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Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany are taking to the streets to push back against the far-right, nationalist policies of the AfD, which currently holds 11% of the seats in parliament. More
Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting across cities in Germany since early 2024, standing up against the Alternative for Germany party, a relatively new, far-right, nationalist party that is known as the AfD.
What has driven so many Germans to suddenly protest against a small, extremist political party?
The protesters in Germany are directly responding to the AfD’s radical policy positions and the fact that it is currently in second place in the polls for the upcoming federal election, which will take place on or before Oct. 26, 2025.
While the AfD did not win any parliament seats in its first federal election in 2013, the group’s popularity has been rising. The AfD held about 13% of the seats in parliament from 2017 through 2021 and was the third-largest party in parliament. Since 2021, it has held about 11% of the seats.
After the next federal election, the AfD could become the second-largest party. While this limited power would not let it enact any extreme policies that could potentially reduce freedom and respect for civil liberties in Germany, the AfD could use its position in parliament to disrupt the policymaking process, criticize establishment parties and attract new voters for future elections.
What is the AfD and why is it so controversial?
Several politicians and journalists formed the AfD in direct response to the Eurozone crisis of the 2010s.
That crisis was triggered by several European governments in the European Union, including Greece, Portugal and Ireland, that developed large budget deficits.
The European Union’s 27 member countries promise to be fiscally responsible. Otherwise, poor public management in one country could trigger an economic crisis throughout the entire European Union.
This is what happened during the Eurozone crisis. Poor public management in some member-states led to a European-wide crisis.
To mitigate the crisis, other European governments had to bail out other governments. The AfD’s founding members were outraged that Germany, as a leading member of the European Union, would become in part responsible for financially rescuing them.
Over time, the AfD has not only become increasingly skeptical of the European Union, but it has also become very clearly anti-immigration. Compared to other countries in Europe, Germany has a relatively large immigrant population. As of March 2023, about 23% of the people who live in Germany either are immigrants or their parents are or were. Germany is also the largest host country for refugees in Europe.
The true extent of AfD’s anti-immigration policies came to light in January 2024, when a German investigative news report revealed that high-ranking AfD members attended a secret meeting with neo-Nazi activists to discuss a “master plan.”
According to this plan, the German government would deport immigrants en masse to their countries of origin. This plan also included deporting non-German-born citizens of Germany.
The meeting was especially controversial because a few members of the Christian Democratic Union, one of Germany’s long-standing conservative parties, were also in attendance.
Once the investigative report became public, the AfD publicly distanced itself from the meeting and the plan.
Yet, it has been hard for the party leaders to convince the public that they do not support the supposed mass deportation policy, in part because high-ranking AfD members have suggested such policies in the past.
Markus Frohmaier, a leader of the AfD political group in Germany, speaks to party members at a conference on Feb. 24, 2024.
Christoph Schmidt/picture alliance via Getty Images
Germans’ response to the AfD
Once news of the mass deportation meeting circulated in mid-January, hundreds of thousands of people throughout Germany began to protest against the AfD and its anti-immigration policies.
Many of the protesters are also protesting to defend democracy and human rights in Germany.
Protesters have compared the AfD’s growing prominence to that of the Nazi party. They have been carrying signs that say the “AfD is so 1933,” “No Nazis” and “Deport the AfD Now.”
They believe the only way to prevent the rise of a far-right party again in Germany is to protest the far-right movement before it becomes too popular.
Symbolically, the protesters are protesting under the slogan “We are the firewall” to illustrate how they are protecting Germany from the rise of far-right nationalists once again.
Some are also pushing for the German government to ban the AfD. Yet, while Germany has laws against extremist groups that were developed after World War II, it is unclear whether such laws should be used to ban the party, as some observers caution that banning the AfD might backfire and make it more popular.
Demonstrators in Hamburg protest right-wing extremism and the AfD on Feb. 25, 2024.
Hami Roshan/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
What the AfD can still accomplish
While the AfD is currently posing an electoral threat to more mainstream parties in Germany, it is unlikely that it will take control over the German government any time soon.
Germany is a multiparty system; no single party can control German politics at any given time. Parties must share power when governing the country.
It is unlikely that any of the current establishment parties will work with the AfD to govern Germany, primarily because the AfD supports policies that are so far removed from what typical German parties would find acceptable.
Additionally, the Christian Democratic Union is currently the most popular party, according to opinion polls. CDU members have previously emphasized that they will not cooperate with the AfD in any circumstance.
And other establishment parties and politicians have also distanced themselves from the AfD.
Yet, while the AfD may not be able to make sweeping policy changes in the short run, it does pose an electoral threat to the establishment parties in Germany. As such, other German parties may start to alter their own policy platforms to appease some potential AfD voters.
The Christian Democratic Union is already proposing to send asylum seekers to other countries while their applications are being processed. However, their ability to make this policy change is unlikely, as it would require changes to European Union law.
