Category: Political Science

New Publication: The AfD: Finally a Successful Right-Wing Populist Eurosceptic Party for Germany?

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I am pleased to be able to inform you that the editors are happy with the revisions you made to your article and we can now proceed to publication. I could not agree more. The revised article will appear in 2015, possibly rather late. Meanwhile, the author’s version of my piece on Germany’s Alternative party…

More on Thuringia: A CDU-AfD-Pact?

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Various news outlets reported this afternoon that there had been talks, perhaps even agreement between the (state) CDU and the (state) AfD to prevent Ramelow from being elected Minister-President. Obviously, nothing came out of this (neither party put a candidate on the slate), but still: Wither the blessing of the leadership, Merkel has created a…

Germany gets their first Minister-President of the Left

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On Friday, the state parliament at Erfurt voted in Bodo Ramelow as Minister-President of Thuringia. He is the first member of the Left party to hold such an office, backed by the first ‘red-red-green’ (Left/SPD/Greens) coalition ever. 25 years after the fall of the wall, that is still a highly controversial constellation. Ramelow has been…

The Math of Post-Socialism

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Much merriment in the Eastern state of Thuringia: 25 years after the fall of the wall, the Greens and the SPD in the state parliament are poised to form a coalition with the Left (die Linke), which would give the Left its first minister president ever. What’s the Matter with the Left? Predictably, this is…

Google Scholar Fail

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Google decided some time ago that their algorithms are so good that the old Humanities/Social Sciences/Hard Sciences button on Google Scholar did no longer earn its keep. As a Social Scientist trying to remember the exact title of that dear old Dalton 1984 piece, I could not agree less. [caption id="attachment_13371" align="alignright" width="754"] Not my…

East Germans Killed the FDP

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Even the Washington Post has woken up to the fact that 25 years after the uprising in the GDR, Germany stubbornly remains divided economically, politically, and socially. In the great scheme of things, this may matter less than you might think: In Western Europe alone, the UK, Spain, Belgium, or Switzerland – countries that have…