Dickinson students, professors and Carlisle residents gathered in Stern Great Room on Tuesday, October 4 to hear Professor Lothar Probst of the University of Bremen in Germany speak about the rise of populism in Germany and the United States during election season.

Probst is a recently retired professor at the University of Bremen who primarily focuses on political parties, elections, theories of democracy, German political culture and citizens’ movements.

Probst began by detailing the rise of populism in various European countries, and then introduced the recent ascent of populism in Germany through the Alternative for Germany party.

Throughout the lecture, Probst connected various elements of the German populist phenomenon to the presidential election in the U.S., and discussed the rhetoric of Donald Trump. Through a series of graphs, Professor Probst showed the rapid ascension of European populist parties in the polls—in some countries, the populist parties received significant popular support of over 20% of the electorate.

Helen Schlimm ’17, who studied abroad last year at the University of Bremen and took a course with Professor Probst, found that the talk was “especially interesting to see Professor Probst in this capacity, comparing German politics to the U.S.”

“I could apply the concepts that I learned in class to this lecture,” Schlimm continued. “He portrayed a bleak but realistic future of the future of right wing populism.”

The event was co-sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Max Kade Foundation, and the German Department, and was part of the Clarke Forum’s series on the 2016 presidential election.