In the long run, if the AfD is able to continue to grow in popularity at the local level, this may help it grow its voter base and become more successful in federal elections.
The AfD is more popular in states in eastern Germany, especially among voters who feel disenchanted with the reunification of communist East Germany and West Germany in 1990, and disenchanted with the drawbacks of Germany being a leading member of the European Union.
Some people fear that if the AfD continues to grow, it could undermine democracy in Germany, much like far-right populist parties have recently done in other democracies in Europe and in the rest of the world.
And as democracy continues to decline in Europe and globally, protections for civil liberties and political rights will continue to decline as well. More
Extremists benefit when we use euphemisms that confer on them an air of legitimacy. More
From the storming of the US Capitol on the January 6 2021, to the similar uprising in Brazil in 2023, far-right politicians are infringing on democratic ideals across the world. If we are serious about meeting the challenge they pose, we must stop treating them as legitimate, democratic actors and instead see them as the threat they really are.
A very big part of this effort is also quite a simple step. We must stop referring to far-right politics as “populist”.
In recent years, serious research on populism has reached somewhat of a consensus which makes it clear that it is secondary, at best, in defining any kind of politics. The two main schools of thought broadly disagree on whether populism is a thin ideology which involves a moralistic element (by pitting a “pure” people against “corrupt” elite) or whether it is simply a discourse that constructs a people as being against an elite, without any further specificity attached to those two groups.
Crucially, though, both agree that the populist element of any given movement comes second to politics and ideology. Parties of the left and right may both use populist rhetoric, but this tells us little about how they actually govern.
But populism has nevertheless become a buzzword. Countless academics have jumped on the bandwagon in search of funding and citations, often failing to do due diligence to the literature on the topic.
Number of articles containing the words ‘populist’, ‘populism’ or ‘populists’ on Web of Science
A surge in academic papers referring to populism.
Aurelien Mondon/Alex Yates, CC BY
Beyond poor academic practice, the careless use of the word has also had a deleterious impact on wider public discourse. These four consequences should hopefully convince you to stop using the word “populist” to describe someone who is actually just a rightwing extremist.
1. It masks the threat posed by the far right
It should not come as a surprise that many far-right politicians, from France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, to Italy’s Matteo Salvini, have embraced the term “populism”. Even when it is used by their opponents as an insult, far-right politicians prefer the term to more accurate, but also more stigmatising terms, such as “extremist” or “racist”.
This could be witnessed, for example, in the Guardian’s 2019 six-month-long series on “the new populism”. More often than not, the word populism was used in this series to describe far more sinister politics than the simple opposition between the elite and the people. Political personalities such as Steve Bannon are far better described as far or extreme right. These terms are not only more precise, but make the threat they pose far clearer than the murky “populism”.
2. It exaggerates the strength of the far right
When we use the term “populist”, we often create a semantic link between the word and “the people”. So when we allow the far right to be described as populist, we are incorrectly implying that they are tapping into what the people want or that they speak for the “silent majority” – something Nigel Farage and others love to claim.
Far-right parties and politicians are mounting election campaigns all over the world in 2024. Join us in London at 6pm on March 6 for a salon style discussion with experts on how seriously we should take the threat, what these parties mean for our democracies – and what action we can take. Register for your place at this free public session here. There will be food, drinks and, best of all, the opportunity to connect with interesting people.
The myth is further entrenched by the perception that the rise of “populism” is the result of choices made by people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder – whether they are defined as the “white working class”, the “left behind” or the “losers of globalisation”. This ignores analysis which shows that much of the support for reactionary politics comes predominantly from affluent groups.
Being allowed to claim to speak on behalf of the voiceless is particularly useful at a time of widespread distrust in mainstream politics, so we shouldn’t be surprised that far-right politicians like to be called populists. It allows them to falsely posit themselves as the alternative to the status quo.
3. It legitimises far-right politics
By being erroneously tied to “the people” via the word “populism”, far-right demands are mistaken for democratic demands. It is therefore now common to see mainstream parties absorbing the politics of the far right on the flawed assumption that these ideas are “what the people want”.
The rights of minoritised communities such as migrants, asylum seekers, racialised people, LGBTQ+ communities, women and/or disabled people have all been under various levels of threat by mainstream elite actors, whether through policy, political campaigning or news coverage. Often, the people threatening these rights benefit from the pretence that they are simply responding to public opinion. Supposedly “centre-right” governments are, therefore, given carte blanche to adopt draconian immigration policies. After all, it is in the name of “the people”.
4. It blocks democratic progress by distracting us
Populist hype is generally accompanied by a rise of anti-populist discourse, which portrays “populism” as an existential threat to liberal democracy. Thinly concealed behind this pejorative use of the term “populism” is at best a distrust, if not outright antipathy, towards “the people”.
