James Downes 0:02 Welcome everybody to the CARR Right Rising Podcast. My name is James Downes and I'll be your host today. So I'm a Senior Fellow and also Head of the Populism Research Unit based at CARR. I'm also researcher based in Hong Kong at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Today, the call populism research unit will be hosting this episode. And we will examine the important case of the far right Alternative for Germany, the AfD party in German politics. So we're delighted today to invite Sopie Schmalenbergerfrom our CARR Populism Research Unit onto the show, to let us know more about the far right AfD party and also in order to unpack and look at the significance of the AfD in 21st century German politics. So Sophie Schmalenberger, is a PhD candidate at Aarhus University's Department of Global Studies in Denmark, and a doctoral fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). Sophie is also a member of the CARR Populism Research Unit. Sophie's research focuses on far right populism in the memory cultural context, focusing on discursive, performative and effective dimensions of right wing populist actors memory work, and particular surface interested in how the Alternative for Germany, the AfD party utilises memory and commemorative symbols alongside practices and performances to articulate an alternative account of how the German nation relates to itself effectively. So Sophie, welcome to the show. It's great to have you on. Sophie Schmalenberger 1:32 I thank you for inviting me. James Downes 1:36 So thanks a lot, Sophie. So your research sounds incredibly interesting, particularly with the focus on social psychology and how this relates to the far right AfD party in the German political context. Please, could you just tell us a little bit more about your current research on the populist radical right, alternative Germany party? So for example, what exactly is the AfD? Party ideologically speaking? And secondly, what research are you currently working on? Sophie Schmalenberger 2:05 And yes, of course, and I think to, to properly explain what the AfD is, I'll just start with a with a quick rundown of the German party system in German politics to to to place the AfD sort of within it. So the tradition, no or established parties at the point when the AfD was emerging. Were, first of all, the CDU CSU, the Christian Conservative Party, that also Chancellor Merkel is a member of and they've been in government for the last 15 years since 2005. And, and yeah, as I said, they are usually a on the conservative sort of centre, right, but have gone a bit more towards the political middle, and the mcell. And the important thing here is that the christian conservatives were supposed to be there was not supposed to be a party appearing on the right of the construct christian conservatives in German popular in German, and post war politics, then we have the Social Democrats, the oldest party in Germany, dating back to the 1860s. And yeah, having classic I would say social democratic positions and workers rights as sort of their the central issue, however, experiencing a bit of an elven damage to their image, which some very strict social welfare reforms on the last Chancellor Schroeder who governed and Germany from 1998 until 2005, then we have the free Democratic Party, FDP, liberal Liberal Party, and that I would also play sort of in the centre right spectrum of the political scene. And so more interested I would say, in sort of auto liberal, economic neoliberal agenda than sort of the left wing liberal focus on personal freedoms and and things like that. And, and then we have the greens founded in the 1980s as sort of emerging from anti nuclear and pro environment protest groups and in the 70s. And, and they are very popular at the moment after the Friday's for future protests. They are actually scoring around 20% in the in the election or in the in the opinion polls. And last but not least, we have the Die Linke, and often labelled the leftist Populist Party See that originates in the merger of the Eastern German PDS, which is the successor party of the social Unity Party, the ICD and the Yeah, basically the only party and in the GDR and the western German left that split from the SPD, and in the early 2000s. So the AfD. So that's sort of the background against which they emerged on the right side of the CDU CSU in 2013. So it was founded in 2013, by a professor and economist professor, from humble called bound Luca. And it was mainly founded as a single issue euroskeptic party emerging in context of the financial crisis. And as especially the Europe, the European financial crisis, and, and it was the first party that broke with a cross party consensus on a strict commitment of Germany, to the European Union and to European integration, because it was openly demanding that Germany should leave the euro and the European Monetary Union, and we should get back the Deutsche Mark. And they missed the 5% threshold in the 2013 national elections, but ended the European Parliament in 2014. And quite soon after the founding, we could see that they started to attract voters that were not only sort of conservative, or the liberals moving over from the Christian Democrats mostly, but that had actually political positions that we could label far right. And this became visible with, I