Content uploaded by Reinhard Heinisch
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Reinhard Heinisch on Feb 09, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rrep20
Representation
Journal of Representative Democracy
ISSN: 0034-4893 (Print) 1749-4001 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrep20
Who Do Populist Radical Right Parties Stand for?
Representative Claims, Claim Acceptance and
Descriptive Representation in the Austrian FPÖ
and German AfD
Reinhard Heinisch & Annika Werner
To cite this article: Reinhard Heinisch & Annika Werner (2019): Who Do Populist Radical Right
Parties Stand for? Representative Claims, Claim Acceptance and Descriptive Representation in the
Austrian FPÖ and German AfD, Representation, DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2019.1635196
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2019.1635196
View supplementary material
Published online: 16 Jul 2019.
Submit your article to this journal
View Crossmark data
Who Do Populist Radical Right Parties Stand for?
Representative Claims, Claim Acceptance and Descriptive
Representation in the Austrian FPÖ and German AfD
Reinhard Heinisch
a
and Annika Werner
b,c
a
Department of Political Science and Sociology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria;
b
Centre for
Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Nathan, Australia;
c
School of Politics and International
Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
ABSTRACT
Populist radical right parties are known for focussing on a vague idea
of ‘the people’and rejecting social groups like immigrants. The
representative relationship between parties and voters, however, is
a positive one. Thus, this article investigates (a) who populist radical
right parties claim to represent, (b) whether these groups accept
the claim, and (c) whether the parties indeed represent these
groups descriptively. Our analysis of the manifestos, voters and
parliamentary groups of the Austrian Freedom Party and the
Alternative for Germany shows, first, that these parties have
markedly different conceptualisations of ‘the people’. Further, we
find that both parties claim to represent native families, pensioners,
members of the police and armed forces as well as inhabitants of
rural areas. While most of these groups reject this representative
claim in both countries, the AfD and, to a lesser extent, the FPÖ
indeed represent these population segments in the parliaments.
Thus, this article contributes to our understanding of populist
radical right parties’roles in representative democracies by
identifying a gap between these parties’representative claims
towards social groups and those groups’voting behaviour.
KEYWORDS
Populism; radical right;
parties; representative claims;
descriptive representation
Introduction
The representation of voters by political parties is central to the functioning of modern
democracies. Scholarship on representation by radical right populist parties (RRPP),
however, must grapple with a unique twofold puzzle: First, the literature tends to conceive
of political actors and parties of the radical right (Betz, 1994) as inherently exclusionary by
referring to specific population groups in the negative (immigrants, ethnic minorities,
Muslims, ‘welfare cheaters’). Representation, on the other hand, is a positive relationship
between those that represent and those being represented. Second, conceptualizations on
populism may vary but converge in recognising its central contention of there being an
antagonism between ‘the people’and self-serving ‘elites’. However, these two categories
remain generally vaguely defined so that the ambivalent nature of the concept of the
‘people’is said to be a core characteristic of populism.
© 2019 McDougall Trust, London
CONTACT Annika Werner
REPRESENTATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2019.1635196
With both dimensions –radical right and populist –compromised in terms of rep-
resentation, radical right populists seem poorly equipped to positively identify the
groups they claim to represent and be demonstrably able to put such claims into
action, descriptively and/or substantially. Nonetheless, there are important aspects
about populist representation that warrant a closer examination. First, radical rights popu-
lists have also talked about representing or aspiring to represent certain types of voters and
even distinct professions. They often express an affinity to groups representing law and
order such as the police and military and authors have called populists the new
workers’parties (Plasser & Ulram, 2000). Alternatively, RRPP have been thought of as
representing the parochial hinterlands, and thus traditional lifestyles, family values, and
Christianity. Second, while the concept of ‘the people’is often amorphous and ambivalent,
there may nonetheless be distinct traits populists attribute to the people they claim to
represent.
Until now, these questions have not been systematically examined. Thus, it remains
largely unclear whether populists have intrinsic core constituents such as the aforemen-
tioned security officials or whether claims about police officers serve mainly as aspirational
examples to underscore a broader ideological agenda. It also remains in the dark, whether
the notion of the ‘people’as a generalised category for whom populists purport to speak is
in fact similar across radical right parties. Thus, this article contributes to the discussion
about representation by RRPP by going beyond specific radical right policy preferences
that are mainly exclusionary and instead focussing on these parties’claims that construct
a representative relationship with certain societal groups and the people as a general
category.
As more and more radical right populist parties are playing a role in parliamentary and
governmental decision making (directly and indirectly), the issue of radical right populist
representation is an increasingly important one. The research question in this article
therefore is: Do radical right populist parties represent whom they claim to represent? To
investigate this question, we analyse the representative claims of two RRPP with similar
country contexts and ideological roots in their respective 2017 election manifestos: the
Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD). We also investi-
gate whether the social groups accept these claims by voting for the party and whether the
two parties follow through on their claims by descriptive representation among their
parliamentarians.
