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Germany’s Populism Amid Prosperity
Even though Germany has gone from being the “sick man of Europe” to its strongest economy in just a generation, the country has not been immune to right-wing populism. To understand why chauvinist forces are resurgent, one must turn not to political science or economics, but to history.
https://prosyn.org/Q7Wl3Y7
MUNICH – Populism is associated in many people’s minds with job displacement, import competition, and other byproducts of globalization. So how does one account for Germany’s remarkable economic performance and the simultaneous rise of populism there? At first glance, these two phenomena seem incompatible. But the past – and not necessarily the recent past – holds clues to understanding how populism and prosperity can exist side by side.