would say, when you could maybe call the turn, turn off the party, when the founder band logo was not reelected as a party leader and instead and competely on a sort of xenophobe anti immigrant agenda was elected as the party leader in 2015. And from then onwards, the AfD has moved towards the radical right, and can now actually be seen as a radical Populist Party because it has an agenda that sort of puts the established parties and immigrants as the enemies of the German people. And they were particularly successful in mobilising anti immigrant sentiments, and after on course, of, of what is usually referred to as the refugee crisis. And they managed to enter the German national parliament, the Bundestag in 2017, with roughly 13% and are currently the strongest opposition party in the German Bundestag. My research just very quickly sort of takes the vantage point from the fact that I am the first far right party to enter the German Bundestag. And after the end of second world war, and it's the aim to or the aim I have is mainly to explain the emergence and success of the far right, not with a Yeah, which you could maybe call it a classical political science approach that sort of measures voters preferences and voter attitudes and looks at the political positions of the AfD and how they address these opinions and attitudes. And, but tries to understand the emergence in in the historical German contexts and aims to look at feelings and emotions in order to explain what the AfD is, is doing in that memory political context. James Downes 9:10 Thanks a lot, Sophie. So I think our listeners will really appreciate your your knowledge here in terms of speaking about, or providing an introduction to the the German party system and also the political system. And it's also fascinating to hear about different parties on both the left wing and the right wing side, and also about the current research that you're working on in regards to the to the AfD. So you've also recently written an excellent article for the PSA for the Political Studies Association that's titled, a Germany 30 years after reunification, a grown up country. So actually, firstly, want to urge all podcast listeners that will be listening to this episode, and would like to understand more about German politics to also check out this great article that Sophie's written. So a question that I have related to this article Sophie, is could you just give us a bit of a introduction Two listeners for this podcast about your main argument in this article, what is your main argument? Sophie Schmalenberger 10:06 Yes. And yeah, so I was asked to write that piece on occasion of what you could maybe call Germany's 30th birthday. And so the anniversary of German reunification, and this year in October, and 2020. And, and when I got this sort of request, it almost felt like writing a autobiographical piece because yeah, I myself I was born in in July 1990. And in what was still the, the GDR, but three months later became the Federal Republic. So sort of looking back on the last 30 years of reunified Germany, and definitely also sort of has a personal dimension for me. And so I tried to write this piece as a mix of a personal account and, and from the perspective of afar, writes in scholar as well. And the main aim here was, yeah, maybe to deconstruct a bit, the general image that I think especially outside of Germany exists, that sees Germany sort of as, as the liberal democratic beacon, especially in the last, you know, we have seen Donald Trump and in Brexit and and everything, and that sees Germany as is the engine of European integration, and sees German unity in the last 30 years of German history mainly as a success story. And well, I would say that there's definitely some truth to many of these successes, and the last 30 years have not only been a success, because and that's my main point in the article, we have had a big fire rate problem in Germany before but especially ever since the 1990s. And that starts with violent Nazi riots in the cities of Jolla's vanished and harden in the early 90s. With the National Socialist underground, National Socialist, yeah, will Terrell sell, basically, murdering Germans of Turkish and Greek descent, all through the 2000s and being only discovered in 2011, more or less by by, by chance or by by accident, then with the AfD, entering the Bundestag on the external phobic far right anti muslim tickets, and most recently, with the far right terror attacks, but also with the murder of the CDU politician, that was definitely motivated by a far right extremist ideology. And what I try to argue in that thing is in the piece that I wrote, for the PSA is that the far right is also strong because of what politicians so far did in face of anti immigrant sentiment and far right extremism. Because what what happened in the 90s, as well as in the 2000s 10s, and in face of far right, riots and the AfD was actually a tightening of asylum laws. And I also argued that we in Germany still have the idea of a certain light culture and essentialist understanding of what German culture is, and that immigrants or descendants of immigrants in Germany need to completely adapt to in order to be considered a part of the German society. And to those mainstream ideas, the far right has a rather easy time to connect to. So my recommendation