The Populist Radical Right as Memory Entrepreneur? The Prominence, Sentiment, and Interpretations of History in the German Parliament

Abstract

Populist radical right (PRR) parties' attacks against prevailing historical interpretations have received much public attention because they question the foundations of countries' political orders. Yet, how prominent are such attacks and what characterizes their sentiment and content? This article proposes an integrated mixed-methods approach to investigate the prominence, sentiment, and interpretations of history in PRR politicians' parliamentary speeches. Studying the case of Germany, we conducted a quantitative analysis of national parliamentary speeches (2017–2021), combined with a qualitative analysis of all speeches made by Alternative for Germany (AfD) in 2017–2018. The AfD does not use historical markers more prominently but is distinctly less negative when speaking about history compared to its general political language. The collocation and qualitative analyses reveal the nuanced ways in which the AfD affirms and disavows various mnemonic traditions, underlining the PRR's complex engagement with established norms.