How Rural is Rural Populism? On the Spatial Understanding of Rurality for Analyses of Right-wing Populist Election Success in Germany*

In this article, the authors take up the thesis of the narrative that the support for right-wing populist election successes is located in rural areas. For the case of the German right-wing populist party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) the authors propose a complex definition of rurality, and perform a quantitative small-scale analysis of the national election results in Germany in 2017. They examine the potential connection between a high share of votes for the AfD and the rurality of a municipality. The results show that in eastern Germany, the fairly rural municipalities have comparatively high AfD vote shares, whereas in western Germany, the fairly rural and the non-rural municipalities have similar AfD vote shares. Therefore, it appears that the thesis that rural areas are the source of the support of right-wing populism applies to some, but not to all rural areas of Germany.

Automated summary

This article examines the support for the German right-wing populist party AfD in rural areas, finding that fairly rural municipalities in eastern Germany have higher AfD vote shares. In contrast, in western Germany, fairly rural and non-rural municipalities have similar AfD vote shares.