Abstract
While Germany is often conceived as the “ideal type” militant democracy, until the emergence of the AfD in 2013, the absence of a successful right-wing populist party made it an exceptional case in Europe. Unlike most former targets of militant democracy, the AfD accepts rules of the liberal democracy. This raises the central question addressed in the article: How does the emergence of a populist right-wing party affect practices of German militant democracy? I argue that AfD opponents have developed an adapted militancy towards the right-wing populist party. Data on initiatives opposing the AfD between 2013 and 2021 show that AfD opponents use a full range of initiatives spanning both tolerant and intolerant modes of engagement. If the proportion of tolerant initiatives is somewhat unexpected, intolerant responses were progressively introduced. With the help of semi-structured interviews conducted with the authors of initiatives opposing the AfD, I argue that four factors help explain the developments of initiatives against the right-wing populist party: the radicalization of the AfD; the militant democratic legacy in Germany; the distribution of power among AfD opponents; and learning dynamics affecting political actors, public authorities, and civil society groups differently.
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Notes
While Bourne’s typology is designed to facilitate dialogue with normative political theorists, “the distinction between tolerant and intolerant modes of engagement is practice-based, rather than a normative theory of what constitutes tolerant and intolerant forms of opposition” to populism (Bourne 2023b, a: 11).
One clause forbade the organisers to advertise for the AfD on the palace grounds, another one foresaw that in case of counterdemonstrations, the hosts would give the AfD a notice of termination.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Angela Bourne, Anthoula Malkopoulou, Aleksandra Moroska-Bonkiewicz, Patrick Nitzschner, Juha Tuovinen, Franciszek Tyszka, Francesco Campo, Mathias Holst Nicolaisen, Tore Vincents Olsen, John van Vliet, and 2 anonymous reviewers for Comparative European Politics for comments on earlier versions of this paper. All errors remain fully mine.
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This research was in part financed by the Carlsberg Foundation Grant CF20-0008.
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Appendix: List of semi-structured interviews
Appendix: List of semi-structured interviews
Date | Category of actors | Position of the respondent |
|---|---|---|
10/02/2022 | Civil society actor | Employee in an NGO countering right-wing extremism |
11/02/2022 | Civil society actor | Representative of the Hambach Castle Foundation |
17/02/2022 | Political actor | Local representative of the CSU (opposed to co-optation) |
21/02/2022 | Political actor | Founder of the CDU-CSU initiative Union der Mitte (opposed to co-optation) |
23/02/2022 | Political actor | CSU member in Munich (opposed to co-optation) |
01/03/2022 | Political actor | Former CSU state minister (in favour of co-optation) |
02/03/2022 | Civil society actor | Representative of the Protestant Church in Bavaria |
03/03/2022 | Public authority | Director of a state intelligence office |
10/03/2022 | Political actor | Former advisor of Horst Seehofer (in favour of co-optation) |
18/03/2022 | Political actor | CSU representative in Bavarian parliament (in favour of co-optation) |
25/03/2022 | Civil society actor | Representative of the Catholic Church in Bavaria |
31/03/2022 | Civil society actor | Employee in a regional umbrella organization gathering NGOs countering right-wing extremism |
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Laumond, B. Increasing toleration for the intolerant? “Adapted militancy” and German responses to Alternative für Deutschland. Comp Eur Polit (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-023-00336-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-023-00336-6
Keywords
- Initiatives opposing populist parties
- Adapted militancy
- Learning
- Alternative for Germany
- Tolerance
- Intolerance