Increasing toleration for the intolerant? “Adapted militancy” and German responses to Alternative für Deutschland

While Germany is often conceived as the “ideal type” militant democracy, until the emergence of the AfD in 2013, the absence of a successful right-wing populist party made it an exceptional case in Europe. Unlike most former targets of militant democracy, the AfD accepts rules of the liberal democracy. This raises the central question addressed in the article: How does the emergence of a populist right-wing party affect practices of German militant democracy? I argue that AfD opponents have developed an adapted militancy towards the right-wing populist party. Data on initiatives opposing the AfD between 2013 and 2021 show that AfD opponents use a full range of initiatives spanning both tolerant and intolerant modes of engagement. If the proportion of tolerant initiatives is somewhat unexpected, intolerant responses were progressively introduced. With the help of semi-structured interviews conducted with the authors of initiatives opposing the AfD, I argue that four factors help explain the developments of initiatives against the right-wing populist party: the radicalization of the AfD; the militant democratic legacy in Germany; the distribution of power among AfD opponents; and learning dynamics affecting political actors, public authorities, and civil society groups differently.