for to Germany on occasion of its 30th birthday, was was to urge that more than Germany really needs to reconsider itself, that we could not only continue to symbolically condemned the AfD and far right violence and speeches and public statements, but that we should come to terms with the very diverse society that we are at the moment that there's so many different people living on German soil today and that they all belong with the German nation, and should be considered as a full part of German society, no matter Yeah, no matter if they eat breakfast, or falafel, for dinner, or a Christian or Muslims or whatever else. kinds of decisions you could make up here. James Downes 15:04 Thanks a lot, Sophie, thank you very much for that insightful analysis. And I think what our listeners will, you know, listening into this podcast will really get from that is that this personal account, or this personal perspective that you provided her, and also some of the different examples that you've just listed about, you know, some of these far right groups that actually go back quite a long time in history as well as important because you mentioned just now about, you know, the international perspective of Germany as being this, perhaps what we might call this liberal democratic beacon. But of course, there's a there's a big disconnect here that we see as well. So this actually leads into my to my next question very well. And this is the question that Germany has long been considered immune to the success of radical right populism, largely due to its 20th century history. The way It commemorates its wrongdoings and has come to terms with this talk past. Nonetheless, the AfD, as you just mentioned, Sophie, has entered the German national parliament, the Bundestag, in 2017, as the first far right party in postwar Germany. So based on your insight, Sophie, from your research, I was wondering, how would you explain the success of the AfD? Sophie Schmalenberger 16:17 Yeah, and well, let's sort of right down my PhD alley, because that was that was the the question I, I sort of started with, and when developing this this project, because, of course, analysis of voter attitudes, and and and, you know, cross country comparisons. of, for example, why populists? Why far right populist are successful is of course, important and useful. But I would exactly say what you also mentioned just in that question, that Germany is a special case, because of its history, and because of its strong memory culture that sort of has ever since. It's maybe not straight since the 50s. But But since the 70s, and 80s, at least, aimed to make em to make it successful, far right. Political Party impossible. So and in fact, there's not that many papers or accounts that consider the AfD exactly, in the special memory, cultural and historic context. And the few papers that do that. And they mostly look at how the AfD and is trying to revise history, which they of course, do. We, for example, have the AfD honorary chairperson Alexander goland, and referring to narcissism and Hitler is burchett on thousand years of glorious German history, which I mean, it's definitely a statement that that aims to reinterpret German history and focus on the proud and great moments in German history. So they are essentially conducting a historical revisionism, but I think that's not all that they are, that they are doing. And what I argue in my, in my PhD project is that they use memory and commemoration in order to mobilise certain feelings that challenge the the German post Holocaust, political and cultural order. So the idea here is that the hegemonic post Holocaust order is not only a discourse, but it's also a system of what needs and shoshan in his 2017 book, the management of hate calls and effective governance. So it's a system that directs certain feelings, for example, fear, guilt, or apprehension towards the Nazi past and everything that is reminiscent of the Nazi past in the present, for example, neo nazis or anything that could be interpreted as a sort of overly proud showing of, of love for the nation or, or a strong nationalism. And that on the other sides directs feelings, like love and hope towards everything that stands for liberal, democratic cosmopolitan national self in the present. And what I argue is that the AfD is challenging this effective order by offering what I call an alternative effective landscape. And I know this sounds very abstract. But it can basically be understood as offering Germans a different way of feeling about themselves. And the world basically a different way of, of being German. And this sort of new way of being German allows certain feelings that are not permitted in the, in the hegemonic effective order. For example, it permits to not feel guilty about the past anymore. But instead to be proud about the past to be positively invested in the past. And not It also allows to not be the perpetrator anymore, but it allows Germans to feel as victims and indeed, for example, as victims of What the AfD would refer to as migrant violence of violent immigrants and the killing of Germans at the moment, which is stories and the narrative the they promote a lot on social media, for example. But what I think is important here is also to stress that and it is not only hate and fear that the AfD mobilises, against the political