Demography of Discontent: Place Resentment in the Face of Population Change in Germany

Place Resentment has been introduced as a key attitudinal mechanism in the Geography-of-Discontent literature to explain spatial patterns of political discontent, including radical-right populist support. It captures the perception that one’s local area is ignored by political decision-makers and disrespected by inhabitants of other regions, thereby linking regional contexts to an erosion of civic and political trust. While prior research has emphasized economic deprivation, cultural marginalization, and unequal political representation as drivers of Place Resentment, demographic developments have largely remained an implicit backdrop rather than an explicit object of analysis. This paper addresses that gap by systematically examining how regional population change shapes Place Resentment in Germany. We argue that demographic decline constitutes a signal of regional neglect and symbolic devaluation, fostering perceptions of political misrepresentation and interregional disrespect. Population loss is often publicly framed as evidence of “left-behind” regions, reinforcing feelings of collective disregard and territorial polarization between growing and shrinking areas. At the same time, demographic change entails compositional effects, as selective out-migration alters the social composition of regions in ways that are associated with higher levels of Place Resentment. Conversely, population increase may reduce Place Resentment levels by signaling regional popularity and progress. Empirically, we draw on large-scale geo-referenced survey data from Germany (N = 23,180 respondents) merged with county-level indicators for 400 NUTS-3 regions. Using multilevel regression models, we examine how short-term (2007-2017) and long-term (1987-2017) population change relate to individual levels of Place Resentment, while extensively controlling for further regional characteristics and individual socioeconomic factors. Our results show that regional population decline is robustly associated with higher levels of Place Resentment across all model specifications, whereas population increase is linked to lower levels of Place Resentment, particularly in the long-term perspective. These findings hold when accounting for a broad set of contextual explanators, suggesting that demographic change exerts an independent influence on place-based grievances. Moreover, East Germans consistently express higher levels of Place Resentment even after controlling for objective regional conditions, reflecting persistent feelings of collective disregard following East-Germany’s post-reunification transformation. At the same time, East-West German residence moderates the relationship between population change and Place Resentment: as demographic decline has a stronger marginal effect for West-German residents, the East-West gap largely dissolves at severe levels of population loss, pointing to converging experiences of territorial marginalization. By explicitly integrating demographic change into the analysis of Place Resentment, this paper contributes to the Geography-of-Discontent literature and to broader debates on urban-rural polarization and the erosion of trust. It highlights demographic trajectories as a central contextual condition shaping place-based grievances and demonstrates how long-term regional developments can sustain geographic divides even in contexts of formal political equality.