The Spectre of the AfD
- Karl Johansson
- för 3 timmar sedan
- 3 min läsning
Nothing's more ghastly than Europe's mainstream parties' complete inability to understand that fire walls never work.
With the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) having had a strong showing in last night’s Land election the spectre of nationalism is once again haunting the front pages of Europe’s newspapers. The discussion is almost always premised on the idea that voters have moved rightwards in a march towards the bad old days of blood and soil nationalism, or that it is a sign of the established parties’ failure that a fringe outfit built on dissatisfaction like the AfD has become a major force, at least in the East of Germany. I think this conventional framing is totally backwards. It is the success of the so-called brandmauer and the Große koalition (groko) which has directly enabled the rise of the AfD.
As argued by Anna-Lena Laurén, there are real failures the established parties in Germany have caused, and there are real problems unaddressed. Energy, migration, and the inefficiency of the Germany welfare state are real issues which make voters disappointed and disapproving of the groko parties. Rightfully so. A consistent problem in European democracies for the past twenty years has been the refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of nationalist parties, a strategy which has consistently failed.
The experience of Denmark used to be a fairly common point of discussion in Sweden five to ten years ago. The idea was that Sverigedemokraterna, the local nationalist party here was simply doing what Dansk Folkeparti had done ten years earlier: run on an anti-immigration platform, get shut out by mainstream parties and play up the unfairness of not being treated like other parties. That prediction has largely come to pass in Sweden, and we are seeing the same trend in Germany too, just a few years delayed compared to Sweden.
Almost all the AfD-like parties in Europe which have achieved electoral success to the point of becoming part of government have seen their vote shares decline or have had some kind of split. Consider Perussuomalaiset/Sannfinnländarna, Λαϊκός Σύνδεσμος/Golden Dawn, Movimento 5 Stelle, Partij voor de Vrijheid, et cetera. What seemed a terrible beast by night turns out to have been clothes on a chair when the sun rises. The point being that democracy generally protects against hard right parties by themselves, without the need of sealing nationalists in salt circles.
Indeed, trying to stymie nationalist parties have almost universally backfired. There are two mechanisms at play, firstly, in any society where people feel that society is trending in the wrong direction there is a desire for change. Nationalists usually brand themselves outsiders, and that framing is reinforced when established players treat them as lepers. Secondly, established parties cede the central political cleavage when they frame nationalists as dangerous subversives who needs to be held at bay at all costs. A groko is one of the worst stratagems imaginable when trying to hold off the far right. In Germany, both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats are responsible for any failures during a groko, and it ceases being an option to change the centre-right for the centre-left when both sides have not just stated, but proven in practice that they have enough in common to rule together.
Nationalist parties will continue to haunt European capitals until either the unfinished business of dealing with the after effects of the migration crisis is done, or until the spectres have had a chance to prove their incorporealness. Worry less about the AfD, and worry more about establishment politicians’ inability to learn from each others’ mistakes.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about oil markets here or the rest of my writings here. I also have a section for longer reads I call essays here, I particularly recommend my series called The Bird & The Technoking exploring Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, and its political and cultural implications. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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