Özet:

The rapid strengthening of the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative für Deutschland - AfD) has led to the 2009 Euro crisis, the increasing EU intervention in Germany’s domestic policy, the migrants and refugee crisis that began in 2015, the increasing terror attacks and the efforts of the Germans to protect their identity. The AfD is the first radical populist right-wing party to enter the German Parliament after World War II. Following EU, immigration and anti-Islam policies, the AfD was the third party in parliament, taking 12.6% of the votes in the 2017 general elections. This rapid rise of the AfD has raised a widespread concern that the party will hurt the German democracy. The aim of this study is to discuss whether the party can weaken the German democracy by studying the AfD as the three components of the populist radical right ideology described by Cas Mudde (2007: 22). For this purpose, the article examines the “populist policies” of the AfD that polarize the society in the form of “we” and “the other” through the party program and its politicians, and the “locality policies” in the country that indicate that only the German people should live and that others see them as a threat to national identity and German culture. He also analyzes the authority legal arrangements he suggests not to accept "the other". The study argues that these “populist” policies pose a danger to the established German democracy, especially in terms of political pluralism, political rights and personal freedoms, but the measures taken in the German constitution and the German political culture minimize this danger.

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