• DOI:10.1080/07256868.2016.1235026
• Corpus ID: 151752919

PEGIDA: Understanding the Emergence and Essence of Nativist Protest in Dresden

@article{Virchow2016PEGIDAUT,
  title={PEGIDA: Understanding the Emergence and Essence of Nativist Protest in Dresden},
  author={Fabian Virchow},
  journal={Journal of Intercultural Studies},
  year={2016},
  volume={37},
  pages={541 - 555}
}

• Fabian Virchow
• Published 28 October 2016
• Political Science
• Journal of Intercultural Studies

ABSTRACT Surprisingly to many observers in Germany from fall 2014 onwards, several public protests were organised that turned against fundamentalist currents of Islam. A demonstration of a group that called itself Hooligans against Salafists (HoGeSa) received great public attention; another group using the abbreviation Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA) proved able to initiate a very dynamic mobilisation within a few weeks: from a few hundred to more than 20,000 participants in weekly marches in Dresden. Surveys show that a significant portion of the German population holds Islamophobic stereotypes. Yet, until the appearance of HoGeSa and PEGIDA there had been no expression of these attitudes in public protest of any relevant kind. While growing in numbers week by week in Dresden, attempts were made to organise similar rallies in many other German cities. By and large these attempts, however, were not successful which raises the question of the causes and conditions that allow nativist mass mobilisation in Dresden but not in other cities. This paper portrays the emergence and development of PEGIDA and like groups and discusses the particular political culture in Dresden and Saxony that is the most important factor to explaining the PEGIDA phenomenon.