This article charts the rise of the ‘Alternative for Germany’ ( Alternative für Deutschland or AfD) from its inception in late 2012 to its unexpectedly strong performance in the 2017 Federal election. In terms of the ‘inward’ aspect of Euroscepticism, the article considers the impact of the emergence of successively more hardline leaderships in 2015 and 2017, which led to a shift beyond opposition to aspects of the European integration process to a more profound critique of German society and politics. In terms of the ‘outward’ aspect, it assesses the significance of these developments in the wider debates around Euroscepticism and populism. The article concludes that the AfD’s Euroscepticism is now nested within an ideological profile that increasingly conforms to the template of an orthodox European right-wing populist party. It argues that the widely unanticipated level of electoral support for the AfD in the 2017 Federal elections and its status as the main opposition party in the Bundestag is a systemic shock and potential critical juncture in the development of the German party system and the contestation of European integration in the Federal Republic.

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Over the last decade China expanded its renewable energy sector with unprecedented speed. This success story presents a challenge to Western modes of environmental governance, where stakeholder participation is often deemed a necessary precondition for effective policy outcomes. Drawing on new research including previously unpublished interview data, the article first discusses established modes of environmental governance before examining the growth of China's renewables sector through the theoretical lens of the 'developmental state'. The article then analyses renewable energy policy design and implementation in China, illustrating how top-down command and control strategies have successfully diffused renewable energy technology from a standing start. We argue that (1) China's distinct approach to the sector differs from Western modes of environmental governance and (2) this has revealed a new path towards renewable energy diffusion that authoritarian states in particular might regard as an attractive alternative to participatory models.

The article is built on four propositions. First, there is a latent potential within the German polity for the mobilisation of what remains a significant level of popular unease about aspects of the ongoing process of European integration. Second, at present this potential is unfulfilled and, as a result, Euroscepticism remains the 'dark matter' of German politics. Third, the absence of a clearly stated Eurosceptical agenda is not due to the inherent 'enlightenment' of the German political class about the European project, but rather is the result of systemic disincentives shaping the preferences of rational acting politicians. Finally, these systemic disincentives are to be found within the formal institutions of the German polity. The key ideas here are of 'hard' versus 'soft' Eurosceptical narratives, sustained versus heresthetic agendas, and 'polis constraining' versus 'polis shaping' strategies for their promotion. Political agents' choice of strategy depends on the nature of the institutional setting within which they are operating. The institutional configuration of the Federal Republic provides poor returns for party-based Euroscepticism. The mobilisation of popular unease about aspects of European integration remains an unattractive option for rational acting political agents.

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The chapter examines developments within environmental policy making in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany and asks: (i) can we identify patterns of convergence and/or divergence between the two countries?; and (ii) to what extent doesthe European integration process impact upon these patterns? It uses an historical institutionalist framework within which to frame the analysis.

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This article examines the impact of party system change in Germany on the role, status and power of the two catch-all parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) in the light of the 2009 federal election. It argues that party system change has had a paradoxical impact. On the one hand, the decline in the overall catch-all vote undermines the two parties' integrative function. On the other, the presence of three small parties (FDP, Greens, Left Party) means that, with the possible exception of the Greens, no single small party has the potential to be 'kingmaker' and, because of their relative positions in ideological space, neither can they act in concert to extract concessions from the two catch-all parties. Thus, despite the impressive performance of the FDP in the 2009 federal election and the electoral meltdown suffered by the SPD, in office-seeking terms the catch-all parties are currently less vulnerable to small party threats of defection to alternative coalitions.