1
Why does descriptive representation, meaning the match between representatives and
represented regarding their demographic features, matter here? Given that populist parties
often question indirect democracy in favour or plebiscites and ballot initiatives, represen-
tative political systems come in for criticism. Representatives, often recruited among elites
or having been socialised through long party careers, are said to do a poor job representing
the people. This criticism stems from the idea that the demographic composition of the
parliament should correspond to or mirror the make-up of the population (Pitkin,
1967, pp. 60–61) and the observation that the mechanisms of political careers inhibit
this ideal. Populists not only claim to speak for ordinary people but style themselves as
men/women of the people by using language and behaviour that purposefully deviates
from established political conventions (Moffitt & Tormey, 2014). To the extent that popu-
list parties partake in representative systems, descriptive representation offers them the
possibility to implement their promises by selecting candidates that represent their
2R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
voters in terms of occupation, ethnicity, or gender. Moreover, given that populist parties
are relatively new and claim to eschew career politicians, this too would suggest a certain
preference for signalling the earnestness of their rhetoric through descriptive represen-
tation. Theoretically, descriptive representation thus bears the greatest affinity to the idea-
tional underpinning of populism.
The next section of the paper discusses the inherent tension between the idea of rep-
resentation and the central features of RRPP. After introducing the cases of the FPÖ
and the AfD as well as the data sources and analytical methods, we present the results
of the manifesto analysis with regards to the parties’conceptualisation of ‘the people’
and further representative claims towards social groups. We then test whether the ident-
ified social groups accept the representative claims and whether the two parties indeed
represent these groups in their parliamentary groups. The final section sums up our
findings and concludes.
Radical Right Populist Parties and Representation
Although the literature has stressed the difficulty of agreeing on a clear definition of popu-
lism, it is possible to identify a certain substantive convergence in the recent scholarship
(Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017; Müller, 2017). A distinct ‘centre of gravity’has
emerged based on the definition proposed by Mudde and consisting of the following com-
ponents: (a) a vision of society as divided in two groups, the ‘pure people’and the ‘corrupt
elites’; (b) the internal homogeneity of the two groups; (c) the antagonistic relationship
between the two groups; and (d) always siding with the ‘pure people’as the only legitimate
source of the ‘general will’(Mudde, 2004, p. 543). Populist claims are often ambivalent
because the key concepts of populism are not sufficiently defined: ‘the people’are depicted
as a homogeneous and amorphous group generally without differences of interest and
class (Taggart, 2000).
Although populism can be linked with very different ideological orientations, it is the
connection between radical right populism and its exclusionary orientation that matters
for the analysis of representation (March, 2017; Otjes & Louwerse, 2015; Rooduijn &
Akkerman, 2017). The radical right generally combines anti-egalitarian and illiberal pos-
itions with an authoritarian conception of the state (Betz, 1994; Heinisch, 2003; ; Rydgren,
2005). The ambivalence of its core concepts and the negative reference to population seg-
ments contained in exclusionary claims (cf. Jagers & Walgrave, 2007) prompt the question
to what extent RRPP can develop and maintain a positive relationship with distinct popu-
lation groups they purport to represent.
Singling out specific groups for representation runs counter to populism’s idea of a
‘homogenous people’. Yet, and this is the paradox, populism, either conceived as an ideol-
ogy or discourse, resonates with specific groups more strongly than with others. RRPP are
keenly aware of this and we may arguably expect them not to make broad appeals through
their programmatic positions but reach out to certain constituent groups through repre-
sentative claims. Moreover, radical right parties tend to identify social groups they oppose
instead of promote. Yet, political parties need to address certain voter groups more directly
to secure their support in elections. Despite evidence for the declining power of basic social
categories like class and religion to structure political behaviour, studies show that voters
still rely on collective identities, group sentiment, and social categorisation to make
REPRESENTATION 3
political decisions (Achen & Bartels, 2016; Huddy, 2013). Furthermore, parties still seek to
establish links to specific social groups when they address their voters (Thau, 2019).
Although the literature abounds with conceptualisation of populism, there is no persua-
sive theoretical account of how populism is connected to representation. Pitkin (1967,p.
61) argues that descriptive representation refers to the link between citizens and their
representatives based on resemblance. Substantive representation is conceived of as ‘the
nature of the activity itself, what goes on during representing, the substance or content
of acting for others, as distinct from its external and formal trappings’(Pitkin, 1967,p.
114). The former notion of representation focuses on representing through mirroring
parts of society, which is central to the populist because of the claimed symbiosis
between ‘the people’and the populist actor. In order to understand and embody the
people, the populist needs to be one of them (Caramani, 2017, p. 62). The latter definition
of representation refers to acting in the interest of citizens. Pitkin’s concept of substantive
and descriptive representation is similar to the notion of material and political inclusion
(or exclusion) Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser (2013) discuss in the context of manifes-
tations of leftist populism in Latin America. Nonetheless, RRPP in Europe may arguably
be capable of descriptive and substantive representation. Shunned by traditional elites and
cut offfrom prestigious professions and societal institutions, RRPP may be forced to
recruit members from population strata that differ in their professional background, edu-
cation, and demographic characteristics from the political classes. Thus, the elected repre-
sentatives of RRPP may resemble otherwise underrepresented voter groups, typically
outside the political and social elites. In terms of substantive representation, RRPP have
taken up several issues fuelling widespread concern (identity, immigration, Islam,
public safety, etc.) or having been neglected by mainstream parties (Euroscepticism, econ-
omic protectionism, etc.).
