What’s next for the AfD? Three possible scenarios

Having passed the electoral threshold and entered the Bundestag for the first time in the September 2017 German federal electionSeptember 2017 German federal election, the AfD had to come to terms with the responsibilities and pressures of being a key player in the German parliament.

One month on from the election, Julian Göpffarth reflected on three possible scenarios for the AfD over the coming years:

+ that the party will undergo a process of nationalist radicalisation
+ that there will be a shift toward pragmatic centrism
+ that the moderate voices within the party will become more radical in their approach.

See also a separate LSE EuroppBlog published in January 2018 Far right politics in Germany: From fascism to populism?

The rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was one of the major stories of the 2017 German elections. As Tomáš Nociar and Jan Philipp Thomeczek write, there has been a tendency among some commentators to draw parallels between the AfD and extremist or fascist parties from Germany’s past. They argue that this is both unhelpful and inaccurate, and that the AfD has far more in common with other ‘populist’ parties who have had success in recent European elections.

• Primary Source

Politico, 24.10.17: German parliament rejects AfD’s vice presidential candidate https://www.politico.eu/article/german-parliament-rejects-albrecht-glaser-afd-vice-presidential-candidate/

Deutsche Welle, 23.10.17: The far-right AfD in the Bundestag: What you need to know http://p.dw.com/p/2mEyB

Blog: LSE EuroppBlog, 24.01.18: Far right politics in Germany: From fascism to populism? http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/01/24/far-right-politics-in-germany-from-fascism-to-populism/

Deutsche Welle: Tag: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) http://www.dw.com/en/alternative-f%C3%BCr-deutschland-afd/t-17455253

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