Figure 1 - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Content may be subject to copyright.
Distribution for propensity to vote among russian-Germans.
Source publication
By reaching a vote share of 12.6 percent in the 2017 federal election, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ended Germany’s rare status as a Western European polity lacking a significant Populist Radical Right Party (PRRP). Some of this support comes from a group not usually expected to vote for PRRPs: immigrant-origin voters. Recent survey data shows...
Context in source publication
Similar publications
The chapter investigates the influence of changing candidate orientations on the probability to switch votes away from or toward a party between the German federal elections of 2013 and 2017. While both electoral volatility and candidate voting are considered potential consequences of an increasing partisan dealignment in Western democracies, there...
Citations
... With their attachment to parties and candidates (Dancygier and Saunders 2006;Spies et al. 2022), the positions individuals take on policy issues depends on a range of factors that reflect theoretical accounts from both the micro-and macro-levels (Stegmueller et al. 2012). These factors go beyond individual characteristics like gender, age, education or basic ideological orientation which influence the position individuals adopt on issues, such as redistribution (e.g. ...
... As several studies of political behaviour have shown (e.g. Goerres, Mayer, and Spies 2020;Spies et al. 2022), growing up in a society governed by specific values and norms influences the norms and values an individual adopts and maintains during their lifetime. Because norms diffuse to individuals (Galle et al. 2020;Voicu and Tufiş 2017), migrants who were born and socialised in a society with different norms and values will likely bring these as first-generation migrants into the receiving societies. ...
Migration has become an important and polarising issue on the political agenda, in particular since the migration movements to Europe in 2015. What attitudes migrants bring to the host societies is relevant for the stability of modern democracies in general and for political representation in particular. Several studies investigate differences in attitudes and preferences between migrants and non-migrants, on the one side, and within the heterogeneous group of migrants on the other. These (differences in) attitudes among migrants are often related to the dominant patterns of political attitudes in the countries of origin. We contribute new insights to this literature using novel survey data from Germany covering subsamples of respondents with an Italian, Russian and Turkish migrant background. We argue and show empirically that migrants' positions on contentious issues like migration, the order of society, and welfare state policy are shaped not only by the cultural background of the migrant's society of origin, but also by personal characteristics like the status of a first-or second-generation migrant and their religious orientation in terms of denomination and religiosity.
... Therefore, they were addressing voters who might be potentially interested in supporting positive relations with Russia (Goerres et al., 2020). According to Spies et al., (2022), the more people identified themselves with the Russian-German social group, the stronger the support could be for the AfD. As a result, it led to a rise in the popularity of the AfD among the Russian-language districts in Germany. ...
This article examines the mobilisation of minority groups along ethnic and national lines through social media, an area that has not been fully explored. The study analyses the case of Russian-speaking minority members who were mobilised in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 via the messaging app Telegram. By taking a bottom-up perspective, the article reconstructs the pathways of the actors in these mobilisation processes and draws upon diverse literature in digital nationalism, social movements and media studies. The study suggests that social media facilitates minority mobilisation through three primary functions: It allows for the reproduction of ethnicised and racialised boundaries and homogenisation within ethnicised echo chambers and provides a ‘window of opportunity’ for micro, meso and macro levels of actor engagement in facilitating offline mobilisation. Overall, this article provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how social media enables and enhances minority mobilisation and introduces novel empirical data on the emerging pro-war movement prevalent on Telegram and in offline networks of the Russian-speaking minority in Germany. The study contributes to the developing field of user-generated nationalism and highlights the need for more bottom-up research on emerging patterns of online ethnicised mobilisation.
... The first group has no worries (reference), the second has moderate worries and the last group has great worries about their economic situation. Lastly, recent studies have found that ethnic Germans who migrated from the former Soviet Union States ("late resettlers") are more likely to lean toward the AfD (Hansen and Olsen 2020;Spies et al. 2023). Therefore, the migration background is considered, which is given if one of the parents or the person in question is not born with German citizenship. ...
According to the academic debate, the populist radical right is particularly successful in regions that have been left behind economically or culturally. Although civic engagement in networks of civil society, a specific form of social capital, seems important, its influence remains ambiguous. In contrast, regional out-migration as a social dimension of being left behind receives limited attention despite the relevance of internal migration to political geography. This study investigates two theoretically possible models to clarify the relationships between regional out-migration, civic engagement, and their impacts on voting for the populist radical right. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and official regional statistics, logistic multilevel analyses are conducted for Germany and the election of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) in the 2017 federal election. The key finding of the cross-sectional analysis is that regional out-migration is a condition that moderates the relationship between civic participation and the election of the AfD. In general, civically involved individuals support established democratic parties, but in regions with high out-migration, they tend to vote for the populist radical right. However, there is no empirical evidence that regional out-migration contributes to the election of the AfD by reducing civic engagement and being mediated by it.
... рассмотрены в работах Д. Броммлер (Brommler 2006), Я. Панагиотидиса (Panagiotidis 2019, Panagiotidis 2021, Р. Киндлера (Kindler 2017) и М. Савоскул (Cавоскул 2006(Cавоскул , Савоскул 2010. В этой связи общие особенности электорального поведения прибывающих из России граждан, а также их влияние на трансформацию программ ведущих политических партий рассмотрены в работах А. Айсфельда (Eisfeld 2015) и Д. Спайеса (Spies 2023). Ввиду современных изменений в демографической и гендерной политике ФРГ исследователи начали уделять внимание особенностям взаимодействия государственных структур с женщинами, переселившимися в Германию из стран бывшего СССР (Klingenberg 2019). ...
