How German Business deals with the populist radical right party Alternative for Germany (AfD): Results from a Survey of Business and Employers' Associations

Hence, the question has also arisen in Germany of how the business community - business associations and companies – position themselves with regard to the AfD. Based on a quantitative and qualitative survey of CEOs of leading employers' and business associations, this study reveals a strategy of exclusion by the business community towards the AfD: The organised business community sees hardly any programmatic overlaps and rather assesses the party as primarily a political, but also an economic location risk. The doubts about the party's loyalty to the constitution are reflected, among other things, in the fact that the party is also consistently denied the ability to govern in terms of its personnel. Nevertheless, there are doubts among the chief executives about the extent to which exclusion could play into the hands of the AfD's victimisation strategy. Furthermore, to what extent this refusal can even be sustained if the right-wing populists are increasingly elected to political responsibility.