Francis Fukuyama at Persuasion:
In my memoir, I had argued that one explanation for the rise of populist-nationalist parties like the AfD in Germany and Trump’s MAGA movement in the U.S. was less the failure to distribute material goods than the distribution of equal respect, which led to a backlash of anger on the part of populations who felt disregarded and socially marginalized. It seems to me that this explanation applies in spades to Germany.
The AfD’s political base is in the states of the former East Germany, what used to be the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR). After unification in the early 1990s, the former West Germany made impressive efforts to incorporate the GDR into its own thriving economy, transferring wealth and welfare state benefits to the East, as well as a rule of law that granted equal rights to the former Communist society.
This formal equality was not matched, however, on a social level. Germany, like the United States, United Kingdom, and other rich democracies was undergoing a social transformation in this period. A new elite was forming: parties of the left like the American Democrats, British Labour, and the German Social Democrats were increasingly dominated not by the working class they claimed to serve, but by educated professionals living in cosmopolitan urban centers.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.