What drives people to vote for populists and authoritarians? Is it not enough to look at the election posters: migrants out, elites gone? Not necessarily. Populists would not be populists if they did not know how to channel and steer fears. Why do some respond to this more than others? And why are populists consistently more successful in certain regions than elsewhere?
There is now quite a bit of research on this—and findings that hold up across studies. People tend to vote for Trump, Brexit, or the AfD particularly in regions that have seen severe economic upheaval. It also seems to have been clearly demonstrated recently that inflation shocks have a significant effect—as does the attempt to restore public finances by cutting social spending or raising taxes and charges. Keyword: austerity. The findings are more mixed when it comes to the effect of higher immigration—contrary to what the rhetoric of right- and left-wing populist politicians might suggest. Here, real and stoked fears apparently overlap.
What the bulk of research findings from economists as well as sociologists and psychologists points to is a shared insight: populists almost always succeed when and where people are shaped by a sense of powerlessness and loss of control. Behavioral scientist Dan Ariely has identified unpredictable stress—“unpredictable stress”—as one of the main reasons for irrational reactions by people (during the pandemic). This may also explain why inflation or regional ruptures are among the factors that measurably amplify anger and calls for authoritarian leaders. And why populists have gained such strong support in almost all wealthier industrialized countries precisely in this period—an era in which globalization, technology shocks, deregulation, and the dominance of large corporations have led to far greater insecurity and a perceived loss of control. And in which new shocks and upheavals mean that latent fears turn into an ever-intensifying call for authoritarian leaders.
The economists Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan have written an entire book on Angrynomics.
In our Reality Check, we have compiled the state of research on each of the common (or also merely presumed) explanations—with support from leading researchers such as Robert Gold of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and by reviewing reference studies such as that by Sergej Guriev. It is difficult to quantify precisely which factor has how strong an effect—and, conversely, what is most likely to help.
Nevertheless, we have made a classification of the factors by the robustness of the findings and their significance—as a first step toward providing a more solid basis for what might help counter that public discontent which is quite clearly the deeper reason for the rise of populists. This implicit ranking can help to better understand why, for example, the drastic tightening of asylum law and the sharp decline in immigration in Germany since 2025 have not led to the AfD losing ground in the polls again—on the contrary. Anyone reading the research could have known beforehand that fear of migration is not such a clear-cut factor—and that a tougher policy accordingly changes voting behavior very little.
A great deal of research on the topic is currently underway—for example on the influence of AI. Our Reality Check here is therefore designed as a first draft and “work in progress”—with the ambition to discuss the analyses with academics and practitioners in the coming weeks and months, refine them, and, where necessary, correct and improve them.