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Populist Rhetoric and Nativist Alarmism

Using the 2017 Chapel Hill Expert Survey of party positions, this study compares the AfD with other European parties outside the political mainstream across several ideological/attitudinal dimensions. The paper explores the changing character of European party systems and multiple axes of party competition. It regards populism and nativism as distinct political phenomena, but as ones that are symbiotic and coupled together provide a particular powerful narrative. The paper finds that the AfD shares a close affinity with radical right parties in Europe but also emerges as one of Europe’s most populist and nativist parties. This explains the AfD’s affiliation with the Identity and Freedom Group in the European Parliament; it also supports the argument it is the blend of populist anti-elitism and nativist alarmism that has made the AfD the potent force in German politics that it is today.