Die Neue Zeit
25th October 2017, 05:33
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/10/die-linke-afd-merkel-german-election
By Mark Bergfeld and Leandros Fischer
There is, nevertheless, a silver lining for Germanys biggest party on the Left. Die Linke managed to increase its vote share by 0.6 percent, winning 9.2 percent of the electorate. Around 4.3 million people voted for Die Linke, up from 3.75 million in 2013. The party gained around 700,000 votes from the SPD, over 300,000 from the Greens, and even 200,000 from the Christian Democrats. This growth is even more remarkable given Die Linkes demographic-driven decline in its eastern strongholds, where it historically attracted pensioners who lost out during German reunification.
The elections confirmed that Die Linkes core electorate has undergone a massive geographic shift. The party increased its share of the vote in nearly all formerly West German constituencies, particularly in urban centers, the heart of Germanys political life.
Die Linke climbed to 12 percent in Hamburg, where its members visibly supported anti-gentrification and pro-refugee social movements. In Cologne where it also received around 12 percent, up from 8.9 percent in 2009 Die Linke did well in working-class neighborhoods like Kalk and Nippes, strongholds for the partys left-wing where activists joined protests against skyrocketing rents and the AfD.
Die Linke also performed above average in Frankfurt (around 12 percent) and Munich (about 8 percent), but the results in Berlin are even more remarkable.
These results show that Die Linke has left behind its reputation as a curious relic, a formation supported by East German pensioners and the West German unemployed the so-called losers of globalization. It now attracts non-voters as well as former SPD and Green members who no longer identify with their parties tame responses to Mutti Merkel.
Whether Die Linke can sustain this trend will depend on a multitude of factors, but it is safe to assume that Germanys left-wing voters share a number of features with those who support Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom and Bernie Sanders in the United States though the country lacks a politician with comparable popularity.
There is also no use in denying the AfDs appeal among the less well-off. The fact that a sizable portion of its voters are workers and unemployed who voted for the party out of protest, means that Die Linke can and should try to win these people over to progressive ideas. However, the fact that this protest is articulated in racist and law-and-order terms means that the argument against the AfD cannot be solely won by pointing to the partys neoliberal policies.
Lots of ink has been spilled in an attempt to resolve this apparent contradict and formulate an alternative, left-wing populism that can counter the far rights popularity among workers and the unemployed, with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders often cited as role models. Inspired by theorists like Chantal Mouffe, some have proposed creating a people of the left a radical democratic alliance that unites societys downtrodden across national lines.
In fact, one of the great weaknesses within Die Linke and the contemporary left in general is the implicit ideology of a division of labor between different political sectors, pioneered, even if inadvertently, by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, and granted extra legitimacy by Antonio Negris theory of the multitude.
Thus, the parliamentary party is responsible for conducting day-to-day affairs, whereas the workers movement and the various social movements remain autonomous and leave their representation up to the party, which in turn does not interfere with their day-to-day functions in order to avoid appearing paternalistic. In this (very schematic) illustration of such thinking, the workers movement appears as just one of many political subjects, and often as the most old-fashioned or irrelevant one, an impression guided by a flawed diagnosis about the total transformation of the working class in post-Fordism and an overdetermining belief in power of affects in practical politics.
First, Die Linke as an organization with significant material resources unequaled by any other left-wing formation in Europe must play a crucial role. Europes traditional working-class parties mostly emerged from the labor movement in the nineteenth century. Perhaps the opposite should take place today: Die Linke should use its established presence to politicize labor struggles. By taking a more strategic approach to emerging disputes in the service, care, and logistics sectors, Die Linke can begin building a viable left-wing position against the trade union bureaucracys crisis corporatism and economic nationalism.
By Mark Bergfeld and Leandros Fischer
There is, nevertheless, a silver lining for Germanys biggest party on the Left. Die Linke managed to increase its vote share by 0.6 percent, winning 9.2 percent of the electorate. Around 4.3 million people voted for Die Linke, up from 3.75 million in 2013. The party gained around 700,000 votes from the SPD, over 300,000 from the Greens, and even 200,000 from the Christian Democrats. This growth is even more remarkable given Die Linkes demographic-driven decline in its eastern strongholds, where it historically attracted pensioners who lost out during German reunification.
The elections confirmed that Die Linkes core electorate has undergone a massive geographic shift. The party increased its share of the vote in nearly all formerly West German constituencies, particularly in urban centers, the heart of Germanys political life.
Die Linke climbed to 12 percent in Hamburg, where its members visibly supported anti-gentrification and pro-refugee social movements. In Cologne where it also received around 12 percent, up from 8.9 percent in 2009 Die Linke did well in working-class neighborhoods like Kalk and Nippes, strongholds for the partys left-wing where activists joined protests against skyrocketing rents and the AfD.
Die Linke also performed above average in Frankfurt (around 12 percent) and Munich (about 8 percent), but the results in Berlin are even more remarkable.
These results show that Die Linke has left behind its reputation as a curious relic, a formation supported by East German pensioners and the West German unemployed the so-called losers of globalization. It now attracts non-voters as well as former SPD and Green members who no longer identify with their parties tame responses to Mutti Merkel.
Whether Die Linke can sustain this trend will depend on a multitude of factors, but it is safe to assume that Germanys left-wing voters share a number of features with those who support Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom and Bernie Sanders in the United States though the country lacks a politician with comparable popularity.
There is also no use in denying the AfDs appeal among the less well-off. The fact that a sizable portion of its voters are workers and unemployed who voted for the party out of protest, means that Die Linke can and should try to win these people over to progressive ideas. However, the fact that this protest is articulated in racist and law-and-order terms means that the argument against the AfD cannot be solely won by pointing to the partys neoliberal policies.
Lots of ink has been spilled in an attempt to resolve this apparent contradict and formulate an alternative, left-wing populism that can counter the far rights popularity among workers and the unemployed, with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders often cited as role models. Inspired by theorists like Chantal Mouffe, some have proposed creating a people of the left a radical democratic alliance that unites societys downtrodden across national lines.
In fact, one of the great weaknesses within Die Linke and the contemporary left in general is the implicit ideology of a division of labor between different political sectors, pioneered, even if inadvertently, by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, and granted extra legitimacy by Antonio Negris theory of the multitude.
Thus, the parliamentary party is responsible for conducting day-to-day affairs, whereas the workers movement and the various social movements remain autonomous and leave their representation up to the party, which in turn does not interfere with their day-to-day functions in order to avoid appearing paternalistic. In this (very schematic) illustration of such thinking, the workers movement appears as just one of many political subjects, and often as the most old-fashioned or irrelevant one, an impression guided by a flawed diagnosis about the total transformation of the working class in post-Fordism and an overdetermining belief in power of affects in practical politics.
First, Die Linke as an organization with significant material resources unequaled by any other left-wing formation in Europe must play a crucial role. Europes traditional working-class parties mostly emerged from the labor movement in the nineteenth century. Perhaps the opposite should take place today: Die Linke should use its established presence to politicize labor struggles. By taking a more strategic approach to emerging disputes in the service, care, and logistics sectors, Die Linke can begin building a viable left-wing position against the trade union bureaucracys crisis corporatism and economic nationalism.