Alternative for Germany (AfD) comes under surveillance

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What just happened Yesterday, it was leaked that Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the domestic intelligence agency) “suspects” the AfD might be a right-wing extremist organisation that aims to undermine democracy in Germany . Forming this suspicion is an internal process (the agency is under a gagging order and has not commented on…

Shrove Monday in Academia

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Rainer Zenz on de.wikipedia - Eigenes Werk (Originaltext: Eigene Aufnahme.), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1144215

How it started It’s no secret that Mainz is a carnival hot spot. Shrove Monday, the day of the biggest parade and the most frantic celebrations, is a de facto public holiday in the city. But the de facto bit is important here: the city can’t make it a proper holiday, yet nobody who can possibly avoid it…

Gespräch mit dem SWR über BriefwählerInnen und die Landtagswahl 2021 in Rheinland-Pfalz

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Mit dem SWR habe ich über die Bedeutung der Briefwahl für den Wahlkampf und die zu erwartende Mobilisierung bei der Landtagswahl in Rheinland-Pfalz gesprochen. Das Ergebnis findet sich hier. [contentcards url="https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/corona-experte-landtagswahl-rp-100.html" target="_blank"]

Trump and trees

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On today’s walk in the local woods, I found this unexpected piece of political art. Stick-Trump is saying “bye”. The stick-kids are asking where their family might be. Who made this and left it here?

What we are reading: populism, identity, and mobilisation

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Everyone and their grandfather are worried about (right-wing) populism, filter bubbles, frames, and their effects on western publics. But do they actually work? This large team ran an experiment in many European countries to find out. You will be shocked when you see hypothesis #7! Bos, L., Schemer, C., Corbu, N., Hameleers, M., Andreadis, I.,…