Populism on Difficult Terrain: The Right- and Left-Wing Challenger Parties in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract Right-wing populist parties in Germany were unable to benefit from the success of their counterparts in neighbouring Western European states from the mid-1980s. Despite this failure, there were several attempts to establish such a party in Germany. Even the 'centre' of the political spectrum attempted to approach populist structures and content, and this was especially true of the FDP during the 2002 parliamentary election campaign. After a discussion of the term 'populism', we analyse the different parties' opportunities, political proposals and the reasons why they ultimately failed. We then examine the recently founded party 'The Left' as a case of left-wing populism, a rarely discussed topic, and we pay particular attention to the development of the leftist alliance between PDS and WASG. Finally, we discuss whether a leftist populist grouping could, perhaps, have better prospects for success in the German party system than a right-wing populist party. Notes 1. Frank Decker, 'Die populistische Herausforderung. Theoretische und ländervergleichende Perspektiven', in Frank Decker (ed.), Populismus (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2006), pp.9–32. 2. As modernised reworkings of old-style right-wing extremism, with varying degrees of affinity to National Socialist ideology, the NPD and DVU fall outside the right-wing populist party family and will therefore only be dealt with peripherally in this paper. However, they cannot be ignored completely, as they are rivals to the Republicans and other non-extremist new parties in the right-wing camp (see, for example, Frank Decker and Lazaros Miliopoulos, 'Rechtsextremismus und Rechtspopulismus in der Bundesrepublik. Eine Bestandsaufnahme', in Martin H.W. Möllers and Robert Chr. van Ooyen (eds.), Jahrbuch Öffentliche Sicherheit 2004/2005 (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag für Polizeiwissenschaft, 2005), pp.117–55). Although there are clear ideological and organisational differences between the far-right parties, they are viewed by voters as largely interchangeable protest options, as was evident from the NPD's sensational entry into the Land parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania in 2004 and 2006 (see Uwe Backes, 'The Electoral Victory of the NPD in Saxony and the Prospects for Future Extreme-right Success in German Elections', Patterns of Prejudice 40/1 (2006), pp.129–41). 3. Thomas Saalfeld, 'The German Party System – Continuity and Change', German Politics 11/3 (2006), pp.99–130. 4. Gerhard Schröder's speech to the Bundestag on 1 July 2005, in which he set out his reasons for his confidence motion, is a good example: 'This debate about labour market reforms has gone so far that some SPD members have even threatened to join a backward-looking, left-populist party which does not shrink from embracing xenophobia.' 5. Paul Taggart, Populism (Buckingham/Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000), p.10. 6. Margaret Canovan, Populism (London: Junktion Bks., 1981), p.13; Pierre-André Taguieff, L'illusion populiste (Paris: Berg International, 2002), pp.110–17. 7. Ghiţa Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (eds.), Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics (London: Macmillan, 1969). 8. Andreas Schedler, 'Anti-political-establishment Parties', West European Politics 19/2 (1996), pp.291–312. 9. Paul Taggart, 'Populism and Representative Politics in Contemporary Europe', Journal of Political Ideologies 9/3 (2004), p.270. 10. Karin Priester, Populismus. Historische und aktuelle Erscheinungsformen (Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus Verlag, 2007). 11. Hans-Georg Betz, 'Mobilising Resentment in the Alps. The Swiss SVP, the Italien Lega Nord, and the Austrian FPÖ', in Daniele Caramani and Yves Mény (eds.), Challenges to Consensual Politics. Democracy, Identity, and Populist Protest in the Alpine Region (Brussels: Peter Lang 2005), pp.147–66. 12. Jean-Wiliam Dereymez, 'Un vieux démon de la gauche française', in Olivier Ihl, Janine Chêne, Éric Vial and Ghislain Waterlot (eds.), La tentation populiste au coeur de l'Europe, (Paris: 2003), pp.65–76; Florian Hartleb, Rechts- und Linkspopulismus. Eine Fallstudie anhand von Schill-Partei und PDS (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004). 13. Ami Pedahzur and Avraham Brichta, 'The Institutionalization of Extreme Right-wing Charismatic Parties: A Paradox?', Party Politics 8/1 (2002), pp.31–49. 14. Thomas Saalfeld, 'The Politics of National-Populism: Ideology and Politics of the German Republikaner Party', German Politics 2/2 (1993), pp.177–99; Jürgen R. Winkler and Siegfried Schumann, 'Radical Right-Wing Parties in Contemporary Germany', in Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall (eds.), The New Politics of the Right (New York: St. Martińs Press, 1998), pp.95–110. 15. Uwe Backes, 'The West German Republikaner: Profile of a Nationalist Populist Party of Protest', Patterns of Prejudice 24/1 (1990), pp.3–18. 16. Paul Taggart, 'New Populist Parties in Western Europe', West European Politics 18/1 (1995), p.41. 17. Franz Schönhuber, Welche Chance hat die Rechte? Lehren aus Aufstieg und Niedergang der Republikaner (Coburg: Nation Europa-Verlag, 2002), p.168. 18. Elisabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe. Success or Failure? (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2005), p.70. 19. Markus E. Wegner, Für eine offene Demokratie. Ein Mann kämpft gegen die 'Polit-Mafia' und für die Erneuerung des Gemeinwesens (Munich/Leipzig: List, 1994). 20. Frank Decker, 'Die Hamburger Statt Partei. Ursprünge und Entwicklung einer bürgerlichen Wählerbewegung', Jahrbuch für Politik 4/2 (1994), p.256. 21. Florian Hartleb, 'Auf- und Abstieg der Hamburger Schill-Partei', in Hans Zehetmair (ed.), Das deutsche Parteiensystem (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004), p.218. 22. Thorsten Faas and Andreas Wüst, 'The Schill Factor in the Hamburg State Election 2001', German Politics 11/2 (2002), pp.1–20. 