When a far-right party won a landslide victory on Sunday in a small state in eastern Germany, its reverberations could be felt from Downing Street in London to the Élysée Palace in Paris. Rarely has the result of a regional election been viewed with such portent for the fate of democracy in Europe.

This wasn’t just any European country; it was Germany, a country that has relentlessly isolated far-right political parties since the calamity of Nazism. And it wasn’t just a strange outlier, but rather the latest step in a steady, decade-long march that has brought the far right ever closer to the fulcrum of power in Europe.

With elections scheduled across Europe next year, the striking success of the party, Alternative for Germany, could be a harbinger of further far-right victories, according to analysts, as well as a template for how they can be engineered. Its populist, anti-immigrant message echoes those of nationalist leaders in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, all countries where voters harbor many of the same grievances as those in Germany.

French voters will elect a new president next spring. An election is due in Spain by August, and in Italy by the end of next year. Far-right candidates are surging in all of them, threatening incumbents blamed for systemic problems with their countries’ economies.

“Developed Europe is going through a version of sophisticated state failure,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst who specializes in Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “Governments are unable to address cost-of-living concerns. They are not able to deliver for their voters.”

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