and enemy or towards ethnic others. But it's an because that's what a lot of literature on populism so far stresses the mobilisation of hate fear and anger. But I think what is also very important to understand is the, let's maybe call it the positive feelings AfD manages to mobilise through a certain kind of work. And I argue they, they they managed to, to make it or to to mobilise a certain cosiness, and I would maybe call it, they basically enable Germans to feel good about themselves. Instead of feeling conflicted about what the nation is, they enable Germans to feel purely positive about what the German nation is. And, and one more thing I would like to stress is that, I think, or I argue, pretty much in my thesis, that this what the AfD is doing is not completely, completely foreign to the hegemonic order, and, and, and sort of mainstream or established ways of, of constructing germination, but actually connects to some elements here. And I argue that this is the AfD is very good in sort of connecting the ideological agenda to, to elements of, of the mainstream discourse, and or two elements that have at least been present in Germany for the last 70 years, which is, for example, myths of, of German victimhood of, of, for example, the bombing of race in which Yeah, for the last 70 years has been, you know, around has not been part of the main and historical narrative, but the idea of that also innocent Germans died in second world war has been at least sort of interpersonal memory and in small scale family memory and stuff like this been been there. And, and then I would also say that this idea that I mentioned, and when talking about my PSA article, that, and the fact that we have pretty much that the idea of a German life cool to have leading culture, leading German culture, a certain conservatism that would insist on a certain cultural essential ism that decides over belonging to Germany or not belonging to Germany, and that would, for example, exclude guest workers and everybody who is read as, as non ethnic German, and is, of course, also a connection point that makes it and maybe not easy, but possible for the AfD to develop a more extremist discourse, that, that excludes, that excludes racialized others. And then there's also something about the east and west memory, certain grievances. that exists in the East after after the 1990s. And the experiences that were made by many in the East at the AfD can strategically and exploited. And last, but not least, also, the fact that even within the hegemonic Holocaust culture, there was there was one I would call a need for heroes. And so they have always been sort of positively connotated historical figures. And, for example, Claus von Stauffenberg who tried to kill Hitler, but also, and yeah, that's also from Otto von Bismarck or, or other German and important German figures that have that carry a positive connotation and that the AfD now manages to incorporate in in their, and narrative and into their affective landscape. James Downes 25:42 Thank you very much, Sophie, that's not just fascinating, but both extremely comprehensive in terms of some of these terms that you're speaking about in terms of historical revisionism than this, this this memory culture. And actually, when you were speaking about this, and historical revisionism about the AfD, it also made me think about some other contemporary populist radical right parties or third parties, say in central Eastern Europe, such as Fidesz in Hungary, or even its electoral competitor, the extreme right wing party ubicado, obviously, can now be seen as an extreme right wing party, I can be with Victor warbands, shift in 2020, within the wider COVID 19 context. So, again, just for the listeners listening in there, you know, the AfD is, of course, a unique and a significant case, but there's also other examples of contemporary far right parties using some similar types of similar strategies. For example, in Hungary, and this Yeah, this notion about the Hungarian nation state on the Viktor Orban of the Fidesz party. Sophie Schmalenberger 26:51 I think, among almost all far right parties or far populist parties, we see I mean, there's, of course, a attempt to redefine what the people are, in a sense, right, or what the, what the nation is. And I mean, history is a incredibly important part or, or memory is, I mean, the major way of how we in the present makes sense of ourselves in terms of the past. So memory is is definitely an important. Yeah, well, battlefield. You could, you could say in the political struggle also for the far right populists, basically everywhere in Europe at the world. James Downes 27:31 Yeah, definitely. And Sophie, you were just touching upon some of the really kind of crucial West versus east or what we might call big regional divides as well. So we've heard a lot about big regional divides in mobile politics, also, particularly between the North North versus South regional device or discrepancies in Italian politics with our recent populism Research Unit, right, bracing podcast with two Italian experts that we had on the show two of our colleagues Valerio Alfonso Bruno and Alessio Scopelliti. So I was wondering, in terms of the modern day German political contexts, of course, you've touched upon this already just a few moments ago. But I'm just wondering, how