As theory conceives of RRPP as representing primarily a purposefully ambiguous
‘people’, by rejecting certain social distinctions, it becomes an important empirical ques-
tion as to whom these parties actually set out to represent. Here, the concept of represen-
tative claims becomes useful (Saward, 2006). In this approach, democratic representation
is neither static nor necessarily based on elections but rather a fluid process of represen-
tatives claiming to stand for or act for certain groups (the represented), and them and/or
the wider audience accepting this claim (De Wilde, 2013). Thus, representation may be
constructed by the representative but only comes into being if those claimed to be rep-
resented (and/or the wider audience affected) recognise the claim (Moffitt, 2017, p. 417;
Saward, 2006, pp. 303–306). Translated into the national election process, representation
requires claims by parties about groups for whom they speak and act, and social groups
accepting or rejecting these claims through their vote on election day, and the parties
enacting these claims through descriptive (MPs) and substantive (parliamentary and gov-
ernmental behaviour) representation.
In our analysis, we focus on all three steps of this process. First, we investigate the repre-
sentative claims that radical right populist parties make. Presumably, the core of the popu-
list claim will be people-centred but might entail also claims towards social groups singled
out by RRPP for special consideration. Then, we investigate whether the social groups
claimed to be represented indeed accept these claims; in which case, the core of the repre-
sentative process according to Saward (2006) is complete. Finally, we examine whether
radical right populist parties translate their representative claims into the composition
4R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
of their parliamentary groups. Descriptive representation offers RRPP the chance to cor-
roborate their representative claims.
Data and Methods
Prior to discussing the methods and data used in this analysis, we need to introduce our
two empirical cases: the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Alternative for Germany
(AfD). Launched in 1956 by German nationalists, war veterans, and market liberals (Hei-
nisch, 2003), the FPÖ had transformed into a radical right populist party by the 1990s.
Regarding representing specific social groups, the FPÖ has been considered a workers’
party since achieving 47% of the blue-collar vote in 1999 (Plasser & Ulram, 2000). Aus-
trian scholars have referred to this as ‘blue-collar realignment’, making the FPÖ a promi-
nent case in international research on the populist right and the working class (Bornschier
& Kriesi, 2013). Yet, party officials have eschewed this image, only referring to the party
occasionally as a ‘new type of workers’party’.
2
In the 2017 election the FPÖ again bested
the Social Democrats by a large margin when the former attracted 59% of blue-collar
voters compared to 19% for the latter (SORA, 2017). Thus, the analysis below also exam-
ines to what extent such representative claims are present in the programme.
Compared to the FPÖ, the AfD is a much younger party and thus at a different point in
its life cycle. It also has only about half of the FPÖ’s share of votes in recent elections.
Established in 2013 by a group of conservatives opposing German government policies
during the Eurozone crisis, the party initially represented a market liberal Eurosceptical
agenda (Arzheimer, 2015). After the 2017 national election, Alexander Gauland and
Alice Weidel head the AfD’s parliamentary group and are known for their provocative
xenophobic discourse. As the AfD performed particularly well in the regional and
federal elections in Eastern Germany, it is sometimes considered a party representing
East German voters feeling resentful of regional marginalisation (Betz & Habersack,
2019). Here too, we will examine if the AfD manifesto reflects claims to this effect.
We focus on these two parties not only because they represent highly successful RRPP,
but this selection serves also an important methodological purpose. Both parties are gen-
erally thought of as ideologically closely related and as operating in a similar socio-cultural
and political environment. Representing a political heritage based in radical German
nationalism, they are arguably predisposed to an ethnic exclusionary approach to rep-
resentation while showing some affinity for the security forces and the military. They
are expected to style themselves as the defenders of ordinary people against elites and
external influences. Yet, both have descended from economically liberal roots, albeit
both are at different stages of party evolution with the market liberal origin being more
recent in the AfD. Thus, it is important to see how the parties reconcile protective
claims and the economic liberal tradition and whether there is a noticeable difference in
the target groups that they attract. Given the overall similarity of the political context
and background, we can hold many extraneous factors constant and concentrate on the
parties’claims of representation. Selecting the AfD and FPÖ allows us to test and possibly
confirm patterns of representation where the two parties are similar while identifying
possible differences due to the dissimilarities in their current development. We can also
investigate whether indeed the concept of ‘people’is the same across closely related
RRPP cousins.
REPRESENTATION 5
Manifestos, Descriptive Representation, and Voters
To determine which societal groups the FPÖ and AfD claim to represent, we analyse their
respective election manifestos for the 2017 Austrian and German elections. These central
communication devices of the parties are created mainly to communicate with voters but
also serve a party-internal function. An objection often raised to the use of manifestos in
representation studies is that voters do not read them. While this assumption seems plaus-
ible at first glance, there is no systematic empirical evidence for this general assertion.
More importantly, this objection rests on the assumption that citizens have to read mani-
festos to learn about their content. Klingemann et al. (1994, p. 21) show that manifestos
provide the thematic basis for parties’election campaigns, which thus communicate the
manifestos’content. While some studies find that these campaign messages are not
received by voters (Adams, Ezrow, & Somer-Topcu, 2011), others show clear effects (Fer-
nandez-Vazquez, 2014). Furthermore, mass media reports on manifesto content (Helbling
& Tresch, 2011; Merz, 2017), thus serving as a further means of manifesto information
transmission. Therefore, manifestos are routinely employed in party research and valid
starting points for investigating representative claims.
