That's great news! Huge congrats, Alex!

This is amazing, what an achievement! Huge congrats, Sofia!! :)

…to avoid further (and arguably unintended) strengthening of AfD—and, in turn, the (again unintended) risk of harming democracy. (6/6)

Given these far-reaching public opinion/normalization effects—and the fact that CDU is legitimizing AfD at a time when the party is more extreme than ever—in my view, CDU would be well-advised to make yesterday’s collaboration a singular instance… (5/6)

In my recently published article, I show that (a) voters follow mainstream party legitimization, (b) returning to delegitimization has little effect, (c) legitimization is no less effective even when a third party continues to delegitimize, and (d) legitimization resonates beyond co-partisans. (4/6)

Instead, most mainstream right parties have, at some point, moved toward legitimizing them (i.e., portraying them as democratic through collaboration). (3/6)

CDU’s shift follows a pattern seen in many other countries. In fact, few electorally successful far-right parties have been delegitimized (i.e., portrayed as undemocratic, for instance, via a cordon sanitaire) by the mainstream right for an extended period. (2/6)