do these West versus East regional differences manifest themselves? And also how do they still exist in German politics? And in terms of structuring the underlying party competition that we see within modern German politics? Sophie Schmalenberger 28:26 Yeah, and no, I mean, that there is the hit is definitely what do you call an East West divide within the AfD? And, first of all, I mean, we see that the the AfD, is much stronger, and in terms of electoral support in the east. And but I would just also like to say from from the get go, that there's very sort of complex reasons and facets to to this, I think it's more complex than it's often portrayed. We're also in German, you have to disclose that Oh, yeah. I mean, we just have a lot of Nazis in the east and that's why the AfD is so strong there. And what what is worth noting, is definitely as you actually also write in a paper, that you that you wrote with Felix Wiebrecht that the AfD in the East can be considered as having more right-wing radical positions. And then the AfD in what was formerly Western Germany, the Federal Republic. And also Hans Georg-Betz and Fabian Habersack and how does that have have been trying to approach the question of why the AfD is a strong in the east and, and they explain it with the fact that's after the merger of the PDS and the western German left, and there was no party there. And you More representing particularly Eastern German interests, and that the AfD had managed very well to take over this position as as being sort of the the microphone or the megaphone of the frustrated Eastern Germans. And, and also Manes Weisskircher points out that there's a lot of sort of social structural differences between East and West and that's that's taken together and can be can be seen as causes for stronger support in the east and sort of lower income precariat like higher precarity economic precarity but also sort of cultural precarity in in eastern German nee, especially in small Eastern German towns and on the countryside. We also have to consider what function white supremacists or anti immigrant, nationalistic or ethno nationalistic attitudes have in the east and, and I would agree with him that here, they all stay in the east, they serve a certain way of self appreciation or reevaluation in face of Eastern Germans, and often been looked down upon, in in a sort of national German context, and are facing a lot of unemployment precarity and instability throughout the last 30 years. And, and having, you know, not really entered a glorious life in the free capitalist world as they had thought in in the late 1980s, when it actually faced unemployment and, and decline in many in many ways. And from from the perspective of my research, I would add that, that there is a memory and an ethic or feeling dimension to the success of the AfD, in Eastern Germany as well. And I'm approaching this actually by looking at how the AfD is successfully mobilising what you could call particularly Eastern German memories, and through mobilising his memories is managing to orchestrate and certain effective dispositions that resonate with Eastern Germans more than Western Germans for the simple reason that it's only Eastern Germans having this history of living in a dictatorship until 1989, and sort of overthrowing this dictatorship, it's just nothing that sort of Western Germans could could really be touched by, because it's simply not their history, if that makes sense. And he has slogans like, visit us for work we are the people are comparing macco with the sad, and dictatorship, or taking the streets, the act of taking the streets in protest and protesting against the government, they carry certain effective implications in the eastern German setting, and they carry a certain empowerment, in a sense. And when the AfD says a well, we will bring down the government just as we did 30 years ago. And so they offer individuals, and they offer the ift supporters very complex and specific ways of feeling towards the AfD, sort of as a revolutionary force, and towards each other, as sort of co-revolutionaries, if you will, and towards, for example, the German government as a sort of a suppressing entity, and as a sort of the pure evil and the enemy. And of the people. And this mix, I would argue, enabled Eastern Germans not to only to hate the government, I mean, that that's part of sort of this affective landscape I'm trying to look at, but you also feel what you could maybe call the nostalgic pride through the act of resisting the government. And, and I think it's this nostalgic pride and resistance or taking pride in resisting and that the AfD mobilises. And that that actually functions as effective bond among the AfD and as supporters. James Downes 34:51 Thanks a lot, Sophie. Thank you. Thanks again for going into great detail there. And again, some of our listeners would have heard Sophie mentioning a number of kind of key scholars, such as Hang-Georg Beitz, Fabian Habersacker and Manes Weisskircher who also focus on some of these dynamics of East versus West effects, particularly support in Eastern Germany and how unique Eastern Germany is in German politics. And it also makes me think, again about I mean, Sophie, you've kind of touched upon some, some things from your personal life in terms of the article you wrote for the PSA, for the