The manifestos are analysed qualitatively by identifying the groups that each party pur-
ports to represent. Given our focus on representative claims, we follow the Representative
Claims Analysis method by De Wilde (2013) who proposed a systematic way of empiri-
cally investigating the inherently constructivist concept of representative claims
(Saward, 2006). The method is inductive and follows the identification of three claim com-
ponents: the claim maker, the object of the claim (i.e., those affected by the claim), and the
frame of the claim (i.e., the ideas about what is at stake for the object) (De Wilde, 2013,p.
286). It fundamentally assumes that if a claim maker mentions a particular claim object
and attaches content frames to it, this communication bears meaning. For instance, if a
party spends considerable text talking about women and what the party will do for
them, the assumption is that this constitutes a representative claim. This is plausible in
light of the well-established salience theory in party studies, which assumes that if a
party attributes salience to an issue such as the environment and specifies intended
actions then this bears policy meaning (e.g., Dolezal, Ennser-Jedenastik, Müller, &
Winkler, 2014).
As the claim makers in our study are pre-defined as the FPÖ and the AfD, we focus on
the object and frames of the claims. Thus, using the text analysis software Nvivo, we
searched for any social group that is specifically mentioned in the manifestos and ident-
ified all sentences in the texts that directly referred to these groups. We then sorted those
statements according to the social groups. Below, we present the individual groups and
summarise the respective frames. We substantiate our analysis by using translated exemp-
lary statements. Within this analysis, we first focus on the parties’conceptualisation of ‘the
people’, investigating the terms and characteristics used to describe them. Here, we want to
know whether the parties make a clear determination about who is and is not part of ‘the
people’and whether ‘the people’are perceived as the aggrieved. We then investigate
whether there are any sub-groups of ‘the people’the parties claim to represent.
In the second part of our analysis, which investigates claim acceptance, we draw on
survey data for the Austrian (Wagner et al., 2018) and German national elections in
2017 (Roßteutscher et al., 2017) to identify the respondents belonging to those social
6R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
groups the FPÖ and AfD claim to represent and check whether these groups indeed
support these two parties accordingly. As there is no data that directly measure whether
voters support a party because of a specific representative claim, we use the relationship
between respondents’descriptive characteristics and their party support as a proxy for
claim acceptance. The assumption is that if, e.g., women support a party significantly
more than another party and/or than men support the party, this indicates claim accep-
tance on a group level. While we also investigate the predictive power of group demo-
graphics on party support (appendix), this investigation of claim acceptance is
necessarily at the group instead of the individual level. Thus, this part of the analysis is,
due to data availability, limited to group patterns. We also must assume a close relation-
ship between group membership and group identification, e.g., that women generally
identify as women and are generally interested in the representation of women (indepen-
dent of the specific content of this representation). We know that this assumption is not
necessarily true on the individual level (Huddy, 2001).
Descriptive representation is measured in the third step of the analysis by comparing
the social groups that the parties claim to represent with the characteristics of their
Members of Parliament (MPs). For this we collected data from their parliamentary web-
pages, including standardised information (gender, date of birth, occupation) and
additional input provided by MPs voluntarily. The occupation was recorded both as pro-
vided on the webpage and categorised into eight groups: employee, self-employed
(business), self-employed professionals (including doctors, lawyers, notaries, etc.), civil
servants, farmers, students, retirees, and housewives/husbands. Additional information,
typically whether MPs are retired, civil servants, and are/were part of the police or mili-
tary,
3
were collected because this self-identification by MPs is descriptive representation
in that it emphasised a connection to these specific social groups. We compare the descrip-
tive representation of the AfD and FPÖ to that of their mainstream right competitors, the
German CDU/CSU and the Austrian ÖVP. These serve as benchmarks for determining
how well these populist parties represent the respective social groups. Furthermore,
these benchmarks allow for controlling for systemic imbalances in descriptive represen-
tation (i.e., an overrepresentation of the highly educated).
Representation by the AfD and FPÖ –The Analysis
Examining the parties’claims of representation in detail, we follow the three-step process
outlined above: identify representative claims, investigate acceptance of claims and analyse
implementation of claims through descriptive representation.
Manifesto Analysis of Representative Claims
Given that representing ‘the people’is central for populist parties, the construction of this
group is our initial focus. Here, the 2017 manifestos of FPÖ and AfD reveal important
differences: Whereas the FPÖ’s Austrians fit the construct of the aggrieved people that
need saving, the AfD’s understanding of the Germans is one of a strong national people
whose sovereignty and preservation is to be central to governmental activity. Sub-
sequently, we turn to the specific social groups the two parties single out and find
common groups as well as specific groups claimed only by the FPÖ.
REPRESENTATION 7
Representing ‘the People’
For the AfD, ‘the people’–described as the Staatsvolk (e.g., pp. 8, 37, 40), invoking a dated
legalistic term implying only citizens are people of concern and closely connected to the
state’s essence –are not distressed but rather a potent force to be accorded the greatest
possible sovereignty democracy permits (p. 7). Thus, they should have the opportunity
to hold politicians accountable, make decisions through direct democratic means (p. 8),
and directly elect the German President (p. 10). This claim leads to emphasising policies
in support of German families with a view to having more German children.
