How Rural is Rural Populism? On the Spatial Understanding of Rurality for Analyses of Right‐wing Populist Election Success in Germany*

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, the authors take up the thesis of the narrative that the support for right‐wing populist election successes is located in rural areas. For the case of the German right‐wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) the authors propose a complex definition of rurality, and perform a quantitative small‐scale analysis of the national election results in Germany in 2017. They examine the potential connection between a high share of votes for the AfD and the rurality of a municipality. The results show that in eastern Germany, the fairly rural municipalities have comparatively high AfD vote shares, whereas in western Germany, the fairly rural and the non‐rural municipalities have similar AfD vote shares. Therefore, it appears that the thesis that rural areas are the source of the support of right‐wing populism applies to some, but not to all rural areas of Germany.