Right-wing Populist Attitudes at PEGIDA: Findings and Interpretations

Abstract

This chapter presents further findings about the political views of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA) supporters and puts them in an interpretative context with research on Islamophobia, right-wing extremism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, dissatisfaction with democracy and populism in Germany. Especially the large and yet disparate group of supporters which PEGIDA was able to unify in the early phase of the protests in winter 2014/2015 (and to some extent again in autumn 2015) are of interest here. They for the most part did not feel drawn to extreme right-wing statements but used the protest rallies in order to express their political dissatisfaction, anger and indignation, in particular but not only about the asylum and refugee policy. In this development phase the PEGIDA demonstrators provided an example of the very same milieu of society, which—in large parts including a bourgeois middle class—has also been conspicuous in other European countries due to its support of right-wing populist parties. Hence, a comparative analysis of the findings about PEGIDA supporters and the patterns of political and cultural attitudes which shape the perception of their milieu promise important insights into the social backgrounds of potential supporters of right-wing populist movements in general.