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This article examines the evolving narratives of the German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and its potential as a hybrid threat. Through narrative manipulation, the AfD has demonstrated its ability to influence public discourse and distort reality via disinformation dissemination. The AfD established in 2013 in response to the financial crisis and dissatisfaction with the European Union, has transitioned into a populist party, and along with this change, it has also changed its narrative. This shift was notably evident during the migrant crisis in 2015, showcasing the party's adeptness at evoking fear and animosity among German voters. The AfD's narratives have been for years similar to those of the Russian Federation, which has used almost identical narratives on some topics. The German party is consequently working with Russian politicians to reshape democratic politics within Europe, and the AfD is accordingly acting as a hybrid threat to the entire European Union. The study is based on a discourse analysis of interviews conducted with German experts on the topic as well as a content analysis of selected German media to explore these narrative dynamics and their broader implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its formation in 2013, Alternative for Germany (AfD) has achieved a rapid success which is rather uncommon in politics. Within ten years of its operation, its political profile has undergone a considerable transition. From a Eurosceptic organization, it has evolved into a party of social protest, bringing together citizens who are critical of the functioning of the federal government. In terms of its political platform, it has gone sharply to the right, but it has also done so literally as its area of interest has migrated to the east of the country. The aim of this article is to discuss the phenomenon of AfD on the German political scene. The main hypothesis states that AfD finds favourable conditions for its political activity in the new Lands due to the residents’ declining spirits. The reasons for this situation stem from the disappointment of citizens with the political, economic and social development of this part of Germany following the reunification in 1990. This is also the result of the recent events (including the war in Ukraine, rising costs and inflation, the mass influx of refugees) and underlying concerns about the situation getting worse in the future. According to the research, AfD leaders skilfully prey on the uncertainty and lack of self-efficacy of East Germans, effectively handle their discontent, and turn it into another electoral success. This article examines the factors influencing East German voters’ support for AfD. The study, for the most part German-language based, in addition to the source literature refers to documents, statistical data, opinion poll results, experts and politicians’ commentaries, as well as press articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the political party Alternative for Germany from the Eurosceptic party that emerged from the criticism of the German federal policy during the eurozone crisis, to the rightwing populist group that builds its political capital by promoting anti-immigration and racist slogans, has contributed to determining the party's attitude towards women, their role in the society and gender equality. The purpose of this article is to present - on the basis of the analysis of the group's programming documents as well as the political speeches of the party members in the media - how the AfD perceives the role of women in the German society, which model of gender relations it promotes and what its view is on the equality between men and women. Moreover, an attempt was made to answer the question about the appeal of the presented vision to the female electorate. The domination of the national conservative wing in the party caused the group's allegiance to traditional social roles held by both genders, recognizes family as the highest value and treats women in an objective way, reducing their existence to reproductive and educational functions. The group negates the legislation in terms of implementation of the provisions of the German Basic Law on equality between women and men, as well as the execution of the gender equality policy in accordance with the European Union gender mainstreaming strategy. The migration crisis has also contributed to the political alteration by the group of the topics relevant from the point of view of the female part of the society and using those topics to picture the threat to the national security posed by foreigners with a different culture and religion. Narrative literature from the area under study was reviewed and the methodology of political sciences was employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to analyse the determinants of electoral support for the Alternative for Germany, which gained 7.04% of the vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections. AfD is considered a right-wing populist protest party of a primarily Eurosceptic orientation. However, there has been no in-depth analysis of its electoral success based on statistical methods. The territories of former East and West Germany have been selected as unit of analysis, since different patterns of electoral behaviour can be expected to play a role in former Eastern Bloc and Western countries. We analyse voters' political preferences and the question whether the success of the AfD could be better explained with reference to protest voting or issue voting. We conclude that while in West Germany both protest voting and issue voting can explain the success of the AfD, the priority of issue voting over protest voting was pronounced in East Germany, as the immigration issue proved to be a very strong and significant predictor of electoral support for the AfD. Thus, we once again confirm that differences in individual voting behaviour between West and East persist even a quarter century after the unification of Germany. It is thus apparent that the so-called Iron Curtain continues to function as a cleavage in contemporary German politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the year 2017, a new political party entered Germany's parliament called 'Alternative for Germany' or AfD. Mainstream media labels the party far right, radical-right, right wing, national-conservative, populist, etc. Despite this, the AfD has tendencies towards Nazism. Nine books published between 2016 and 2018 examine the stratospheric rise of the AfD, founded in 2013. The review starts with a conservative view that examines 'what the AfD wants.' The next book discusses the 'AfD-Pegida' link. Pegida is the AfD's East-German and mostly Dresden-based street-fighting movement. The third book presents arguments on the AfD from across Germany's political spectrum. This leads to a book written as a 'letter to AfD voters'. The book outlines many inconstancies found in the AfD's party programme and its public announcements. Since the AfD claims to protect the occident, Europe and Germany in particular against hordes of Muslims and the Islamic religion, these issues are discussed in the next book. A quick look at the ideological background of the AfD points to an analysis of the party's relationship with the media. The final two books show how the AfD seeks to conquer Germany's political centre, based on a wealth of empirical data. Overall, the nine books provide one of the first comprehensive examinations of Germany's new radical-right party drawn from recent German language books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After aggression against Ukraine, Russian propaganda was part of a broader concept of the use of soft power, formulated in Russia in the 21st century. The article shows the creation of the structures of the propaganda, whose main aim was the Federal Republic of Germany. The analysis of this propaganda focuses on the use of anti-Americanism, and such political milieus in Germany as Alternative for Germany and some organizations related to the populist-nationalistic conservatism. Attention is drawn to the role that Russia would like to assign to Russlanddeutsche, i.e. to persons of German nationality who resettled to Germany from the former Soviet Union since the 1980s. The end date is 2016, which brought significant changes in this issue. It is then that German public opinion, media, politicians and the relevant state institutions recognized the importance of the Russian propaganda and partially successful Russian attempts to manipulate sentiments in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is one of the most discussed parties in Germany at the moment, neither journalists nor politicians are sure whether it should be classified as conservative, right-wing extremist or right-wing populist. The existing attempts at a scientific classification, all varying in approach and results, share a lack of methodological basis. Therefore, this paper classifies the AfD according to four different definitions by analyzing both primary and secondary sources in a qualitative way. While three of these approaches are rather common models of the right-wing spectrum, one is a new approach, covering only the (right-wing) populist spectrum. Therefore, the criteria of these four different attempts at structuring the right-wing party spectrum are operationalized and both party platforms and scientific papers on the AfD are dissected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]