Local democracy is a good thing. It is also one of the good things that you can have too much of. After almost sixty years of territorial reforms, Rhineland-Palatinate, a state that harbours about 5% of Germany’s total population, is still home to about 2,500 of the nation’s ~11,000 municipalities. There may be an EP…
It’s that time again: EP and local elections are in conjunction, and politicians are wasting public space and money on election posters from hell. In national campaigns, election posters are a remarkably inefficient way to burn through campaign funds. Their main function is to remind voters that their party still exist. Apart from that, they…
Weltweit steht die liberale Demokratie unter Druck. Die politische Extremismusforschung hat dadurch eine traurige Bedeutung erlangt. Die politikwissenschaftliche Einstellungsforschung leistet einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Extremismusforschung. Sie untersucht Attitüden, die offen antidemokratisch oder für demokratische Gemeinwesen zumindest problematisch sind. Für das von Thorsten Faas, Oscar Gabriel und Jürgen Maier herausgegebene Handbuch zur Einstellungs- und Verhaltensforschung habe…
On the day of the umpteenth Not-So-Special Brexit Council, the stunning image of a super-massive black hole was revealed. In unrelated news, I live with two teenagers. So when idly trying to catch up on the less-than-stellar proceedings in Brussels, the headlines collided in my poor head. For posterity, here is some exclusive coverage of…
Germany’s carnival is supposed to be funny and political. Usually it is neither. But sometimes, there is a glimpse. Mocked at Mainz This is a picture I took at the Rosenmontagszug in Mainz, a major parade that attracts hundreds of thousands of revellers. The front of the float shows a pretty realistic AfD election poster…
Last weekend, AfD leader Alexander Gauland gave a lecture at a “winter school” organised by the Institut für Staatspolitik (IfS). The IfS is a far-right think whose state aim it is to form the future elite of far-right leaders. If you think that leader of Germany’s biggest opposition party being part of such a thing…
Andre Poggenburg, a prominent hardliner from Saxony-Anhalt, has left the AfD. He has already founded a new party. What does that mean for the AfD and German politics in general? I’ve made a short explainer video. Or, if you’re not the visual type, you can read an old-fashioned post on the latest breakaway from the…
Yesterday, Andre Poggenburg, formerly the AfD’s head honcho in Saxony-Anhalt announced that he had left the AfD and launched a new party further to the right: the “Awakening of German Patriots”. Before his fall from grace, Poggenburg was one of the more visible members of the party’s ultra-nationalist “völkisch” wing, which is particularly strong in…
Putsch in the AfD! This morning, I woke up to the news that Andre Poggenburg, former leader of the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt and former chair of the AfD’s delegation in the state parliament is now also a former member of the AfD. And thanks to @TheDanHough, I quickly learned that he has already set up…
A year ago, I wrote a slightly maudlin blog about the good and the not-so-good reasons for solo-blogging in this time and age. Good reasons or not, I kept up the good work with 35 blogs in 2018. That is a bit less than my long-term annual average, but Chapeau to my good self nonetheless.…