Center for German and European Studies

Right-Wing Extremism on the Rise: This Year’s Election Results

About the Event

Join three German experts to learn more about what may have led to the recent electoral successes of the right-wing extremist AfD (Alternative for Germany) in the German states of Thüringia, Saxony, Brandenburg, and the European Parliament, as well as similar developments in other European countries.

About the Speakers

Birgit Glorius is Professor of Human Geography with a focus on European Migration Studies at Chemnitz University of Technology. Her research focuses on migration and its consequences for regions of origin and arrival, on transnationalism as well as on local constellations of refugee reception, the reactions of the receiving society, and local-regional policy approaches to integration and participation. She mainly works in research fields in East Germany, East Central Europe, and the Western Balkans. She is co-editor of the journal Z'Flucht, chair of the scientific advisory board of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees’ Research Centre and member of the German Expert Council on Integration and Migration.

Anne Willecke is a civic education trainer at the DGB-Bildungswerk Thüringen e.V., a union-affiliated educational institution for adult learning. She has a Master's degree in Middle Eastern History and Sociology in Global Perspective, has been employed as a lecturer at the Chair of West Asian History at the University of Erfurt and as a consultant for labor and social law for third-country nationals. Currently she is working on the Connect project, which supports works councils in dealing with discrimination, right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories in companies and focuses on workplace co-determination.

 

Maximilian Fries is the Executive Director & Moderator of Europe Calling, Europe’s largest political webinar format. In over 200 webinars, Max has brought together more than 300,000 citizens with political decision-makers, scientists, civil social and industry leaders. Europe Calling is independent and fully funded by crowdfunding. As a member of the Democratic Odyssey consortium Europe Calling strives to build a permanent and travelling transnational European Peoples’ Assembly.

Max studied Biomedicine in Würzburg and completed his PhD in Medical Sciences (focus: cancer biology) in Cambridge (UK) in 2017. Between 2017-2021, he was Head of the Local Office of Sven Giegold MEP in Düsseldorf, where he organised the Europe Calling series, among other things. He lives with his kids in Düsseldorf.