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.
2
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
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 right-wing 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.
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.
The Alternative for Germany is a new party on the German political scene. Despite a short political and media history (established in February 2013), the party managed to strongly mark the socio-political space with its presence, mostly because of its anti-establishmentarianism. AfD is also sometimes called a „professors’ party”, as its members and followers stem to a large extent from so-called intellectual circles of science, politics and economics, and are reputable experts for many fields. AfD provoked a major imbroglio during the last parliamentary election in Germany (2013). It gathered 4.7% of votes, standing very close to the electoral threshold. It is however commonly disregarded by activists of most of the other parties in Germany. The aim of the article is answering the question: given the above, what was the crucial factor for building up such relatively high electoral result (inches from bestowing mandates) in this very short time? Is it the social, programmatical, or rather media potential, created mostly on the web? Which of these elements brought the AfD 7% of votes in the election for European Parliament 2014?
PL
Alternatywa dla Niemiec jest nową partią na niemieckiej scenie politycznej. Mimo krótkiej obecności politycznej i medialnej (partia została utworzona w lutym 2013 roku), udało jej się mocno zaznaczyć swoją obecność w przestrzeni społeczno-politycznej. AfD występuje bowiem przeciwko establishmentowi. Co ciekawe, nazywana jest “partią profesorską”, ponieważ jej członkowie i zwolennicy wywodzą się głównie ze środowisk tzw. intelektualnych: naukowych, politycznych, to cenieni eksperci z wielu dziedzin. AfD spowodowała spore zamieszanie w ostatnich niemieckich wyborach parlamentarnych (2013 r.). Z jednej strony poparło ją 4,7% wyborców, zatem otarła się o próg wyborczy, z drugiej strony niechęć do niej solidarnie wykazali działacze większości opcji politycznych. Celem artykułu jest odpowiedź na pytanie: Co miało wobec tego decydujące znaczenie przy budowaniu tak stosunkowo wysokiego wyniku wyborczego (o mały włos dającego mandat wyborczy)? Czy był to potencjał społeczny, programowy czy wizerunek medialny zbudowany w sieci? Który z tych elementów dał AfD 7% poparcie w wyborach do Parlamentu Europejskiego w 2014 r.?
Alternative for Germany has recently become a phenomenon on the German political scene, especially after the 2017 Bundestag elections. The article contains an analysis and an attempt to explain the populist nature of the party, pointing to what elements may confirm or deny its populistic character. There are some indicators that show Alternative for Germany can be described as an example of populism, especially including the use of left-and right-wing postulates, an anti-system and anti-establishment attitude, temporalization of constructing political communication and usage of social sentiments. On the other hand, there are some visible determinants that go beyond the model of the populist party, for instance the technocratic nature of the party, the lack of a significant unit of a charismatic leader. Also, many issues that raise doubts can be underlined, for example the ideological sphere of the party. Furthermore, the article also contains considerations about the possible effects of functioning of the political group in the German party system.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.