Mit dem Deutschlandfunk habe ich über die Ergebnisse unserer aktuellen Studie zur AfD und ihren Wählern gesprochen. Das Interview konnte man in der Audiothek nachhören – inzwischen wegen der unsinnigen Löschverpflichtungen des Öffentlichen Rundfunks leider entfernt. .
Greece is going to the polls this coming Sunday. Zoe Alipranti thinks she knows who is going to win “The invention of Essex: how a county became a caricature” is an excellent feature about the political economy of one (seriously under-appreciated) county. Some Trump supporters are actually stock-photo/video models. Are you surprised?
Right-wing terrorism in Germany often goes unnoticed. Politicians, state agencies, the media, and the general public grossly underestimate the size of the problem. But after the murder of a centre-right politician, all of the sudden this is a big issue for German and international media. And so I got to talk to the BBC’s Newshour…
The “Alternative for Germany” began its political life as a softly eurosceptic breakaway from the political mainstream but has changed beyond all recognition. Using a very large dataset covering the full 2013-17 period, Carl Berning and I trace the transformation of the AfD’s electorate, which now fits the somewhat stereotypical radical right template. Read the full article, or watch the highlights in just under 90 seconds.
On a very slow news day, two third-tier politicians for the centre-right CDU phantasise over future coalitions with the “moderates/liberals” within the AfD (where would they find them?). Ah yes, they also want to re-unite “the National” and “the Social”, which, by the lego-like greatness of the German language, becomes the “National-Social”. James F. Downes…
Deutsche Welle has an interesting piece on the AfD’s recent weaponisation of art. Colleagues Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Julian Göpffarth do the heavy lifting, but I get some airtime, too [contentcards url="https://www.dw.com/en/as-the-far-right-culture-war-escalates-concerns-grow/a-48992958" target="_blank"]
Bonnie N. Field has written a very clear explainer on the issue of minority governments in Spain for the EUROPP blog. Read it. Over at Europe Elects, Alexander Sarti explains how they predicted the distribution of seats in the European Parliament. By and large, it seems to have worked rather well. Somewhere along the way,…
Mit dpa habe ich über das Ergebnis von Kommunal- und Europawahlen in Rheinland-Pfalz sowie über die Konsequenzen, die sich daraus für die Parteien ergeben, gesprochen: [contentcards url="https://www.n-tv.de/regionales/rheinland-pfalz-und-saarland/Experte-Arzheimer-SPD-muss-sich-in-GroKo-profilieren-article21054738.html" target="_blank"]
Auch bei der Europwahl 2019 war die AfD in den neuen Ländern außerordentlich erfolgreich. Mit Blick auf die bisherige Entwicklung der AfD in den neuen Ländern ist dies wenig verwunderlich. Das Handelsblatt hat mit etlichen Ökonomen über die Lage gesprochen und am Ende sogar einen Politikwissenschaftler nach seiner Meinung gefragt 😉 [contentcards url="https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/europawahl/europawahl-afd-erfolge-in-ostdeutschland-alarmieren-oekonomen/24386984.html?ticket=ST-4775413-OaLq3EUcsHbpLpgDSFIf-ap6" target="_blank"]
The AfD was founded near Germany’s financial centre of gravity (Frankfort) by members of the old western elites. But early on, the eastern states of Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia became important for the further development of the party. It was here, during the 2014 state election season, that the AfD began to toy (very reluctantly…