The Representation Gap
We need to take the real cause of right-wing populism seriously if we are to defeat it.
Donald Trump’s irrelevance has been proclaimed many times over recent years—after his 2020 election loss, after the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and after the Republican Party’s disappointing 2022 midterm performance. And yet, ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, his sewing up of the party’s nomination for president is all but assured.
Trump’s perseverance is matched by that of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe. Between 2016 and 2021, populist parties suffered electoral defeats in Italy, Finland, Austria, France and Britain, leading The Financial Times to muse about “the strange death of European populism.” Yet today, West European populists are riding high. Giorgia Meloni from the Brothers of Italy is the prime minister of Italy. In Finland, the Finns Party emerged as the second largest party in the country’s 2023 election. In Sweden, the right-populist Sweden Democrats are currently the largest party on the right and the power behind the throne of Sweden’s center-right government.
Meanwhile, the upcoming European Union elections are likely to see what has been dubbed a “right-wing populist surge,” with parties from this family currently topping polls in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia. In Austria the national-conservative right-populist Freedom Party, whose support imploded after a 2019 scandal involving its leader discussing illegal party donations with a Russia national, is currently on track to become the largest party in the upcoming fall elections. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling second in national polls, and is likely to win several upcoming regional elections.
The implications of the AfD’s rise, in particular, are immense. The AfD is not “merely” a right-populist party, but a racist and anti-democratic one. AfD members have ties to neo-Nazi organizations. They have downplayed the importance of the Holocaust, peddled ethno-nationalism and racism, and are accused of encouraging violence. Leading members of the party were recently revealed to have participated in a gathering that discussed a “master plan” to deport asylum-seekers and other undesirables (including German citizens of foreign heritage) from Germany.
What explains the surprising perseverance of right-wing populism?
One common explanation emphasizes populism’s economic origins. This perspective focuses on how globalization, financial crises, austerity policies, and increasing trade openness have generated growing resentment and insecurity among many citizens, leaving them susceptible to the blandishments of populists.
Another explanation views populism primarily as a consequence of a racist, nativist and nationalist backlash. From this perspective, the changing demographics of Western societies and the growing empowerment of minority groups have left many voters, particularly white males, feeling, as the sociologist Arlie Hochschild put it, like “strangers in their own land.” Accordingly, they are receptive to populists who blame minorities and immigrants for their societies’ problems.
Economic, social and cultural trends surely play a part in explaining populism’s rise. But they are not enough to explain its changing fortunes and perseverance.
Economic conditions, for example, have improved in almost all Western societies since the 2008 financial crisis, yet populism’s support has grown since then. Moreover, scholars find that economic conditions tend to worsen when populists are in power. As with social and cultural factors, there is little cross-national correlation between levels of racism or xenophobia in a country and populism’s success. Both racism and xenophobia have declined in almost all Western societies over the past years, while populism has become increasingly popular.
What, then, is going on?
In order to fully understand the appeal of populism, we should take populists, at least in one regard, at their word. Populists claim to champion “the people” against the establishment, and it is indeed true that populism’s fate is shaped by the actions of mainstream parties and politicians. When people feel their needs and demands are not being responded to, the appeal of anti-establishment and radical parties grows. Take the German case.
The AfD was founded in 2013 in the midst of the Euro Crisis in opposition to the Euro and other Eurozone policies. Reflecting this, the party initially appealed primarily to middle-class conservatives. Then, the 2015 refugee crisis created incentives for the party to shift course to capture voters whose views on immigration differed from those of both the mainstream center-right Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and the mainstream center-left Social Democratic and Green parties. As the AfD increasingly focused on immigration, its voting base shifted to the east of the country, and to older, less well-off and less-educated voters.
Over the past couple of years, its support has expanded to the west as well as to other demographic groups. It is currently polling 8 percentage points higher than it received in the 2021 federal election and is the most popular party in several east German states due to hold elections in the coming year.
One crucial factor is the immense unpopularity of the current governing coalition, consisting of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Green Party, and the liberal Free Democrats. Fewer than 20% of German voters express satisfaction with the government, and the approval rating of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is dismal. That the AfD has been the prime beneficiary of dissatisfaction with the governing coalition is partly a consequence of long-standing attacks on the Greens in particular, whose climate-friendly agenda is increasingly resented by some voters.
But a more crucial reason is the continued salience of an issue that the AfD has long been associated with: immigration. Polls currently show immigration to be the most or close to the most important issue for German voters. Since the CDU under former chancellor Angela Merkel became associated with generosity towards migrants, largely as a result of her welcoming stance during the 2015-16 refugee crisis (when over one million Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis and others fled to Europe), voters wary about this and related issues were left without a party representing their views.
When parties’ positions diverge from voters’ preferences, there emerges what political scientists call a “representation gap.” This leads to an opportunity for anti-establishment parties to capture alienated and dissatisfied voters.
Despite wariness about high levels of immigration, over the past couple of years the number of migrants coming to Germany has soared. At the same time, the German economy has experienced a serious slowdown. The current government, partially because it is handicapped by Germany’s very strict rules on budget deficits, has therefore lacked the resources to adequately deal with the inflows. The result has been growing numbers of municipalities claiming they are unable to cope with the new arrivals and growing concerns about broad welfare state cutbacks.
While some AfD supporters surely are racists and xenophobes, the recent growth in the party’s support cannot be explained by an increase in such attitudes. Indeed, overall, Germans seem to score relatively low on racism and xenophobia. What seems to have occurred is that voters concerned about immigration and related issues have increasingly shifted their support to the AfD as the salience of these issues has grown. The AfD has benefited, in other words, from having long addressed issues that many voters believe the other parties ignored for too long.
Many observers recognize, of course, that populism and extremism feed off dissatisfaction with the status quo. But too few take the consequences of this observation seriously. If large numbers of voters are dissatisfied, mainstream parties have three choices:
Shift their policies and positions to better reflect the preferences of voters. In the United States, the Democrats are already doing this by accepting major immigration and border policy changes. (However, it is probably too late for them to either get a deal from the Republicans or to convince many voters that they have really shifted course.)
Do a better job at convincing voters that their positions and policies are viable and attractive. This is harder, and takes real effort both in terms of rhetoric and grassroots mobilization—but in Germany, at least, mainstream parties may be aided by scandals currently impacting the AfD, such as the staffer who was arrested yesterday on suspicion of spying for China.
Attempt to diminish the salience of issues such as immigration. Over recent months massive demonstrations against the AfD have broken out all over Germany. There is some evidence that these demonstrations have shifted attention to the AfD’s anti-democratic stances and the threat they post to Germany’s constitutional order and reputation. But it remains to be seen whether these protests and other efforts can, over time, shift voters’ perceptions of what the AfD stands for.
If mainstream parties are unable to close representation gaps, or to diminish the salience of issues on which anti-establishment parties feed, the appeal of the latter will remain. The perseverance of parties like the AfD and politicians like Donald Trump shows that mainstream parties have not successfully met this challenge.
Sheri Berman, a member of the Persuasion board of advisors, is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her most recent book is Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day.
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Why would you want to defeat it? Left wingism doesn't seem to be making too many people happier.
The "right wing populists" are correct that immigration (in both the US and Europe) is totally out of control. I don't want to "defeat" that, I want to restrict immigration according to some actual sensible sustainable policy. So as a citizen (remember those?) of the US (and a registered Democrat for 50 years), I will be voting for Trump.