It began with Brexit. Then Americans elected Donald Trump, twice. Authoritarians and populists won in the Netherlands and Italy. Now Germany faces the first election of a right-wing government. And next spring, France could see a right-wing populist come to power for the first time.
All the more disturbing is how hopelessly people still speculate about the causes—and how many half-baked assumptions are circulating. Not a day goes by without a politician or expert announcing what will help against the AfD and others—even pension reform is supposedly going to help. When all these diagnoses and claims have changed the trend so little, something becomes obvious that is confirmed when you look at the empirical studies: the drama of what is approaching stands in stark contrast to how little solid research is actually circulating. High time for a systematic check of what is really provable—and what is nonsense: starting now and in the coming months in this space. As an ongoing search for insight.
How reckless some assumptions about the causes are has become clear in recent months. For years in Germany, the prevailing thesis was that the original moment lay in the opening of the borders in 2015. Only that, according to the standard Berlin political talking point, led to the rise of the AfD. This could never be solidly proven. And how little that was the case became clear when the traffic-light coalition, in logical reverse, did everything it could to tighten asylum law and reduce immigration—to counter the rise of the AfD. Now asylum law has been tightened, and far fewer migrants are coming. And? Since then, not fewer people are voting AfD, but more.
Conversely, numerous analyses suggest that inflation shocks like the one in 2022 have a much more drastic effect on voting behavior by comparison—whether in the USA in 2024, when Donald Trump benefited from discontent over rising costs; or in Germany, where the AfD began its new surge precisely at the peak of inflation.
If that is true, a policy that resists this should use every means to prevent shocks to people’s cost of living—instead of imposing ever more restrictions on immigration.
Not everything has been researched. And much remains to be better explored. But there is enough solid research and results—and growing consensus among experts about the most important factors. We have compiled which these are in a systematic analysis with leading populism researchers—with respective assessment of reliability and significance. The result is a framework that can be used to test current political programs and reforms, for example, to see how well they are suited to addressing that deeper discontent among people that, by all experience, drives them to vote for populists and authoritarians. Or whether the same projects and programs actually exacerbate the problem—as has acutely happened in Germany amid all the reform zeal.
At its core, the consensus is that people vote disproportionately for populists and authoritarians whenever they feel a sense of powerlessness and loss of control—which explains why populists are always particularly successful in those regions where major economic and social shocks continue to reverberate. Or in times when said inflation shocks lead to a feeling of powerlessness. Austerity—that is, cutting benefits—also has a reinforcing effect. Often those who have to make sacrifices are the ones who were not living extravagantly before. That too feeds the sense of powerlessness.
If what the research quite reliably shows is true, what the federal government has decided in recent months threatens not to help, but rather to make the problem worse. Cutting benefits is more likely to increase discontent, as is the sudden idea of requiring a doctor’s note from the first day of illness. Especially in times of already sharply rising (fuel) prices.
Which the polls seem to confirm: since the major reform package was demanded and ultimately implemented in Germany, support for the AfD in polls has increased. Not decreased.
For some, it seems highly puzzling why more restrictive asylum policy has not led to populists losing support. Yet this is not really puzzling if you take as your standard what has been reliably researched empirically—and can now be read in our reality check and will be updated again and again in the coming months.