The rise of right-wing populism: a test of three hypotheses about voter support for the AfD in Germany

This paper is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate about the causes of the rise of right-wing populist movements and parties across Europe. In the case of Germany, the AfD has become a fixed point in its political system, with sustained voter support in the double digits across several state and federal elections – despite being under increased scrutiny from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Three central hypotheses to explain voters support for right-wing populism are at the core of the discussion in the German scientific literature, namely the losers of modernization, the post-democracy and the cultural backlash hypotheses. The losers of modernization hypothesis states that objective and subjective socioeconomic status are the main explanatory factors for support for right-wing populist actors. The post-democracy thesis states that the corrosion of democratic norms and alienation from elites causes voters to flock to populist parties like the AfD. The cultural backlash hypothesis, on the other hand, states that support for right-wing populists is mainly caused by a rejection of societal shifts towards multicultural and progressive ideals. In this paper we contribute to this discussion by adding further evidence in support of the claim that a cultural backlash is the main driving factor behind voters’ support for the AfD. Additionally, we show that both socioeconomic factors and positive attitudes to post-democratic politics are fully mediated through feelings of group threat associated with a cultural backlash. The analysis presented in this paper relies on a representative dataset for the adult German population (N = 4,483). The data-set was collected for the survey “People in Germany 2021” (Menschen in Deutschland 2021) that is part of a research programme conducted by the MOTRA consortium “Monitoring und Transfer-platform Radicalisation” (Monitoring und Transferplattform Radikalisierung). Reflections on the policy implications of these results are offered.