Germany’s far-right group PEGIDA is mobilizing weekly ‘virtual marches’ livestreamed on YouTube. PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden December 16, 2018 | Derbrauni / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
On a Monday evening in early April 2020, around 1,000 users are waiting for a YouTube livestream, ho…
Last weekend, thousands of Germans took to the streets to protest against the anti-Corona policies. The scenes were quite extraordinary and were widely reported in German and in international media, not least because the rallies were attended by far-right actors and conspiracy theorists. The good folks at Handelsblatt interviewed some colleagues and me, and someone…
On May the 8th 1945, the Wehrmacht surrendered, bringing the war in Europe and the terror reign of the Nazis to an end.1 40 years later, then-president Richard von Weizsäcker, himself a former officer of the Wehrmacht and a scion of the same Prussian gentry that for centuries has supplied the army with cadets, kicked…
Update #3 March 25: Looks like we are indeed getting an option 1+2 outcome: Höcke & Kalbitz say they cannot shred the membership list b/c there is none, but tell members to refrain from political activity under the “wing” brand. Obviously, they will otherwise remain very active within the party. Update #2 March 21: The…
Yet another end-of-year post It’s that time of the year again. No, I’m not talking about mindless consumerism, pointless over-indulgence and the Great Starbucks War on Christmas. What I’m talking about is my yearly reflection on why I still solo blog in <insert year>, and which posts were the least unpopular. To which the answer…
A coalition to keep out the AfD Back in the distant past of 2016, the rise of the AfD in Germany’s eastern states and the fragmentation of the party system began to force the formation of awkward coalitions. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD captured about a quarter of the vote and so brought together a ‘Kenya…
For the radical right in Europe, Alternative for Germany is an increasingly unusual case In a recent paper published in JCMS, I argue that unlike other German far-right parties, the “Alternative for Germany party” (AfD) managed to avoid being associated with Nazism. The strong presence of establishment figures that previously were (or could have been) members…
Happy to report that I made it to no. 53 on this totally scientific and utterly unbiased list of “Top 100 Political Science Blogs”. Presumably, because there are so few of us left. But anyways, if you are still reading blogs, take a look: there are a lot of interesting items on this list. [contentcards…
When former leader Frauke Petry left the AfD after the 2017 federal election, she kept her seats in the Bundestag and in Saxony’s regional parliament. These seats were meant to form the base for a new movement/party she quickly set up with friends and family. [caption id="attachment_29025" width="1200"] Image source: Wikipedia[/caption] The “Blue Party” was…
LEFT 30.4% AfD 23.5% CDU 22.1% SPD 8.1% GREENS 5.1% FDP 5.1% Source: FGW projection, 8:10pm Why waste my life writing lengthy books that no-one is going to read? Why go through the pain of peer review? Why, in fact, wait for the actual election results to come in? So here is my list on…