We the People?
A report on the rise of the far right party showing how it has moved significantly to the extreme right since its launch in April 2013. AfD’s turn to the extreme right has had little affect on its electoral support. The party has frequently attacked German ‘war guilt’, downplayed the Holocaust and linked Muslim immigration to criminality. Yet it is now a major force in East Germany politics with strong showings in Saxony and Brandenburg state-elections.
Titus Molkenbur and Luke Cooper analyse the rise of the AfD and its transition from a eurosceptic party to an increasingly extremist one. They argue there is a big risk that the party creates a pole of attraction in German politics which pulls the centre-right further to the right. To address the rise of the AfD requires a reformed economic model – not abandoning principled opposition.
The report was published by the LSE Visions of Europe research programme, based at the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit.
