Bayerlein Michael, Metten Anne
Department of Political Science, Kiel University, Westring 400, 24118 Kiel, Germany.
Kiel Institute of the World Economy, Kiel, Germany.
Polit Vierteljahresschr. 2022;63(3):405-440. doi: 10.1007/s11615-022-00398-3. Epub 2022 May 2.
Populist parties enjoy stable support in various European countries. The literature on the rise of populism argues that this support especially increases in times of crises. Surprisingly, the German right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) did not increase its support in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the party even lost 2.3 percentage points in the 2021 federal election. We address this puzzle and ask why the AfD has not been able to use the crisis to its advantage. Our main argument in answering this question is that, although the AfD pursued the classic populist strategy of fundamental opposition, the support base of the AfD is strongly divided on the preference towards measures containing the spread of COVID-19. This division is reinforced by individual affectedness by the pandemic. Introducing a novel weekly dataset on voter preferences, we show that the AfD support base is strongly divided on the issue with approval of the government measures being a significant and substantial contributor to vote switching away from the AfD. Using regional-level data and a difference-in-differences approach, we further show that western German regions hit especially hard by the pandemic display a lower AfD vote share than other regions. Our findings have important implications for the impact of exogenous shocks on electoral competition and also on the future of populist parties.
民粹主义政党在欧洲各国拥有稳定的支持率。关于民粹主义兴起的文献表明，这种支持率在危机时期尤其会上升。令人惊讶的是，德国右翼民粹主义政党德国选择党（AfD）在新冠疫情之后并没有增加其支持率。此外，该党在2021年联邦选举中甚至失去了2.3个百分点。我们解决了这个难题，并探究为何德国选择党未能利用这场危机为自己谋利。我们回答这个问题的主要论点是，尽管德国选择党奉行根本性反对的经典民粹主义策略，但其支持基础在对遏制新冠疫情传播措施的偏好上存在严重分歧。这种分歧因个人受疫情影响程度而加剧。通过引入一个关于选民偏好的全新每周数据集，我们表明德国选择党支持基础在这个问题上存在严重分歧，对政府措施的认可成为导致选民转而不支持德国选择党的一个重要且实质性因素。利用地区层面的数据和差分法，我们进一步表明，受疫情冲击尤其严重的德国西部地区的德国选择党得票率低于其他地区。我们的研究结果对外生冲击对选举竞争的影响以及民粹主义政党的未来具有重要意义。
