A Populist Moment? Learning from Corbyn, Sanders, Mélenchon and Iglesias in Germany
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- Published on Tuesday, 18 December 2018 04:14
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1724 ... December 18, 2018
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A Populist Moment? Learning from Corbyn, Sanders, Mélenchon and Iglesias in Germany
Mario Candeias
The period of interregnum has not yet ended. In the tenth year of the crisis, the European Union has reached a relative, albeit low, level of economic stability. In many countries, however, upheavals continue to reshape the political field. Even in Germany, the era of stability has come to an end, with plenty of shifts in the political landscape. The radical right currently sets the agenda, and a lack of social mobilization and the fragmentation of the "mosaic Left" indicates a populist gap on the Left that calls for address. The question remains: how to collect or connect the different forces, or, more specifically, how can populist momentum carry forward a... popular project? Several references have been made to examples in Europe and the USA. What can be learned from these?
Let us take a look at the political situation in Germany: against the backdrop of this culture of insecurity, modernized radical right-wing parties -- the ugly siblings of neoliberalism -- could be established in many European countries over the last 20 years. In Germany, they vanished time and again, but authoritarian or racist attitudes spread, nevertheless. With the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), one could say the country reverted to the European norm. The appearance of the AfD led to a complete shift of the whole political and ideological spectrum toward the right, creating a new relation of representation. The previous "anger without a target" found a representative to articulate this anger -- not in the sense of simple expression of that anger but in a specific coherent and increasingly radical way.
