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Internal Democracy in Populist Right Parties: the Process of Party Policy Development in the Alternative for Germany

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Internal Democracy in Populist Right Parties: the Process of Party Policy Development in the Alternative for Germany Internal Democracy in Populist Right Parties: The Process of Party Policy Development in the Alternative for Germany Valeriya Kamenovaa aDepartment of Political Science, Boston University, 232 Bay State Road, Boston, USA Valeriya Kamenova, [email protected] 1 Internal Democracy in Populist Right Parties: The Process of Party Policy Development in the Alternative for Germany Abstract For the past decade, populist left and right-wing parties have been on the rise in Europe. Yet, there are a few studies on the internal organizational dynamics of these parties. Drawing on a new and unique data from fieldwork observations and in-depth interviews with party members from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), this article examines the internal democratic mechanisms in policy formation and explores how the party’s organizational development affects its electoral success. The AfD displays a high degree of internal participation – an important but contrasting addition to the comparative research on radical right parties, which fail to sustain a democratic internal organization and consistently adopt mechanisms to centralize power in the leadership. The study has important implications for the further research of populism, in terms of linking the people- centered nature of populism to debates about empowering party members and strengthening political representation through referendums and deliberative democracy. Keywords: Intraparty democracy; party organization; right-wing populism; grassroots activism 2 Introduction In the shadow of Brexit and the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the United States, people tend to draw a straight line to an alienated white working class, angry pensioners and the unemployed. However, such simplistic explanations overlook the roots and development of complex populist movements and do not fully grasp the support of more than 10 million voters for Marine Le Pen in the 2017 French Presidential Election, more than 5 million for the Alternative for Germany party in the 2017 German Federal Election, and recently, more than 8 million for the Law and Justice Party in the 2019 Polish Parliamentary Election. This paper focuses on the prospect of the Alternative for Germany achieving something that had eluded the radical right in Germany – a federal electoral breakthrough. Before the 2017 Bundestag Election, no right-wing party has managed to pass the threshold for parliamentary representation on the federal level – a failure that can be attributed to Germany’s strong political culture of containment and civic confrontation through large protests and anti-fascist activities (Art, 2006). Every radical right party in post-war Germany – the National Democratic Party (NPD), the German People’s Union (DVU), the Republikaner (REP), the Freedom Party, and the Schill Party – has experienced a sudden rise, factional splits and organizational atrophy, bringing themselves to a political oblivion. Since its foundation in 2013, the AfD has attracted rapidly growing and striking levels of support. Unlike earlier right-wing populist parties in Germany which have enjoyed only ephemeral success and failed to gain more than a handful of elected representatives on the local and state levels, the AfD has managed to build a sizeable legislative base. The party is currently the third largest political group at the Bundestag with 89 MPs; it also has 244 incumbent state representatives among 15 state parliaments and 11 Members of the European Parliament. Recently, political scientists have analyzed the AfD party ideology, voters, and a shift toward a more national-conservative position (Arzheimer, 2015; Bieber et al., 2015; Schmitt-Beck, 2017). However, there has been little research on the party organization and its internal democratic mechanisms. This is striking since the AfD is a strong advocate for direct democracy and criticizes the established parties for their absence of grassroots participation. Despite the containment tactics of the mainstream parties to isolate the AfD from meaningful governing participation, the party is still supported by a large minority of citizens across Germany. In this case, the internal supply side 3 in terms of party organization is essential in understanding how the AfD responds to political opportunities and constraints to establish itself permanently in the political arena. My research is guided by the hypothesis that what sets the AfD apart from other radical right parties – and has helped it achieve a status of an ‘acceptable' right-wing party for many citizens is its party organization, characterized by diverse mechanisms of internal democracy in policy development and increased grassroots involvement in local communities. The importance of intra- party democracy and grassroots participation for the AfD is two-fold. First, parties that conduct their internal affairs in a 'democratic way' show to the voters that they have an internal democratic ethos, instead of being entirely controlled by political elites. The perception that the 'demos' governs party decisions adds to the party's credibility as a potential government participant (Mersel, 2006), and in the case of the AfD, fights off Nazi stigmatization and social exclusion. Second, through its grassroots involvement, the AfD responds to the demand of more citizens’ engagement in politics. By conducting activities intensively in local communities, the party manifests its willingness to respond to issues raised by the citizens, and indirectly sends a message of better representation (Gherghina, 2014). Party Democracy: Theoretical Perspectives While some contend that modern democracy would not exist without political parties, it is equally argued that intra-party democracy has always been impossible to achieve (Kirchheimer 1966; Michels, 1915). Studies of party organization demonstrate that modern parties have transformed into internal cartels led by career professionals, thus relinquishing values and practices originally associated with the mass party such as internal deliberation and leadership accountability (Blyth and Katz, 2005; Katz, 2001; Katz and Mair, 1994; 2009). Parties are gradually losing their semblance as ‘essential instruments of – and for – democracy and liberty’ and they are experiencing increasing collapse in terms of confidence and trust (Ignazi, 2017, p. 3). When some reforms are initiated to democratize the candidate selection, they are often claimed to be attempts by party leaders to curb members’ involvement in policy development (Katz, 2001, p. 290; Katz and Mair, 2009; p. 759; Mair, 1997, pp. 113–14, 146–52). Indeed, Carty (2004, p. 13) notes that most research on catch-all, cartel and electoral-professional party organizations ‘appear to agree 4 that the imperatives of modern electoral competition have worked to consolidate control of this activity [decision-making on policy and programmatic issues] in the hands of the party in public office, and often the party leadership more narrowly defined.’ The impact of party activists diminishes over time as party leaders increasingly develop policies without considering the preferences of the party on the ground (Duverger, 1951; Kirchheimer, 1966). At the same time, survey evidence on party members shows strong support for more membership involvement in policymaking, as well as in candidate and leadership selection. Members in Canadian parties mentioned perceived ‘under-influence of ordinary party members’ as the ‘greatest source of discontent’ (Young and Cross, 2002, p. 682). In the British Labor Party, most members preferred active participatory democracy beyond simple voting on proposals, drafted by the leadership (Pettitt, 2012). Attempting to address these issues, internal democratic mechanisms provide a sense of grassroots legitimation and allow parties to present themselves with a more favorable and open public image (Scarrow et al., 2000). Intra-party democracy is an essential part of the ‘broader rhetoric of democratization, re-engagement and modernization delivered to diverse audiences – both internal and external to the party’ (Gauja, 2017, p. 5). Internal deliberation could strengthen the linkage not only between party members and party elite, but also between citizens and government: ‘by opening up channels of communication within party organizations, the deliberating bodies of the state could be made ‘‘porous’’ (...) to the influence of deliberations expressed within civil society and the public sphere’ (Teorell, 1999, p. 373). Comparative research on party organization has shown that some party families have ensured direct involvement of their members in the formation of party policies. Green and left-wing parties in Western democracies have been found to manifest high levels of internal democracy. They were followed closely by social democrats, while conservatives exhibited average levels of intra-party democracy (Poguntke et al., 2016, p. 672). Since the 1970s and 1980s, European green and new left parties have emerged to challenge the hierarchical nature of the established parties and introduce grassroots democracy (Rihoux, 2016). Similarly, the Workers’ Party of Brazil sought to be internally democratic by employing two-stage convention processes and institutionalizing deliberation at the local level through party nuclei (Keck, 1992). 5 While left-wing parties tend to promote intraparty democracy, when it comes to parties of the radical right, scholars have usually agreed on the absence of such internal democratic mechanisms. Betz (1998, p. 9) points
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