The self-proclaimed aim of the AfD is ‘self-preservation not self-destruction of our state
and our people’(p. 28), alluding to historical conceptualisations of how the German
nation is in danger of losing itself. This idea is reiterated throughout as the ‘preservation
of its own national people is the paramount task of politics and every government’and
should be constitutionally guaranteed (p. 37). Thus, the manifesto states that the
country ‘must be left to the descendants of Germans’(p. 28) and [not] ‘just anybody
who will waste or plunder this heritage, but to our descendants whom we have served
as living examples, bequeathing them our values’. (p. 37)
When defining this heritage to be passed on to future German generations, the AfD
invokes ‘our’German identity, described as based on two central features: First and fore-
most, the German language is ‘centre of our identity’and ‘heart of our cultural nation’
(p. 37). Therefore, the AfD focuses on maintaining German as the essential language in
all aspects of life in Germany and making it equal to English and French within the EU
(p. 37). The second aspect of German identity in the AfD manifesto concerns German
as ‘lead culture’(Leitkultur) and defined as consisting of
the values of Christianity, of the Ancient World, of humanism, and of enlightenment. Next to
the German language, they also encompass our customs and traditions, intellectual and cul-
tural history. (p. 47)
Thus, couched in highly legalistic and old-fashioned terminology, the AfD’s central claims
concern the preservation of a national people defined by their language, culture, and
values, especially Christianity. Thus, Islam is claimed as ‘not belonging to Germany’
(p. 34).
4
As such, the AfD very clearly sees itself as representing citizens without migration
background.
The people in the manifesto of the Austrian Freedom Party are markedly different
from those of the AfD. The word ‘German’appears only three times and the word for
people (Volk) only a few times and not connected to core ideas. The main references
to the Austrian people are found in claims that political decisions should respect
people’s wishes and, relatedly, that direct democracy needs be expanded (pp. 6, 25).
The FPÖ also calls for a so-called Heimatrecht for Austrians –a right to a cultural
home place –to be part of a new Austrian Charta of Human Rights (p. 4). Instead,
the FPÖ uses the term ‘the Austrians’in both its female and male form as a formula
throughout the manifesto while making a fundamental distinction between Austrians
and non-Austrians. Apart from claiming that unspecified ‘occidental’values are central
to the Austrian ‘lead culture’(Leitkultur) and that Austrians are hard-working (p. 15),
it remains unclear who these Austrians actually are. The FPÖ’s‘Austrian virtues’are
not specific to any actual group of people so that anybody identifying as Austrian
might feel included in this notion of the people.
8R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
The Austrian people have an enormous reservoir of talents, skills, and abilities […] and have
afine sense of values like justice and respect as well as a strong awareness for what is right and
what is wrong for our country. (p. 6)
At the same time, the FPÖ sees Austrians as endangered in two ways. First, globalisation is
regarded a threat, leading to ‘the annihilation of identities and the alienation of peoples
from their roots’(p. 5). As a result, the preservation of Austrian culture and lifestyle is
seen as paramount. Yet, the nature of this culture remains again unspecified. The FPÖ
too, is concerned about the low birth rate among ‘native families’(p. 9) but only mentions
this issue once and does not connect it with claims about the survival of the Austrian
people. This is thus much less of a concern than it is for the AfD.
The second threat to the Austrians is a sense of being generally treated unfairly, which is
the main theme of the manifesto. Every page of the manifesto has two parts: Half the page
is devoted to briefly stating the situation of a specific group or regarding a specific issue.
The second half page sums up in bullet points how Austrians are treated unfairly and how
the FPÖ would bring about greater fairness. Thus, we may conclude the FPÖ’s manifesto
fits the perspective of the people as the aggrieved.
Representative Claims Towards Social Groups
The second question raised at the outset was whether radical right populist parties claim
any specific social groups other than their version of ‘the people’. In fact, both AfD and
FPÖ singled out four larger social groups for representation: pensioners, German/Austrian
families (with children), rural inhabitants and farmers, as well as police and soldiers.
Additionally, the FPÖ claims to represent women, welfare recipients, and people in voca-
tional training. We discuss these objects and associated frames of representative claims in
turn.
In the AfD manifesto, pensioners are frequently mentioned as a social group in need of
protection and considered a main victim of the EU bailout policies (p. 14). While the
manifesto is generally very broad and technical, pensioners are given more than a
whole page (pp. 57–58) and several budgetary measures in their support are mentioned.
Preserving the German people implies for the AfD that German families have as many
children as possible. A whole section in the manifesto is devoted to the family (pp. 37–41)
and the need to boost the number of native children, especially for low-income families.
Here, the AfD stresses a traditional understanding of marriage and family, including the
rejection of ‘gender ideology’and abortions (p. 37), the encouragement of stay-at-home
parents and the condemnation of cultural changes leading to single parents.
A third group the AfD claims to represent are rural people and farmers, mentioned
several times throughout the manifesto. Content frames include the protection and exten-
sion of rural infrastructure (p. 70), especially better medical facilities (p. 60), and the easing
of ‘outmigration pressure to urban centres’(p. 70). Other demands favour a transfer of
resources from the national and EU bureaucracy connected to the agro-business
(pp. 73–74) as well as building and extending regional market structures (p. 73).
