Learning how to respond to the AfD: Uploading from the subnational to the national level?

Far-right parties typically establish themselves first at the regional and only then at the national level, just like in the case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) during the fourth wave of far-right politics in Germany. Past experience shows that mainstream party responses strongly shape the impact of far-right parties. In Germany, mainstream parties first gathered a wide range of experience with ‘their’ AfD factions at the subnational level. This chapter analyses how mainstream parties at the subnational level adapted their responses over time and to what extent mainstream parties at the national level have learned from their subnational branches in dealing with the AfD. In doing so, this chapter draws on data from semi-structured interviews and content analysis of parliamentary documents. It shows that mainstream parties have gone through learning processes but still have not found a ‘magic formula’ for dealing with the AfD. Instead, party responses towards the AfD remain a constant balancing act due to the party’s own behaviour and ideology. Strict exclusion, for example, enables the AfD to stage itself as a ‘victim’ and strengthen its power of discourse. At the same time, by ignoring the AfD’s ‘breaches of taboo’, mainstream parties risk normalising far-right positions.