisation of war. It is about an advocacy for war by hegemonic powers and (puppet regimes) states against racialised groups in the name of defending liberal values. Furthermore, the myth of religious violence has served to advance the goals of power which have been used in domestic and foreign policy to marginalise and dehumanise Muslims and to portray the violence of the secular state as a justified intervention in order to protect Western civilisation and the secular subject.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-99
Author(s):  
Игорь А. Исаев

The article deals with one of the most important issues in the Soviet political and legal history. The choice of the political form that was established almost immediately after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Revolution of 1917, meant a change in the direction of development of the state. Councils became an alternative to the parliamentary republic. The article analyzes the basic principles of both political systems and the reasons for such a choice. The author emphasizes transnational political direction of the so-called “direct action” which took place not only in Russia, but also in several European countries.


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