When populists win: How right-wing populism affects democratic satisfaction in the U.K. and Germany

Abstract

Right-wing populists have emerged and endured in democracies globally, threatening democracy through their attacks on liberal institutions. Beyond these proximate threats, relatively little is known about how right-wing populists impact public opinion. This article addresses this gap, exploring change in democratic satisfaction among non-populist voters in two recent elections with right-wing populist success: the 2016 Brexit referendum in the U.K. and the 2017 election of the far-right, populist Alternative für Deutschland in Germany. Leveraging high quality panel data, we reveal democratic satisfaction among the mainstream electorate declines after right-wing populists win. Conversely right-wing populist voters appear to be no more or less satisfied in democracy regardless of the election outcome. In addition, we find mainstream variation in democratic satisfaction is not due to an election loss generally, but right-wing populist success specifically. These findings hence demonstrate the threat that right-wing populism poses to democratic support even among its opponents.

Introduction

The global rise of populism has forced states to confront the nature and quality of democratic representation. Although populism can exist across the ideological spectrum, populist threats to liberal democracy in Western Europe have largely come from the right (Iakhnis et al., 2018; Norris and Inglehart 2019; Spittler 2018). Key institutional features of Western Europe's democracies—such as proportional representation, minimal electoral thresholds, and cordons sanitaires—have generally prevented far right premierships. Right-wing populist (RWP) parties and movements nonetheless wield significant political influence. For instance, in 2017 the populist Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) became the first far-right party to gain representation in the Bundestag, complicating Germany's commitment to Europe and stoking fears of a return to a more destructive form of national politics. In the United Kingdom (U.K.), the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leveraged their success in European Parliament elections² to force a referendum on whether the country would remain in the European Union (EU). In the subsequent ‘Brexit’ referendum, voters narrowly voted to leave the EU, leading to the resignation of a sitting prime minister, a crash in the value of the British pound, and a doubtful future for London's role as a global economic and banking hub. Thus, as successful RWP movements spread within and outside of parliaments, so too do questions about democratic stability (Galston 2018).

Yet the nature of right-wing populism's precise threat to democratic attitudes--especially among non-populist voters—is contested. For some, RWPs' allegedly negative relationship with democracy may be overstated (Kriesi, 2020; Spittler 2018) or even positive, by increasing voter turnout (Leininger and Meijers 2021), galvanising pro-democracy attitudes among individuals with negative perceptions of RWPs (Meléndez and Kaltwasser 2021), or increasing democratic trust among RWP supporters in the wake of RWP victories (Mauk 2020). Conversely, others find that once in office, RWPs undermine the bulwarks of liberal constitutionalism, eroding the independence of the judiciary, attacking the press, and restricting minority rights (Diamond, 2021; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018) which consequently can reshape voter perceptions of democracy itself. RWPs are also widely supported by disaffected citizens (Arzheimer and Carter, 2006; Kriesi 2020), with democratic dissatisfaction often predicting support for populist parties (Werts et al. 2013). Given the importance of democratic satisfaction for maintaining democratic stability (Linz and Stepan, 1996), this possible association between RWP and democratic dissatisfaction may pose a threat to democracy's attitudinal foundations.

Most voter-level research on RWPs focuses on the relationship between right-wing populism and democratic satisfaction among supporters of RWPs. These voters may be generally dissatisfied with how democracy works, or celebrate populist success, but how do those who do not support RWPs respond to a RWP electoral win? We argue RWPs may challenge democratic stability by decreasing democratic satisfaction among the non-populist electorate. In so doing, we shift attention from the potential challenges RWPs and their supporters directly pose, to examine the effect that RWPs have on their opponents when RWPs realise electoral gains. When right-wing populism prevails, does the non-populist electorate grow less satisfied with democracy?

We address this question with high quality panel data from the U.K. and Germany, considering democratic satisfaction following two RWP electoral successes: the 2016 Brexit referendum in the U.K. and the AfD's success in the 2017 German national election. The panel nature of our data, surveying the same individuals in the months leading up to and following RWP wins, allows us to examine whether these events cause significant changes in democratic satisfaction among non-RWP voters. Across both cases, we find that RWP electoral success significantly depresses satisfaction with democracy (SWD) among the general public. Specifically controlling for previous attitudes in the lead up to the Brexit referendum in the U.K., SWD meaningfully declined among those not voting Leave. Similarly, in Germany, those who did not support a RWP party in AfD-winning constituencies expressed greater democratic dissatisfaction than those in other constituencies. Further tests reveal this effect is not simply an artefact of losing an election but instead specifically a function of a RWP win. Consequently, our findings suggest that populist success might beget further success by amplifying an important predictor of support: disaffection with democracy (e.g., Berman, 2019; Arzheimer and Berning 2019).

The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. First, we briefly define right-wing populism and second propose a theoretical relationship between this form of populism and (dis)satisfaction with democracy. In so doing, we use the existing literature to contrast our expectations with alternative explanations. We next justify our cases of the U.K. and Germany both conceptually and methodologically. After discussing our data and modelling strategy, we begin with the suggestive case of Brexit in the U.K. before our more in-depth analysis of the AfD in Germany, including a direct test of several theories contrary to our own expectations. We present the results for each analysis independently before concluding with a joint discussion of our results and implications for future research.