Strukturmerkmale extremistischer und populistischer Ideologien

Contrary to extremists, populists do not inherently oppose democracy. However, regardless of their ideologies, both think in terms of friend and foe, are attracted to charismatic leaders and perceive the people as a homogeneous entity. Adopting a critical stance towards ideology, this study is the first to theoretically and conceptually examine the hypotheses on these three shared structural features of extremist and populist ideologies. While confirming that both share these features, the study also exposes their structural differences. Finally, the author subjects the aforementioned mutual and different structural features of extremist and populist ideologies to an empirical litmus test using the NPD (2010–2017) and AfD (2013–2017) as examples—which are first considered individually and then in comparison. For the period of investigation, the findings of this study indicate that the NPD is a right-wing extremist party with populist elements, whereas since May 2016 the AfD has been a right-wing populist party with extremist elements.