Diagonalist movements challenge established ways of classifying political movements, as they gather supporters from vastly different ideological backgrounds. This thesis examines whether diagonalism, through a case study of the German Querdenken movement, can be understood as a distinct political ideology. Using a morphological analysis of official Querdenken texts, the study reconstructs the movement’s conceptual structure and compares it with established ideological frameworks. Querdenken displays a coherent ideological morphology, with a tightly interlinked core of freedom, autonomy, and truth. The movement lacks a positive political programme, instead maintaining internal cohesion through a shared commitment to opposing perceived violations of individual freedom, autonomy, and truth, rather than through agreement on positive policy goals. While this does not fulfill the criteria for a self-standing ideology, the conceptual patterns show resemblance to individualist anarchism or libertarian thought and reveal structural proximity to far-right conspiracist narratives. Diagonalism cannot be classified as a distinct ideology, but Querdenken illustrates ideological thinking oriented around libertarian principles, negation, and conspiracist evaluation.
Tyra Hagland (Thu,) studied this question.