The Identitarian Movement in Germany: Claims, Repertoire of Contention, and Resonance

Transnational social movements are typically active in more than one country, both in terms of their organizational structure(s) and adherents. They mobilize in at least one state other than their native country and address overarching sociopolitical concerns against states, international organizations, or multinational economic actors. Until recently, the literature mainly considered left-wing movements under the term. Because, except for groups like the Skinheads or Al Queda, right-wing movements were generally considered to stay confined within the nation-states, and eventually, within party politics. However, the current surge of far-right contention in Europe suggests that this notion no longer holds. Especially with the emergence and increasing popularity of “extra-parliamentary” organizations like PEGIDA and the Identitarian Movement, which also operate on a transnational-level. Using Political Claims Analysis, this paper traces and documents the evolution of the claims, repertoire of contention, and resonance of the Identitarian Movement in Germany (Identitäre Bewegung Deutschland - IBD) between 2012 and 2019. The IBD has been one of the most thriving far-right transnational social movements in Europe. Therefore, to answer the question of how far-right movements turn transnational, I rely on textual data from the IBD’s Blog on their official website, and two daily German-language newspapers, “Die Tageszeitung - TAZ” and “Süddeutsche Zeitung - SZ,”. This triangulation incorporates conventional (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and alternative media (TAZ) with activist resources (the IBD Blog). The resulting text corpus consists of approximately 1300 articles. By employing said sample, I code political claims where the IBD is either the claimant, addressee, or the object actor (i.e., target). Consequently, the paper maps the (1) claims and claim forms of the IBD, (2) actors involved in the arena, as well as (3) the IBD’s resonance in German public debates and argues that their combination is key to explore potential contagion effects of far-right transnational movements. The initial findings indicate that even a group as small as the IBD, with an estimate of 800 members in Germany, could still potentially affect German national politics, mostly as an outcome of their resonance, and repertoire of contention.