By blaming “the people” for the problems in our democracies, elites are absolved from having to interrogate their own role in facilitating the crisis. They can also use the very real threat posed by the far right to justify the need to support the status quo by warning “we are bad – but they are worse”.
What is to be done?
Reducing the far right to a “populist” threat allows the mainstream off the hook. When combating the far right, we must be honest about the decisions that have led us to this reactionary moment. If the mainstream does not take responsibility, it has no chance of defeating the monster that it has helped to create. This applies particularly to those who have a privileged access to shaping public discourse such as the media, politicians and academics to a lesser extent.
Read more:
Look to the mainstream to explain the rise of the far right
The first step on this journey is using terms correctly. Calling the far right “populist” keeps us in our inertia. To activate the appropriate sense of urgency needed to defeat these trends, we must be honest about the kind of politics that we see in front of us. If the far right proudly wears the badge of “populism”, we must ask how it helps them. They know it grants them legitimacy. Why, then, should we play into the hands of extremists whose loathing of democracy has been repeatedly demonstrated? More
In an uncertain world our natural instinct is to seek out answers that reassure, even when they don’t make sense. More
The Treaty of Lisbon celebrates its 15th anniversary on 13 December. Looking back, experts agree that it played a big part in structuring the EU as we know it. It reinforced the role of Commission President… More
The Treaty of Lisbon celebrates its 15th anniversary on 13 December. Looking back, experts agree that it played a big part in structuring the EU as we know it. It reinforced the role of Commission President, to be elected by the European Parliament and share power with a newly created President of the European Council, the body that brings together EU heads of government.
So, the treaty strengthened both the Commission and the Council, effectively creating a dual executive for the EU. Following the treaty changes, the EU faced a succession of crises, including the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit, the COVID pandemic, and the invasion of Ukraine. These have reinforced the centrality of both institutions for EU decision-making.
This dual nature of the EU executive is a reminder that EU accountability vis-a-vis its citizens is also dual. . The Commission, now elected by the Parliament signals the importance of the latter body for citizens’ ability determine EU policy. The renewed importance of the Council, as the intergovernmental executive body of the EU, underpins the role national elections play in holding the EU accountable.
Yet, when debates on the degree of democracy in the EU are held, or when institutional innovations are considered to increase the proximity between citizens and the EU, the focus tends to lie exclusively on the European Parliament (EP) elections, while national channels of accountability as a source of EU democratization tend to be disregarded. In order to counter that trend, our book examines the EU’s national accountability channels, providing a detailed analysis of how the EU is debated in national media and parliaments.
North and South under the microscope
The research focuses on six countries – Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain from 2002-2021. Combining founding members of the EU with more recent entrants, these countries also differ in economic performance both before and after the Eurozone crisis.
The book notes an increasing importance of EU in the media and parliamentary debates. In terms of how they engage with the EU, these two arenas have inherently different logics. The media has a negativity bias. Therefore, as the media coverage of the EU issues grows, so does the negative tone toward it. In parliaments, the larger parties control debates, and they tend to act strategically. So, in countries such as Spain and Ireland with no eurosceptic party in Parliament, the EU is discussed to a greater extent by the larger parties. On the contrary, in countries where there is an eurosceptic party in parliament, the larger parties tend to discuss the EU less. This is probably to prevent the eurosceptic parties from gaining more visibility.
Both media and parliaments tend to focus on EU policies rather than notions of European belonging and identity. These findings are common to all countries, and suggest that both arenas are contributing to enable citizens to form opinions on EU policies rather than questioning EU membership.
Yet, differences do emerge between countries on how EU policies are debated. Namely, in Ireland, Spain and Portugal, EU policies are mostly discussed in the context of their effect on national policies. But in Germany, EU policies are discussed in a broader context.
So, the EU is being discussed mostly in terms of its policies. Citizens are therefore being provided with information about the EU which can then be used when making vote choices in legislative elections.
But is this occurring? Does Europe really matter in national elections? Our research, using different methods (experiments and observational data), finds that this is indeed the case. If the EU matters, how does it compare to other factors which tend to explain vote choice? Despite the increasing importance of European factors, we found that traditional national left-right issues remain more significant defining factors of vote choice.
But we found that the more EU policies were mentioned in the media, the more they impact how people vote. Regarding parliamentary debates, we find that the more eurosceptic parties discuss the EU in parliaments, the greater the importance that EU attitudes will have among these parties’ voters choice.
Therefore, our book establishes firmly the degree to which national governments are now selected across Europe partly on the basis of their stances on the EU. The national media environments, national parliamentary debates and legislative elections are not only important to legitimise governments at the national level, but also at the EU level.
The role that heads of government play in the European Council is not disconnected from voters choices back home when legislative elections are held. When discussing the quality of democracy with the EU and how it can be improved, it is necessary to take into account not only the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council, but also the quality of the national media, national parliaments and legislative elections. More
Extremists are not ‘capturing’ our systems – they are part of them. More
