RIGHT-WING POPULISM AND THE POLITICIZATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE: THE CASE OF THE GERMANY’S ALTERNATIVE FÜR DEUTSCHLAND (AFD)

Abstract

Climate change has shifted from a largely technical policy challenge to a politically contested issue in European democracies, particularly amid the rise of right-wing populism. The research examines how the right-wing populist movement through its political activities and discourse of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) political party has made climate change a political issue in Germany and the resulting effects on democratic systems and environmental protection. The research used qualitative document analysis to study party manifestos and parliamentary statements and contextual materials which revealed common patterns of climate policy. The study demonstrates that the AfD does not totally reject climate change as it uses scientific and institutional knowledge to challenge climate governance, which it describes as a danger to both economic stability and public democratic rights. The study uses liberal institutionalist and environmental security frameworks to show how this type of political behavior decreases public confidence in institutions while making political divisions worse and limiting climate change research as a permanent security problem. The article shows how populist leaders change the way democratic nations handle international security threats through its actor-based research which studies how populist leaders operate in established democratic systems.