ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the response of the populist radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the COVID-19 crisis in the Federal Republic of Germany. It demonstrates that the AfD showed a populist reaction to the pandemic in two ways. First, it put the people at the center of its strategy and presented itself as an advocate for those who suffered not from the virus directly but ostensibly from the government’s response. Second, the AfD perpetuated the crisis by reinterpreting the government’s countermeasures as an authoritarian threat to democracy. The behavior of the AfD can be explained by three factors: the responses of the government to the pandemic, the dynamic of protest movements taking place in Germany, and conflicts within the AfD. The chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the AfD in the pandemic and draws on both quantitative and qualitative data.
