HUMAN RIGHTS ON THE LINE: HOW AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES AND GERMAN POPULIST PARTIES THREATEN THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER

This article was written by guest contributor Anton Ruholl, and was originally written as an extension to his bachelor thesis.

The Unsettling Alignment

The so-called “forced labor” in Xinjiang is a big lie made by anti-China forces. It is a lie against logic, against facts and against legal principles.

I have always considered the horror stories about Xinjiang to be dubious, anti-China propaganda without valid facts.

What at first glance seems like two statements made by loyal members of the Chinese Communist Party, seemingly debunking Western human rights accusations against the oppression of Uyghurs, are in fact illustrating the emergence of an unsettling alignment. While the first quote stems from a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the second one stems from Maximilian Krah, a German Member of Parliament of the Alternative für Deutschland. What might seem like a coincidence is in fact a systematic discursive alignment. My thesis research shows that the two biggest German populist parties, the AfD and Die Linke, are increasingly replicating authoritarian narratives that attack liberal democracy and its core norms. Western considerations about human rights, democratic governance or the rule of law are no longer merely challenged by voices from Moscow, Beijing or Doha. MPs from the two parties have brought the authoritarian strategies of challenging liberal values right into the Bundestag, the heart of Europe’s most influential liberal democracy. The challenges this poses to the idea of western liberalism should not be underestimated. A German populist government that challenges liberal norms would be a major blow to the European project and western liberalism in general.

The AfD and Die Linke have both established questionable ties to authoritarian regimes in the past, and both parties have been criticized for their partially credulous position regarding illiberal actions by non-democratic governments. MPs of the AfD have repeatedly been involved in scandals about illegal payments from Russia and China, and the MP Markus Frohnmaier has even been internally described as “under absolute control” by Russian government officials. MPs of Die Linke, on the other hand, attended the 2018 presidential elections in Russia as ‘election observers’, and gave interviews with the Chinese state media, in which the human rights situation in China was relativized by stating that “you can’t say ours [human rights conception] is better than yours.” My analysis of speeches by the AfD and Die Linke in the Bundestag now show that the ties equally become visible in the parties’ parliamentary discourse. Both parties are increasingly following the authoritarian blueprint to challenge liberal values, albeit to varying degrees.

Overlapping Strategies

Firstly, German populists follow authoritarian states in their framing of Western actors as hypocritical. Authoritarian states have used strategies such as shielding themselves from Western critique through human rights reports that frame Europe and the US as not complying with liberal norms themselvesSuch strategies are now being echoed by the AfD and Die Linke in the Bundestag. AfD MP Braun for instance framed German criticism of the Russian regime following the death of Alexei Navalny as hypocritical, as the German government oppresses the country’s opposition in a similar, illiberal way. MP Dagdelen of Die Linke engaged in a similar framing regarding German critique of human rights violations in China. She argues that “anyone who is only a world champion in double standards is forfeiting any credibility to stand up for human rights and respect for international law globally.”

Secondly, both advance authoritarian understandings of an international order in which non-compliance with human rights or freedom of speech becomes irrelevant. When Markus Frohnmaier, MP of the AfD, argues for a government that “does not interfere in the internal affairs of foreign states (…) and refrains from lecturing others” he does not promote cultural understanding. What he advocates for is an international order that treats the safeguarding of human rights as optional. For him, human rights violations in China or the oppression of the opposition in Turkey should have no influence on the countries’ standing in the international system. Despite a rather universal approach to human rights, Die Linke follows the AfD in this logic. In regards to China, MP’s like Amira Mohamed Ali warn of “wanting to counter China’s economic policy ‘with an ideologically underpinned symbolic policy’.”

The AfD furthermore promotes the idea advanced by many authoritarian states that a country’s stability and economic performance should take precedence over human rights considerations. That Rwanda is not a democracy, and that the government increasingly engages in crackdowns of opposition parties and arrest political dissidents, is deemed irrelevant by the AfD. Important, says MP Braun, is that the country “is stable and on the rise.”

Moreover, the AfD echoes a narrative that is central to authoritarian justifications of non-compliance with human rights: cultural uniqueness. The West is not in the position to accuse authoritarian states of human rights violations, because western interpretations of liberal norms do not apply in other cultural contexts. Therefore, as the co-chair of the party puts it, Germany should “stop playing the role of moral and ethics police around the world.”

Liberalism in Danger

These dynamics have the potential to gradually erode the liberal international order from within. Authoritarian regimes have attempted to undermine and divide the West for years by spreading narratives about the obsolescence of liberalism and the insignificance of human rights. And looking at the discourse of AfD and Die Linke now shows, German populist parties help to replicate exactly these narratives that are at the heart of this authoritarian endeavor. Given that the AfD – the party most closely replicating authoritarian strategies – recently polled as the strongest in Germany, this alignment is deeply unsettling. An AfD in power would have grave consequences for the standing of human rights and other liberal values in Europe, and might seriously affect the longevity of the liberal international order. MP’s of the party have not simply argued for a reevaluation of certain liberal norms. They threaten foundational ethical commitments. They have actively relativized instances in which authoritarian derogated from “peremptory norms of general international law” or jus cogens, something that is forbidden under international law as reaffirmed by the ILC 2022 Draft conclusions. MP’s of the AfD have for instance relativized the systematic torture by the Assad regime and defended the dictatorship, because it provided free education and had low crime rates. If a possible government party of the EU’s most influential member state does not address grave human rights violations, and defends authoritarian regimes by devaluating the importance of liberal norms, it would constitute nothing less than a free ticket for authoritarian states and possibly a death blow for the liberal international order.

The centrality of liberal norms and values to our way of life must be reaffirmed. In Germany, democratic parties must counter this populist threat by highlighting the success story of liberal norms. People must be made aware of the benefits of free speech, the importance of a right to privacy, and the significance of the rule of law. And at the same time, democratic parties have the duty of warning voters about the consequences of a populist government, and the grave dangers it would pose to the democratic order and our liberal way of life. Post-war Europe was built on the premises of human dignity, democracy and human rights. And it is precisely those values that are now threatened more than ever, both from outside forces and from enemies within.

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