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…
The ‘Institut für Staatspolitik’ is a well-known far-right ‘think tank’. Their self-stated meta-political mission is to educate the future nationalist. The long-term objective is to achieve a stealthy transformation of German society. They have been around for a while, and there are books and chapters about them, written by people who study right-wing extremism for…
Today’s elections in Brandenburg & Saxony are sending a new set of shock waves through German politics. Here are some quick thoughts. The AfD polled about 28 per cent in Saxony, their best result yet. Saxony is truly the AfD’s heartland. The AfD did also well in Brandenburg. In both states, they are led and…
