Regional Factionalism as an Enabling Structure: The Case of the AfD

Much has been written in the literature about party factions and their potential consequences. For parties of the far-right they have been particularly dangerous, often leading to severe intra-party conflicts and eventually splits. Through analysing the case of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, we argue that having factions of varying extremism in different regions may actually serve to benefit the party. Theoretically, we argue that the AfD resembles a populist radical right party (PRR) in West Germany yet is much closer to being an extreme right-wing party (ERW) in East Germany. Drawing on (a) Candidates and (b) Voters’ data, we also find empirically that AfD candidates and voters tend to hold more right-wing political attitudes in East Germany, compared to West Germany. Our analysis makes an original theoretical contribution to the literature in illustrating differences in two key dimensions, namely personnel and electorate that relate to ‘regional factionalism’ in contemporary European politics through this single case study analysis.