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…
[caption id="attachment_28859" align="alignnone" width="884"] Results of the EP 2019 in Germany (exit polls as of 7pm)[/caption] It will take some time to get nearly-final results for Germany, let alone for the EU, but the picture emerging from the exit polls in Germany is reasonably clear. So, in time honoured tradition, here are my hot takes:…
Germany – no EP electoral threshold for the last time There are currently 111 ‘political associations’ registered with Germany’s federal electoral commission. 41 of them (counting the CDU and the CSU separately) are fielding candidates in the upcoming European elections.Why are they doing it? Narcissism aside, this is a national election that is held without…