Finally, the AfD also claims to represent members of the police and the armed forces.
Here, policies include higher pay, better healthcare and welfare benefits for police men and
women (p. 24). While the AfD also claims to support the German army and wants it to be
better prepared for service, the policies to achieve this remain rather vague (p. 19). One
REPRESENTATION 9
exception is the call for a return to national conscription by suggesting that ‘general com-
pulsory military service furnishes the army with roots in society’(p. 19).
As mentioned above, AfD has been considered a new party to represent East Germans
after Die Linke broadened its appeal to West Germany. However, the AfD manifesto does
not mention East Germany, the ‘new Länder’or any of the specific regions in East
Germany. Thus, in their national manifesto, the AfD makes no representative claims
towards East Germans.
As mentioned above, the FPÖ manifesto is highly structured with one social group or
policy field covered on each of its 25 content pages. This means that one page of dense text
devoted to a specific social group is awarded the same space as policy areas like the Euro-
pean Union, the environment or agriculture. One whole page is dedicated to pensioners
(p. 26), claiming to ‘advocate for a strong integration of older people into all areas of
society’. The main text describes pensioners’difficult financial situation due to high con-
sumer prices, the Euro and the pension gap between minimum and ‘luxury’pensions. To
achieve greater fairness, the FPÖ proposes fixed minimum pension and to scrap ‘luxury’
pensions. Moreover, the party rejects arising the retirement age while promising better
medical and elderly care.
The FPÖ’s claims towards Austrian families focus on two aspects (p. 16). First, it wants
family-friendly tax schemes to raise the birth-rate, child-based welfare payments, day care,
parental leave and conditions to better connect family and work. Then there is, albeit dis-
cussed briefly, the idea of the traditional family, consisting of a father, a mother, and child
(ren) as ‘the natural gamete and bracket for a functioning society’(p. 16).
Rural people and farmers have each their dedicated pages in the FPÖ manifesto (pp. 34,
36). To sustain rural populations, FPÖ content frames include infrastructure, especially in
healthcare, and special support for rural employment. The party also wants more police in
rural areas and rejects free trade agreements to protect farmers, demanding instead a
national action plan aimed at agricultural self-sufficiency (p. 36).
Like the AfD, the FPÖ clearly claims to stand for strong police (p. 12) and armed forces
(p. 14). It demands a stronger public commitment designed to boost people’s support for
the police and calls for better equipment, better pay, and better protection against media
defamation. Expressing its ‘full support for conscription and the Austrian army’, the FPÖ
calls for a higher budget including better pay for soldiers and conscripts. Furthermore, sol-
diers of the militia, who activated to engage in military training after conscription, are to
receive greater support.
Compared to the AfD, the FPÖ claims to represent additional social groups: Women
have an entire manifesto page dedicated to them (p. 24) and are said to be in need of pro-
tection from discrimination in general. Here, the FPÖ calls for stricter punishment for vio-
lence against women and children. Emphasis is put on closing the gender pay gap and
showing greater appreciation for part-time work to increase the social status of women.
The FPÖ calls for the compatibility of family and work, targeting especially young women.
Smaller groups that are nevertheless explicitly claimed to be represented by the FPÖ are
people in vocational training (pp. 18–20) and welfare recipients. While several measures
are meant to improve the situation for apprentices and incentive apprenticeships (p.18),
welfare recipients receive their own manifesto page (p. 30). Although, the FPÖ generally
expresses strong support for the welfare state, these claims are restricted to Austrians and
thus connected to the FPÖ’s anti-immigration agenda.
10 R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
Finally, we examine whether, as has been argued, the FPÖ represents workers. Yet, the
manifesto mentions the word ‘worker’only once, in conjunction with information
freedom for students and workers. It discusses employees as ‘achievers’for whom taxes
and dues, including those on wealth, need to be reduced. Thus, the FPÖ manifesto does
not contain direct or indirect representative claims concerning workers.
In sum, both the AfD and the FPÖ make clear representative claims towards distinct
social groups among the ‘homogenous good people’. However, for such claims to have
any effect, they need to be accepted by those claimed to be represented. Therefore, we sub-
sequently analyse whether the identified social groups did indeed vote for these two parties
and, thus, we take their vote choice as a form of accepting the representative claim.
Do the Voters Accept the Representative Claims?
To investigate whether the targeted social groups indeed accept the parties’claims, we
drew on the 2017 aggregated pre- and post-election survey by the German Longitudinal
Election Study (Roßteutscher et al., 2017) and the 2017 Austrian voter analysis, which
uses a panel dataset with six pre- and post-election surveys (Wagner et al., 2018).
Table 1 shows the shares of the social groups that the AfD and the FPÖ claim to rep-
resent and that reported to have voted for these parties. As there are not enough police and
soldiers or respondents currently in vocational training in the dataset, we cannot assess
their voting behaviour. To judge whether the remaining social groups indeed tend to
vote for the AfD and the FPÖ we compare their shares with the radical right voter
share in their opposite group (e.g., with urban respondents for rural inhabitants) and,
further, with the corresponding shares for the mainstream right and left party competitors.
