Comment by phreeza
5 years ago
I don't think the rise of the AfD in Germany has much to do with a reduction in ethnic or cultural 'purity'.
The general political consensus position in Germany has shifted considerably to the left over the last 30 or so years. This has alienated some people and the AfD is the recepticle.
Much of the rethoric employed by the AfD could have been found in the CDU just 10 or so years ago, including appeals to German culture as you mentioned. "Leitkultur" was one famous topic of debate. Other classics include "Kinder statt Inder", and "Das boot ist voll".
The influx of immigrants tends to precipitate disagreements within parties that to date were theoretical up to that point. That's what happened with the Republican Party. The George W. Bush/Romney/Jeb Bush wing courted Hispanic voters, with W. winning 40% in 2004, and Jeb carrying 60% in his Florida gubernatorial election. Then, the more nativist elements upset the applecart in 2016 by nominating Trump, who was opposed by the Republican establishment. Those nativist elements were always there--but the undocumented immigrant population increased 40% during Bush's tenure and changed the internal dynamics significantly.
So would you predict a correlation between number of immigrants in a county/state/country and nativist electoral success? I don't think that is the case.
I get that immigration is a hotly debated culture war topic, but I am not convinced by the argument that immigration is the thing that is causing the culture war.
I'm not really talking about electoral results. I'm talking about the NYT articled I linked to, which measures "how right wing" a party is by looking at what's mentioned in the platform. But what's mentioned in party platforms is a product of what debates are happening in society. In places without much immigration, immigration isn't a focus of politics and won't warrant merit on party platforms, even if the members of the party would have strong nativist views if there was actually a significant amount of immigration.
For example, in the United States, "making English the official language" was a hot-button political issue for a long time (before even Republicans gave up on it). In France it wasn't, because nobody disagreed that French should be the official language (and it was). So if you read party platforms to gauge right-wing views, you might conclude that the French aren't right wing on this point, because party platforms don't mention it. But in reality, it's not mentioned because it's not something that's even up for debate.
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