Holger Apfel, the leader of Germany’s right-wing extremist National Democratic Party (NPD), resigns. Apfel’s move adds to the NPD’s many woes: The NPD is very nearly bankrupt as a result of financial irregularities. Moreover, the party’s constitutionality is currently being investigated by the Federal Constitutional Court. These proceedings could result in a ban of the NPD.
SPD votes on the coalition agreement It’ another slow week for German politics, what with the Mandela Memorial, near-civil war in Thailand, the standoff in Ukraine and the South Korean/Japanese Chinese skirmishes. BUT: a small-scale CDU party conference of some 180 delegates has approved unanimously of the CDU/CSU/SPD agreement (a ‘Coalition Treaty’ in German parlance,…
Federal investigators in Germany have launched a probe into 3300 unsolved cases of (attempted) murder. 746 crimes could have been committed by right-wingers for political reasons.
The CDU/CSU/SPD coalition talks are set to come to a conclusion tonight. The more interesting question however is if and how the September election will affect the party system in the medium term. My reading is that the high levels of segmentation that we have seen in the past are becoming unsustainable.
The new version of our Stata module surveybias has now appeared on SSC. From within Stata, simply run ssc install surveybias, all to install it (no surprise here). For the time being, the article on which the module is based has been ungated. Get it while it is free.
The very useful OUP blog has a Q&A session on polling accuracy with Jocelyn Evans and me: Polling accuracy: a Q&A with Kai Arzheimer and Joceyln Evans. Moreover, Oxford University Press has kindly ungated the Political Analysis paper on our New Multinomial Accuracy Measure (TM), so grab the PDF while it is free.
We have updated our Stata package surveybias, which estimates bias in pre-election polls and other surveys where the true distribution is known. A new feature facilitates the en masse comparison of surveys collected before an election. Also in this release: somewhat better documentation and toy data to get you started.
Interview mit der Deutschen Welle zur Einordnung der Dänischen Volkspartei und deren Rolle in einem möglichen Verbund europäischer Rechtsparteien. Foter.com / CC BY-SAInterview with Deutsche Welle on the Danish People’s Party and their potential role within an alliance of right-wing populist parties in Europe.
This weekend, the SPD held their party conference in Leipzig. In some alternate reality, this conference would have approved of the SPD/Green coalition agreement. On our plane, the party conference could be a turning point for the ongoing coalition talks. Or perhaps not. Also featuring: A ruse within a feint within a plot.
Interview mit der Deutschen Welle über das Bündnis von Front National und PVV (in German). Interview with Deutsche Welle on the emerging Wilders/Le Pen Alliance Roel Wijnants / Foter.com / CC BY-NC