In a more conservative test, we also ran a logistic regression for the likelihood of voting for
the AfD and FPÖ using the social groups as explanatory factors. The analyses can be found
in Tables A2 and A4 in the appendix and confirm our results here. Furthermore, we inves-
tigated the impact of respondents being part of multiple social groups (see appendix,
Tables A1 and A3, the results in Tables A2 and A4 and discussed below).
Our first finding is that in the 2017 German general election, 5.5% of retired people
voted for the AfD as opposed to 9.7% of non-retired people. At that time, 19.4% of AfD
voters were retired while 80.6% were not. Both results indicate that pensioners did not
accept the AfD’s representative claim towards them. Yet, the share of rural inhabitants
and low-income families voting for the AfD is indeed higher than that in their respective
comparison group. Moreover, the share of these groups among AfD supporters is higher
than the respective shares for the CDU/CSU and SPD. However, the difference within
low-income families is very small compared to that in other families, suggesting no
effect. The logistic regression in Table A2 (appendix) confirms these results, but none
of the interaction effects are significant. In sum, while the AfD claims to represent
retired, rural inhabitants, and low-income families, the survey suggests that their
voters are not retired, have no specific family income profile but are indeed rural
inhabitants.
For the FPÖ, rural inhabitants also seem to have accepted the representative claim as
they report a higher tendency of voting for the party than do people in urban areas. More-
over, their share among FPÖ supporters is comparable to the rurally well-anchored ÖVP
and significantly higher than that of the more urban SPÖ. The other three social groups
REPRESENTATION 11
have lower shares of FPÖ support than do their respective counterparts (men, non-retired
and persons not receiving welfare) and the general respondent population. Furthermore,
especially the percentage of pensioners among FPÖ voters is markedly lower than that of
other parties. These results are mostly confirmed by the logistic regression analysis (Table
A3, appendix), revealing also that especially female and rural welfare recipients show sig-
nificantly less support for the FPÖ. Thus, neither of these social groups appears to have
accepted the representative claim while pensioners arguably rejected it. In conclusion,
while the FPÖ claims representing the retired, women, rural inhabitants, and welfare reci-
pients, their voter profile consists of the none-retired, males, rural voters, and people not
on welfare.
Summing up, while we know that both parties attract voters that share their core policy
values (Rooduijn, 2018), neither party seems to have convinced the respective social
groups of these claims. Only rural inhabitants appear to have accepted the representation
claims by both parties whereas in particular the largest groups, retired and women reject
them. Finally, the question remains whether the two parties follow up on their claims with
regards to the descriptive representation in their parliamentary groups. In the next section,
we turn to this question.
Table 1. Share of claimed groups of represented supporting German and Austrian parties.
Respondent share
Germany Austria
Total AfD CDU/CSU SPD Total FPÖ ÖVP SPÖ
8.5 33.3 20.8 26.5 16.4 23.0
Retired 29.7 14.5
% within retired 5.5 39.0 25.6 24.5 19.8 29.1
% within party 19.4 35.0 36.8 15.6 20.2 21.2
Non-retired 70.3 85.5
% within non-retired 9.7 30.9 18.8 26.9 15.8 21.8
% within party 80.6 65.1 63.3 84.4 79.8 78.8
Rural inhabitant* 30.4 55.9
% within rural 10.9 38.1 20.4 27.9 17.9 20.9
% within party 38.1 33.9 29.1 58.6 60.7 50.6
Urban inhabitant 69.6 44.1
% within urban 7.5 31.3 21.0 24.7 14.5 25.6
% within party 61.9 66.1 70.9 41.4 39.3 49.4
Women 50.9
% within women 25.0 15.5 22.2
% within party 46.4 46.2 47.5
Men 49.1
% within men 28.0 17.5 23.8
% within party 53.7 53.8 52.5
Welfare recipient 24.6
% within welfare 17.0 16.2 25.8
% within party 26.7 26.2 29.5
Non-welfare 75.4
% within non-welfare 26.6 16.5 22.2
% within party 73.3 73.8 70.5
Low-income families** 16.2
% within low-in fam 10.8 26.1 24.5
% within party 18.4 11.7 17.2
Other families 83.8
% within other fam 8.3 33.9 20.3
% within party 81.6 88.3 82.8
Note: Only groups claimed to be represented by the individual parties, AfD and FPÖ, included. *Rural areas are defined as
less than 20,000 inhabitants in Germany and less than 10,000 inhabitants in Austria, following the respective government
definitions. **Low income families are those respondents with at least one child in the family and a family income below
the country’s threshold for being low-income.
12 R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
Do the Parliamentary Groups Descriptively Represent the Claimed Groups?
Table 2 summarises the main characteristics of MPs of the AfD and FPÖ as well as their
main right competitors, the CDU/CSU and ÖVP respectively. Specifically, we ask, does the
AfD Bundestag group represent families, pensioners, rural inhabitants and the police and
military? At first glance, Table 2 indicates that it indeed represents families given that two
thirds of MPs report having children, with half of those stating even three to six children.
However, the share of CDU/CSU MPs with children is even higher and their average
family size is comparable suggesting no evidence of the AfD group disproportionally
representing families with children. Furthermore, 17% of the group had careers in the
police or military service (beyond mandatory services), which is slightly higher than the
respective shares in the CDU/CSU group, indicating that this social group is indeed
descriptively represented among AfD MPs. An even stronger case for AfD’s representative
claims can be made regarding pensioners because nearly one in five MPs was retired before
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for parliamentary groups (as of August 2018).