Political Studies Association. It also makes me think about my cousins or my extended family who are Belgian, Dutch speaking Belgians. Yeah. And it makes me think, again, about the often when I've been to Brussels, and, you know, been in Belgium and also studied in Brussels for a bit of time, I was often fascinated again, about hearing about these regional divides, also, that we see in another country, such as Belgium, with the Dutch speaking Flanders area, and then you have the more French speaking Walloons area. So from a personal perspective, as well, what you were talking about. So kind of leading into the next question. And you know, we, this is kind of great about this episode, for listeners kind of listening into this podcast, we've got, you know, enough material that I can also see the questions that could go on for about two hours, of course, so don't worry, we're not going to have this interview, to go on, or this podcast episode to go on for two hours. But again, there's so many questions and so many key themes that we could look at the AfD here and also compare it and contrast it with a number of foreign product parties across Europe. So my next question is about the AfD, of course, has significantly gained support through the past five years, of course, we could say it's been fuelled in part significantly by the so called refugee crisis in 2015. That started in 2015, at least with the intensity and the shock, in terms of the numbers coming in into Europe. And of course, Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to keep the German borders open for refugees. But since March 2020, the political agenda or could be in Germany, Europe, and indeed the world has drastically changed. How has COVID-19 impacted the support for the AfD in German politics? Sophie Schmalenberger 37:20 Yeah, I mean, that's, of course a, you know, a question where the answer is still in the making, in a sense, but I'll try to answer it, you know, from now, perspective now, November 2020. perspective. And so the AfD had definitely had to had to adapt to the the COVID situation, because, yeah, to put it simply, since March 2020, nobody is really interested in talking about refugees anymore that much. So the salience of sort of the anti immigrant card has has, yeah, been declining drastically, over the last, at least during the last, you know, 10 months or so. So, initially, the AfD argued, and, you know, before, when COVID was slowly coming to Europe, the AfD was very eager to say that the government should protect the people in but then was not so eager anymore to protect, to to support the government when they actually started protecting the people by passing or by, and in imposing certain corporate rules and restriction in March 2020. So we saw I mean, a classic populist turn there by a way where the main rule for Populist Party is to be against what the establishment and or the government is doing. And, and quite soon after, after the corona restrictions started, and the AfD began to mobilise a narrative about a Corona dictatorship of how we were all you know, and be robbed of our of our personal freedoms under and that sort of this was only a way of the government to, to towards authoritarianism and things like that. And in the beginning, that didn't seem to be super successful, because we saw what we saw in most countries Actually, this classic rallying around the flag effect government support rising in terms of of a crisis and the general public opinion was that, you know, Merkel and her government we're doing actually a pretty good job in fighting this pandemic. But I would say things have have changed a bit. And, and with I mean, ongoing and restricted ness that we all experienced. In our everyday lives right now, and a growing community of what you could call, well, I mean, yeah, Corona denials or Corona sceptics or conspiracy a theorists or whatever I mean queueing on and and the like that also in Germany have now mobilised I mean, still not a majority of people. But this is a part of the population, which has been visible, and especially, actually just two days ago. And on the 17th of November, when we had a massive anti Corona demonstration in front of the German Bundestag in Berlin. And the AfD has sided with with these, you know, Corona sceptics or whatever you want to call them. And is the only party that is sort of strictly, strictly not agreeing, or indeed fighting in these Corona restrictions and has Yeah, constant retorque of of how Corona rules are basically Merkel's way of establishing a full blown dictatorship. And in Germany, and especially, as was especially the case, again, this Wednesday, when a law was passed in the Bundestag, in order to give the government some more, some more competencies in handling the pandemic. And if the politician actually refer to this, this law as a new Enabling Act. This was the name of the law, under Hitler, that was passed under Hitler 1933, giving him wide reaching and competences and being sort of seen as the true beginning of the Nazi dictatorship. And so of, you know, comparing Hitler, and Merkel, in in sort of this, this Corona. And it's, of course, absurd. And, but, you know, judging from, from the rising number of people that seem to be dissatisfied, and simply just sick of the, of all the corona measures. Transcribed by https://otter.ai