In his lecture "The German Radical Right in the European Perspective," Michael Minkenberg discusses the recent developments of the German radical right and puts them into a European context. The primary focus is on the meteoric rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) since its founding in 2013, but also other movements and actors will be addressed. Particular attention is paid to the East-West divide of the phenomenon both within Germany and within Europe. The lecture concludes by asking how this divide can be explained and how it affects liberal democracy.

Minkenberg is professor of comparative politics at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). From 2007-10 he held the Max Weber Chair for German and European Studies at NYU. He has received his M.A. in American Government from Georgetown University in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Heidelberg in 1989. He has taught comparative politics at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg, at Cornell University and Columbia University. Professor Minkenberg's research interests include the radical right in liberal democracies; the relationship between religion and politics in Western societies; and, more recently, the role of state architecture in capital cities. His most recent publication is, with Zsuzsanna Végh, Depleting democracies: Radical right impact on parties, policies, and polities in Eastern Europe (Manchester University Press 2023).