Abstract
The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has been more successful electorally in eastern than in western Germany. In this paper, we look at nativism coupled with populist attitudes as possible contributors to the 2017 federal electoral outcome. We compare two alternative mechanisms for the varying election results, the first being whether individuals living in eastern Germany are, on average, more nativist and populist inclined; the second, whether nativism and populism are more salient when these voters go to the polls. The results show that there indeed exists a slightly higher level of nativist and populist sentiment among the east German citizens than among the west Germans. This difference concerns older east Germans in particular, who were politically socialised during the German separation. Furthermore, elements of nativist and populist ideas explain electoral support for the AfD in both parts of the country, but nativism appears to be more relevant in the east. Overall, the analysis of the short-term campaign panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study suggests that the inspected ideational foundations contribute to the east–west gap in AfD support without accounting for it completely.
Highlights
The most recent significant newcomer to the German party system, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), has been considerably more successful at the polls in eastern Germany than in western Germany
We studied the role of nativism and populism in affecting vote choice for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in eastern and western Germany in the 2017 federal election
Are east Germans more populist and/or nativist than west Germans? To answer this question, we first looked at the relative frequency of populism, nativism, and their respective subdimensions in the two parts of the countries on average, as measured in the panel survey
Summary
The most recent significant newcomer to the German party system, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), has been considerably more successful at the polls in eastern Germany than in western Germany. Because our interest lies in the analysis of two specific ideational foundations related to variable electoral support of the AfD via two potential pathways, we employ this section of the paper to present previous research immediately relevant to our own This includes a description of important characteristics of the AfD, the definition of nativist and populist attitudes we adhere to, the relevance of looking at these attitudes in combination as well as the model of electoral choice we integrate these idea elements into. We follow Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser’s work in defining populist and nativist party positions and attitudes Integrating these attitudes into a simple model of vote choice, we establish two possible avenues by which they can lead to the different levels in AfD support we observed in the 2017 federal election. We refrained from controlling for phenomena that conceptually overlap with nativism and populism, such as some indicator of (absence of) system support in the case of the latter.
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