Societalized Politics in the German Civil Sphere: The 2015 “Refugee Crisis” and Post-Potsdam Civil Backlash

Abstract

This article introduces a theory of societalized politics to investigate crisis events in the German civil sphere between 2015 and 2024, and to proffer an answer to the disputed question of the preconditions that facilitated the rapid rise of right-wing populism in the German context. Drawing on civil sphere and societalization theory, the article specifies the foundational cultural elements, or binary cultural codes (BCCs), upon which German political elites crafted meso-level narratives to contest and manage strains in the civil sphere. Through an analysis of communicative and regulative institutions’ responses to the arrival of refugees in 2015, and the publication of the Correctiv.org report and the backlash protests it inspired in 2024, the article charts the rise of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and explains its success as due in part to its leaders’ capacities to represent themselves and their supporters as embodying the BCC’s civil democratic signifiers. Introducing a theory of societalized politics, the analysis demonstrates a processual approach to the construction and contesting of crisis events that emerge within the civil sphere itself. The article also introduces a civil sphere theory of right-wing populism, which frames the phenomenon as the elevation of nativist, primordial signifiers born foremost of the noncivil spheres of ethnicity and religion. It concludes by arguing that while the German civil sphere is in flux, the post-Potsdam civil protests indicate a significant portion of the nation’s publics remain committed to universalistic, civil democratic principles.