Broad Constituency-Building as a Strategy Against the Far Right: The Case of Post-WWII Germany

What explains regional variation in support for the far right? Demand-side or reflection theories assume that the presence of a right-leaning constituency will result in electoral support for the right. Using the case of post-WWII West Germany and drawing on data from 29 elections over 50 years, I show how the resettlement of a right-leaning displaced constituency resulted in increased support for far-right parties only in majority-Catholic regions. Combining political articulation and field theory, I demonstrate how the ability and willingness of center-right parties to broadly incorporate constituencies shaped regional variation in far-right support. In majority-Catholic regions, the center-right party was firmly embedded in the local social milieu and competed over local conservative voters with other parties on the right, resulting in closure to displaced voters. In majority-Protestant regions, the party actively engaged in constituency-coalition building, incorporating voters across social differences. In those regions, the resettlement of displaced voters did not result in increased far-right support. These findings underline the relational dynamics between parties, potential constituencies, and local contexts in shaping political behavior.

Berenike Firestone is a political and comparative-historical sociologist and a research fellow in the Department of Inequality, Transformation and Conflict, where she coordinates the research area Social Change and Transformation. Previously, she worked with Daniel Ziblatt in the Transformations of Democracy department at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Broadly, her research is about far-right politics and support for pluralistic democracy, and the ways in which history and memory shape both of those things. A guiding question of her work is how democratic resilience can be strengthened and democratic citizenship fostered, especially during periods of significant social and political change. She uses a variety of methods, including experiments, statistical analysis, archival research, and qualitative methods. Her work has been published in PNAS, Political Psychology, Psychological Science, and Social Forces.

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For more information please contact jie.kang@ips.mpg.de.