Far-right movement-party activism as strategy: Germany’s ‘peace movement’ during Russia’s war against Ukraine

Abstract

This article studies the strategic considerations behind far-right movement-partyism in the context of ‘new’ issues such as Russia’s war against Ukraine. The question of military support to Ukraine, high energy prices, and the reception of war refugees soon became salient issues in many European states. In Germany, the government, dominated by the centre-left, moved towards greater military support. The loudest opponents of arms supply and sanctions were found within the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD). Perhaps paradoxically, many AfD politicians, together with a variety of far-right social movement groups and prominent activists, even went to the streets, portraying themselves as new ‘peace movement’. The article asks: What are the far rights’ motives behind going to the streets? What should these efforts organizationally achieve? And what does street mobilization in the context of war teach us about the state of far-right movement-partyism more generally? The article highlights the following strategic motives of the far right: (1) the long-term aim of strengthening of organizational structures beyond the electoral arena and (2) the attraction of (former) left-wingers through ‘Querfront’ (‘cross-front’) strategies. The article also studies (3) far-right activists’ ambivalent self-assessments of their success. Further analysing these strategic considerations, the article provides important contributions to debates on the far right's mainstreaming and normalization efforts, their own intellectual reflection of strategy, and the impact of their efforts.