Political Entrepreneurship in the Age of Dealignment

Progressive radicalization while simultaneously reaping dramatic gains in elections is the puzzle the Alternative for Germany (AfD) presents to scholars. Using an empirical study of vote choice for the AfD in the three federal elections in which it has competed, and equipped with a theoretical model which takes account of the party's electoral evolution over time, in this book we offer, at least in part, a solution to this puzzle. In this opening chapter, we outline the roadmap of the book.

The Federal Republic of Germany is no stranger to far-right parties, but none has enjoyed lasting electoral success. The AfD has already broken the pattern of its predecessors. In this chapter, we explore the history of far-right parties in Germany to contextualize the AfD’s unprecedented success.  Our argument here is that the ultimate failure of these far-right parties can be traced to a variety of endogenous and exogenous factors—factors we probe further in our examination of the AfD in later chapters. Chief among these factors, we will argue, is the AfD's skillful use of a strategy of issue entrepreneurship. 

In this chapter, we investigate several exogenous variables (chief among these, the effects of dealignment) as well as the most important endogenous factor for the AfD’s electoral success—its strategy of “issue entrepreneurship.” Applying the concept of issue entrepreneurship discussed very briefly in Chapters 1 and 2 to the AfD, we argue that the party has largely achieved its success through the magnification and exploitation of crises in each of the three federal elections in which the party has competed. We also develop a theory in this chapter which highlights the role each stage has played in the AfD's electoral development. More specifically, we discuss how issue entrepreneurship and electoral success operate at three developmental stages of any party's development—its emergence, breakthrough, and sustainment.

The AfD’s shift to a more strident anti-immigrant, extremist, and populist politics was unmistakable in the run up to the federal election of 2017. So how did the party fare with voters after this transformation? What were the issues driving the AfD vote in the 2017 federal election? Who voted for the party and why? It is those questions we explore empirically in this chapter. Our major argument here is that in the 2017 federal election the AfD further refined a strategy of issue entrepreneurship. In short, the party was able to achieve its electoral breakthrough by pivoting from criticism of the Merkel government’s response to the European sovereign debt crisis and financial assistance to Greece to a full-frontal attack on the political establishment’s migrant/refugee policy.

In this chapter, we complete our empirical study of voters for the AfD over its current election-cycle lifetime by examining who voted for the AfD in the 2021 federal election and why. To answer these basic questions, we once again utilize the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). We confirm some of our previous findings on AfD support discussed in prior chapters. More significantly, however, we uncover three new findings on AfD vote choice. First, in contrast to our conclusions in Chapter 5 on the 2017 federal election, but consistent with those in Chapter 4 on the 2013 federal election, anti-EU attitudes had a positive, statistically significant and substantive impact on AfD vote choice in 2021. Second, and underscoring the AfD’s populist credentials, we show that negative attitudes towards political elites increased the probability of voting for the party in 2021. Finally, our empirical analysis finds that dissatisfaction with the Merkel government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic correlates positively with voting for the AfD. The last result especially buttresses the central thesis of this book: namely, that the AfD can be seen as a populist “issue entrepreneur.”

It has long been argued in the political science literature that a successful party strategy in a highly competitive environment involves, in part, placing the party on the ideological spectrum at a position where a substantial number of voters are located but competitor parties are noticeably absent. This issue positioning helps parties distinguish themselves from their rivals, providing voters a clear way to identify and differentiate their choices. While the AfD’s primary means to achieve success in this fashion thus far has been issue entrepreneurship through the exploitation and performance of crises, a key factor in sustaining such electoral success is both having a clearly demarcated “brand” or party identity and constructing an accompanying political agenda (i.e., ideology) that reaches beyond a single issue. Indeed, fashioning a brand and building a political agenda are crucial for sustained success; otherwise, a party risks becoming a one-trick pony whose electoral fortunes depend entirely on the saliency of the one issue the party happens to be championing. In this chapter, we analyze the ways the AfD has provided voters an increasingly professionalized competitor party in the electoral market with a (more or less) coherent ideological platform and party brand.

As the AfD has sought to solidify its position and appeal to a wider range of voters, the use of election campaign posters has emerged as a crucial strategy for conveying party professionalization. In this chapter, we attempt to demonstrate that while the AfD’s political ideology has lurched rightward with each subsequent election, and while the party continuously signals to its core supporters far-right ideological positions, the party has attempted nonetheless to win less politically engaged voters by wearing a more moderate mask. As the AfD has evolved, it has recognized the importance of presenting itself as a professional and credible political entity to the broader electorate. Election campaign posters have thus become an essential tool for the party in attempting to achieve this goal. This chapter implements a comparative analysis of the AfD’s poster campaigns in the 2017 and 2021 federal elections, employing the method of political iconography.

We conclude our book by discussing developments since the 2021 federal election—the AfD’s national poll numbers since 2021, its election results at the state and local level, and the party’s recent party gathering in preparation for European Parliament elections in May of 2024. Overall, these trends highlight the continued electoral strength of the AfD as well as its regional dominance in eastern Germany. Not only does the AfD not show any signs of disappearing, it has also made gains in public opinion polls—and in local elections—unseen by any previous far-right party in Germany. Next, we turn our attention in this final chapter to the challenges that the AfD might confront in the future as the party aims to sustain its success or even grow further. Here we identify three interrelated challenges that the AfD could face: voter alienation, platform cooptation by political rivals, and the lack of a true crisis to exploit. While discussing these challenges we also identify potential strategies the party could take to circumvent them, as well as identify new issues the party is attempting to make its own.