23. As in other cases (Austria, the Netherlands), the Hamburg election has given strong support to the suggestion that the representatives of the middle-class mainstream may be the main beneficiaries of right-wing populist parties' participation in government. On the one hand, it gives them the opportunity to regain or reassert their ability to achieve majority support vis-à-vis the Left. Secondly, they can improve their competitive position in their own camp. With the populists highly likely to fail due to the conflict between their principled oppositional stance and their self-imposed role in government, the centre-right parties can present themselves in a favourable light compared with the amateurish dealings of their coalition partners and thus reintegrate the right-wing populist voter potential in the medium term. See Frank Decker, Der neue Rechtspopulismus, 2nd edition (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2004), pp.253–9. 24. The Pro DM Party was founded by Düsseldorf multimillionaire Bolko Hoffmann in 1998 in protest at the introduction of the euro. It stood in the Bundestag elections for the first time the same year and achieved 0.9 per cent of the vote. After a respectable showing in the Saxony Land parliament elections in 1999 (2.1 per cent), the party was unable to match this performance in Hamburg in 2001 (0.2 per cent). It did not field any candidates in the 2002 Bundestag elections. The Pro DM Party attracted the public's attention with full-page advertisements placed by Bolko Hoffmann in the leading daily newspapers. After the introduction of the euro, the party changed its name to 'Pro Deutsche Mitte' (Party for the German Centre). For Schill, the merger offered the opportunity to utilise the party apparatus and funding available to Pro DM, while Hoffmann hoped to capitalise on the former senator's public profile and populist appeal. 25. Saalfeld, 'The Politics of National-Populism', p.185. 26. Reinhard Heinisch, 'Success in Opposition – Failure in Government: Explaining the Performance of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Public Office', West European Politics 26/3 (2003), p.94. 27. Peter Lösche, 'The German Party System after the 2002 Bundestag Elections – Continuity or Discontinuity', German Politics 12/3 (2003), p.69 ff. 28. 'Politicians, journalists, functionaries and academics, who are always very quick to brandish the cudgel of right-wing populism, treat real existing politics very mildly as a rule. … The usual political practice … determines, with the aid of public opinion polls, what the people think and simply repeats what they say. But because the politicians, journalists, functionaries and academics have unlearned – or rather, have forgotten – to read the people's lips, they express themselves in a way which means that the people cannot understand them' (Jürgen W. Möllemann, Klartext. Für Deutschland (Munich: Bertelsmann, 2003), p.220). 29. Gregor Gysi, Was nun? U¨ber Deutschlands Zustand und meinen eigenen (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2003). 30. Jens Bastian, 'The Enfant Terrible of German Politics: The PDS Between GDR Nostalgia and Democratic Socialism', German Politics 4/2 (1995), p.108. 31. Patrick Moreau and Jürgen Lang, Linksextremismus. Eine unterschätzte Gefahr (Bonn: Bouvier, 1996), p.72. 32. Hans-Georg Betz and Helga A. Welsh, 'The PDS in the New German Party System', German Politics 4/3 (1995), pp.92–111. 33. Gero Neugebauer and Richard Stöss, Die PDS. Geschichte, Organisation, Wähler, Konkurrenten (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1996), p.70. 34. Viola Neu, 'Die PDS: Eine populistische Partei?', in Nikolaus Werz (ed.), Populismus (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2003), p.268. 35. Stuart Gapper, 'The Rise and Fall of Germany's Party of Democratic Socialism', German Politics 12/2 (2003), pp.65–85. 36. Werner J. Patzelt, 'Chancellor Schröder's Approach to Political and Legislative Leadership', German Politics 13/2 (2004), p.278. 37. Lösche, 'The German Party System after the 2002 Bundestag Elections, p.73. 38. Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Thorsten Faas, 'The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2005 German General Election', German Politics 15/4 (2006), p.403. 39. Oskar Lafontaine, Politik für alle. Streitschrift für eine bessere Gesellschaft (Berlin: Econ, 2005). 40. The Netherlands may be an exception here. While the left-wing Socialist Party almost tripled its vote in the 2006 parliamentary election (16.6 per cent) the newly founded Freedom Party of Geert Wilders succeeded in taking over the role of the leading force in the right-wing populist camp that had been occupied by the List Pim Fortuyn before. On election day it gained 5.9 per cent of the vote. Thus, both the left-wing and the right-wing challengers capitalised on the vote of the established parties. 41. Michael Koß and Dan Hough, 'Between a Rock and Many Hard Places: The PDS and Government Participation in the Eastern German Länder', German Politics 15/1 (2006), pp.73–98. 42. Franz Walter, 'Die Stunde des Trüffelschweins', Internationale Politik 60/6 (2005), pp.56 ff. 43. Ibid. Additional informationNotes on contributorsFrank Decker Frank Decker is Professor in the Institut fu¨r Politische Wissenschaft und Soziologie of Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universita¨t Bonn in Germany. His main research interests focus on problems of institutional reform in Western democracies, party systems and right wing populism. Recent publications include DerneueRechtspopulismus(Opladen 2004) and HandbuchderdeutschenParteien(Handbook of German Parties), co-edited with Viola Neu (Wiesbaden 2007). Florian Hartleb Florian Hartleb, PhD, is a Scientific Assistant in the Political Systems/Institutions department of the University of Technology Chemnitz in Germany. Before, he worked in the national parliament "Bundestag". His research interests include extremism, populism and euroscepticism in Western Europe and political culture in Hungary. He has recently published on these topics, including a monograph (VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004) entitled Rechts-und Linkspopulismus. Eine Fallstudie anhand von Schill-Partei und PDS.