The purpose of the study is to determine the nature of the actions of the German government in relation to politically active Russian citizens staying in Germany in the context of the deterioration of Russian-German relations in 2022 and to consider the dynamics of the transformation of the approach of the German authorities to interaction with certain groups of the Russian-speaking population. Based on the analysis of public speeches by German politicians, official government and party documents, it was concluded that Berlin is moving towards the institutionalization of the political activities of Russian activists and promoting the formation of horizontal ties between political movements. In this context, special attention is paid to the work of «near-party» political funds as structures formally independent of the parties, indirectly contributing to the implementation of their political programs – the key features of their cooperation with representatives of the Russian-speaking community are highlighted. The conclusion is made about the actualization of human rights issues in the framework of the interaction of the government with representatives of Russian civil society and the use of the latter as a resource for influencing political processes in Russia. The fact of the work of the German authorities with Russian supporters of the ideas of separatism and changes in the constitutional order of the Russian Federation living in Germany is also emphasized. The conclusions are of particular importance in the context of countering external interference in internal affairs and adapting Russia’s national security policy to new challenges and threats.
... At the same time, important nuances of news-sharing practices impacting this group's political perceptions are lacking in scholarship. Among the few academic works, one of the studies demonstrates that despite being immigrants themselves, those Russian Germans whose ethnic identity is strong but economic and social integration in Germany is low tend to vote for AfD ( Spies et al. 2023 ). The party, in its turn, has been lobbying for closer ties between Germany and Russia ( Deutsche Welle 2022a ). ...
This forum focuses on the overlooked areas of the moment surrounding the nature and progression of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It brings together scholars of different disciplines, backgrounds, and locations to provide analyses of the Russian aggression from varying perspectives such as history, law, military studies, politics, and media and communications, to name a few, encouraging the authors to focus on intricacies to deliver a deeper analysis of the invasion. Each author offers a unique take on the analyses of the past and present. The forum has two aims. First, the collection raises the question “What did we miss?” and it aims to highlight the lack of attention by Western scholars to Russian perceptions of Western threats and the concerns of former Soviet countries regarding Russia's aggressive foreign policy. Second, the forum intends to start a conversation on different non-Western perspectives of thinking about the Russian invasion. The forum covers the events of the period from the beginning of the invasion up to July 2022, with some post-revision comments in the introduction and conclusion mentioning the events up to February 2023.
... While almost all of them hail from German-speaking communities within the former USSR (Russlanddeutsche), many are not well integrated into the wider German society and rely on Russian (state) media for political information (Sablina, 2021, p. 362). This group reacted particularly negatively to the influx of refugees in 2015 (Sablina, 2021) and was specifically canvassed by the AfD, which draws disproportionate support from Russlanddeutsche voters (Spies et al., 2023). ...
... While we do not have yet data for the 2021 elections, in the past (cf. Wüst, 2017: 295), Russlanddeutsche were more likely to vote for conservative parties, including for the AfD (Spies et al., 2022). The centre-left parties are addressing other immigrant groups and have advocated more inclusive citizenship and diversity policies. ...
On 26 September 2021, Germans elected the 20th Bundestag. This election was special in many ways. The article analyses the electoral campaign, voting behaviour, turnout, and the formation of a new coalition government by using a gender and intersectional lens. Against the conceptual background of descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation, we outline the implications of the election for gender and intersectional politics in the new German Bundestag and the government. In descriptive and symbolic terms, we find higher numbers of women (and of minorities) in the Bundestag and its leadership as well as in government; in substantive terms, we observe the presence of ‘critical actors’ and the commitment to progressive politics in the new ‘Ampel’ coalition. Hence, we see at least a chance for change in several key policy areas and social progress in the next 4 years.
The growth of populism in the EU member states, as a large-scale internal challenge to the European integration project, has a projection on foreign policy of both national states and the European Union. The EU foreign policy, towards Russia, is the area where the deviation of populist programs and strategies from the positions of the mainstream is most clearly manifested. In this regard, it is necessary to determine the foreign policy orientations of the populist radical right parties of the EU member states regarding the EU foreign policy, towards Russia, and opportunities for their synchronization. The main conclusion of this research is that populist foreign policy orientations highlight the internal heterogeneity of the populist phenomenon. Populism in power and in opposition does not have the capacity to change the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia. The nature of populism as an ideology, the instrumental use by right populists of the ‘theme of Russia’ for ‘internal consumption’ and their mainstreaming in power are a significant barrier to the real challenge of the EU policy towards Russia.
Many reasons have shaped immigration into the EU over the past decade. Since then, attitudes towards immigration have not only gained public attention but have also shaped political debate and discourse in recent regional, national, and EU elections. The global financial crisis of 2008 increased the importance of migration in the social welfare upheaval in most Member States. Anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric became part of the narrative of some political parties during the campaign, and media coverage catalysed these social attitudes. The study used the 2013 International Social Survey Project (ISSP) dataset of six countries (namely Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, the UK, and Portugal) to see if the political party vote might have affected the attitude toward immigrants. The study extends other previous studies and presents new evidence on an under-researched topic. Results show that the left party voters are more open toward immigrants than the right party voters and that the green party voters show the most positive attitudes towards immigrants.
Mediante un análisis de contenido de textos publicados en la revista AfD Kompakt, se constata que no se ha producido un cambio en las posiciones políticas del partido AfD (Alternativa para Alemania) como consecuencia de la guerra de Ucrania. Esta guerra proporciona a la revista AfD Kompakt nuevos argumentos para descalificar al Gobierno de coalición alemán y su política exterior, sin dejar de referirse a la economía o la energía y sin dejar de mediar en la batalla por cómo salir de la crisis.
