1st Edition
Radical Right Populism in Germany AfD, Pegida, and the Identitarian Movement
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of radical right populism in Germany. It gives an overview of historical developments of the phenomenon and its current appearance. It examines three of the main far-right organizations in Germany: the radical right populist party AfD (Alternative for Germany), Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamification of the Occident), and the Identitarian Movement.
The book investigates the positions of these groups as expressed in programmes, publications, and statements of party leaders and movement activists. It explores their history, ideologies, strategies, and their main activists and representatives, as well as the overlap between the groups. The ideological positions examined include populism, nativism, authoritarianism, volkish nationalism, ethnopluralism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, antifeminism, and Euroscepticism. The analysis shows that these ideological features are sometimes strategically interlinked for effect and used to justify specific political demands such as the stronger regulation of immigration and the exclusion of Muslims.
This much-needed volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers of German politics, populism, social movements, party politics, and right-wing extremism.
1. Introduction
2. Populism and Radical Right Populism
3. Radical Right Populist Precursors of AfD
4. A Short History of AfD
5. AfD’s Radical Right Populism
6. Volkish Nationalism as Core Ideology
7. AfD’s Reluctant Hard Euroscepticism
8. Radical Right Populist Hostility Toward Islam
9. Antisemitism and Historical Revisionism
10. AfD as "Anti-Gender Party"
11. Strategy of Ambivalence: AfD between Neoliberalism and Social Populism
12. Conclusion
Appendix
Biography
Ralf Havertz is Associate Professor of International Relations at Keimyung University in South Korea. He has published a study about the intellectual New Right in Germany and several articles on the rise of radical right populism in Germany.
