Alternative für Deutschland Country

The Logic of Populism

Muslim and left messaging. Neukölln, Berlin.

By John Foster

The results of the elections in Thuringia and Saxony were alarming, if not exactly surprising.

The rise of the populist right in Germany is not a new phenomenon. Still, it is worth noting that the results (Alternative für Deutschland received 32.8% in Thuringia and 30.6% in Saxony) are notable as much for what they do not show as what they do.

From a German perspective, AfD’s success in Thuringia seems to fall into a compelling historical narrative.

Thuringia was an early stronghold of the NSDAP. The state was an object of fascination for the Nazis, as the city of Weimar (after which the republic that they so hated was named) was its capital.

Historically, Weimar had been a centre of German literary culture, another thing which the Nazis viewed with abhorrence.

The first concentration camp in Germany was established outside the Thuringian village of Nohra in March 1933. Later, the notorious Buchenwald concentration was located near Weimar, its site comprising a tree whose shade Goethe was reputed to have enjoyed.

At the end of the Second World War, Thuringia was included in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. It suffered accordingly under four decades of political repression and the ruling Socialist Unity Party’s incompetent attempts to build a socialist economy.

But even thirty-five years after reunification, Thuringia lags far behind Western Germany in economic performance, as do the other so-called Neue Bundesländer (New Federal States), of which Saxony is also numbered.

Thuringia’s per capita GDP is 40% lower than that of Baden-Württemberg, the most populous and developed of the western states. Saxony’s deficit is 30%.

These are isolated numbers, but they point to a broader issue, one with global implications. As with most things, they map quite differently depending on whether one is talking north or south.

Populism tends to thrive in regions in the global north, hit hardest by deindustrialisation or, more generally, by the deleterious effects of globalisation.

For those in the lower reaches of the income distribution, populism features the promise of a return to conditions as they were in some ostensible “before time” when stable, well-paid work was available and everybody looked about like everyone else.

Populism also tends to build effectively on perceived differences. These perceptions of otherness tend to persist irrespective of any actual material basis.

In the mid-noughties, I once followed a crowd of Union Berlin on the way to a match with Dynamo Dresden as they chanted “Deutschland den Deutschen! Sachsen raus!” (Germany for the Germans! Saxons out!”)

From the depleted coal fields of West Virginia and Kentucky to the deindustrialised north of England and the economically depressed states of eastern Germany (and many other places besides), the resentment of the white working and lower middle classes is palpable.

The failure of the regional and global economies to generate growth in the way they did during the era when governments in the industrialised world promoted full employment has been one of the key factors facilitating, if not driving, the growth of right-wing populism.

The prevalence of this dynamic is particularly stark in East Germany, given that the era of high growth/full employment in European governmental circles occurred during Soviet domination.

The nostalgia felt by workers in Western Europe and North America for the fat years before the lean is, in the case of people in the former DDR, strictly a matter of the historical imaginary.

By the time the Wende rolled around, the policy priorities had changed. In the 1990s, the German government’s obsession with controlling inflation took on the qualities of a mania.

Growth was slow, and wage restraint, which had been a key part of the so-called German “economic miracle” of the 1950s, was still the rule.

Germany’s export-led growth policy resulted in better economic performance than elsewhere in Europe. But even this bounty was unevenly shared, with western states and the upper reaches of the income distribution receiving the bulk of the benefits.

The situation was exacerbated by the financial collapse of 2008 and afterwards.

Workers who had lived under decades of restrained wage growth were treated to the spectacle of large sums of cash being used to backstop the poor life choices of bankers, with, so it seemed, no accountability required of those who had caused the crises.

The current conjuncture driving right-wing populism in Germany is a synergistic process between the cultural memory of these events and the winding down of Germany’s export-led growth boom.

Germany is entering a period of economic sclerosis that often strikes economies that have occupied leading roles for extended periods.

Like the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, prolonged success dampened impulses toward technological improvement and renewal of plants and infrastructure. As The Guardian’s Larry Elliot recently said, Germany is “an analogue country in a digital world”.

In the last six years, the German economy has grown at an annual rate of around .4%. This can be attributed in part to the effects of the war in Ukraine. Still, the rot was already showing before that, and Germany is likely to experience a recession in the near future.

Both the left and the right have been engaged in narrative spinning since 2008, each designating its own bad guys. For the left, it’s been finance capitalism. For the right, it’s been finance capitalism and immigrants.

Of course, there’s the Sahra Wagenknecht posse, which thinks it’s part of the first group but seems pretty comfortable with most of the second group’s offerings.

The narrative chain that links ethnic de-homogenisation and the fading of “traditional” cultural values with broader economic problems is one of the most common features of right-wing populist movements throughout Europe and North America.

These are the key features of the Trump phenomenon in the United States, which has little to offer uneducated white workers beyond single-sex bathrooms, anti-immigrant hysteria, and the chimerical promise of reshoring jobs.

Alternative für Deutschland is an alarming phenomenon, particularly given that its rise has been paralleled by clear evidence that it encourages groups even further to the right.

The question that needs to be asked, not only of AfD but of all the populist parties of the right, is what they will do if they actually govern.

This, of course, is not a question for the party in the short term.

Much as both the centre-left governing coalition and the centre-right CDU/CSU have shown an unfortunate willingness to adopt AfD-adjacent rhetoric (especially after the recent knife attacks by a Syrian immigrant in Solingen), they have still not sunk to the point of being willing to form a coalition with them.

But that may not last forever. Neither of the major German parties is immune to the blandishments of naked opportunism, and the question of coalition partners may appear otherwise if the current trendline continues.

Still, Alternative für Deutschland’s policy choices, especially at the state level, would be limited. They can fight the culture wars, which would likely be a low-cost, low-risk strategy in the short term.

What the AfD cannot do is reconfigure either the regional or global economy to provide levels of growth or patterns of employment of the kind that their partisans seem to expect.

This may take some time to become apparent. Once it does, Alternative für Deutschland will have to make some uncomfortable decisions.

Of course, people have said the same about other populist groups and have been disappointed when government tasks became opportunities for crime rather than removing their hard edges.

Photograph courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.