AfD CDU/CSU FPÖ ÖVP
N92 246 51 62
Female 11% 20% 24% 34%
Age
Mean (St dev) 52 (12) 51 (10) 50 (9) 48 (11)
25 percentile 45 44 42 41
90 percentile 71 64 62 62
Education
PhD 21% 20% 18% 10%
University 62% 64% 39% 44%
Vocation 13% 14% 27% 15%
Abitur/Matura 4% 1% 6% 15%
Vocational high school ––8% 18%
High school –0.4% 2% –
Profession group*
None 1% 17% 20% 16%
Civil servant 23% 17% 18% 26%
Employee 27% 36% 4% 15%
Self-employed professional 24% 17% 25% 6%
Self-employed business 13% 9% 20% 18%
Farmer –4% 4% 16%
Retiree 11% –4% –
Student –0.4% 4% 3%
House partner ––2% –
Specific groups**
Retired 19% 4% 4% 3%
Public servant 34% 22% 22% 44%
Police 4% 1% 8% 3%
Military 13% 10% 16% 5%
Professional politician 1% 96% 35% 73%
Rural inhabitant*** 23% 29% 37% 56%
Children
None 33% 22% 39% 11%
1–2 40% 41% 39% 42%
>3 27% 29% 22% 29%
Unknown –8% –18%
Notes: *Before political career. ‘None’means person had no previous career or has been full time elected office for at least
20 years. **Person belonged to this group at any point in time. ***Rural defined as living in area with less than 20,000
(Germany) or 10,000 (Austria) inhabitants. Missing data for 8 AfD, 12 CDU/CSU and 3 FPÖ, 1 ÖVP MPs. Professional poli-
ticians are those in national or state parliament or elected official for at least one complete election cycle before 2018.
Those with no prior career are coded as civil servants. Military career is any military service beyond the mandatory basic
service, either in professional capacity or voluntary (Austrian militia or German reserve).
REPRESENTATION 13
joining the parliament. In fact, the AfD group is relatively old, with average age of 52 and
10% being older than 70 years. The only social group slightly less well represented than
expected are rural inhabitants and farmers. There are no AfD MPs with an agricultural
background and fewer than 25% come from rural areas. Finally, two other features of
the AfD group stand out: Its small percentage of women (10%) and its high level of edu-
cational attainment (besting even the CDU/CSU group). Thus, while the AfD does provide
descriptive representation for most of the social groups it claims to represent, in terms of
gender and education, its group is highly unrepresentative of the general population.
Also the FPÖ claimed to represent families, pensioners, rural people, the police and
military as well as women.
5
However, Table 2 shows women, pensioners, and the rural
population not to be well represented by FPÖ MPs relative to the comparison group.
While the share of women among FPÖ MPs is higher than that in the AfD group, one
would expect more than 24% female members in a group making such representative
claims. Even more surprisingly, hardly any pensioners are among its MPs. Concerning
rural inhabitants, there is only one farmer among FPÖ MPs compared with ten in the
ÖVP group. Likewise, the percentage of FPÖ MPs living in rural areas is much lower
than that among the ÖVP group. While the share of families in the FPÖ group is slightly
lower than that in the ÖVP group, more than half of the FPÖ MPs have children, giving
family concerns a clear voice. Finally, 22% of the group was either in police or military
service, leading to a clear descriptive representation of these professional groups. This
ratio is high also in comparison to that of the ÖVP. Thus, the FPÖ represents two of
the five social groups claimed descriptively but fails to do so with two large social
groups it wants to connect: women and older people.
Conclusion
Investigating representative claims made by the AfD and the FPÖ, we find that radical
right populist parties differ in their understanding of ‘the people’, not only as to who
belongs to the people and who is an outsider, but also whether ‘the people’are potent
or vulnerable. Although ‘the people’are central to both parties and are typically presented
as homogeneous, the AfD draws on a dated understanding of a strong German ‘Staatsvolk’
whereas the FPÖ views the people more as a victim under duress and treated unfairly.
From these understandings follow different policy consequences as the AfD seeks to pre-
serve strength while the FPÖ wants to defend Austrians from internal and external threats.
These differences could be based on different stages of the party life cycle of FPÖ and AfD
at the time of analysis. We would expect the younger AfD (without coalition potential at
the time) to be more radical compared to the more seasoned and thus more measured
FPÖ. There are also somewhat different historical and cultural conceptions shaping the
German and Austrian far right, with Germans having a clearer sense of their common
culture while Austrians due to their ambivalent relationship with German history avoid
all too clear expressions and historical allusions. Clearly, the different constructs of ‘the
people’have further implications for the representation by populist parties in that while
there is a general focus on ‘the people’, they also become disaggregated into distinct cat-
egories that matter to populist actors. Constituting the people as potent or vulnerable leads
the parties to focus their representational efforts on different societal groups, e.g., German
families vs Austrian welfare recipients.
14 R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
Furthermore, our findings suggest an inherent tension between the idea of democratic
representation and core features of RRPP. Both parties appear compromised when develop-
ing a positive relationship with social groups because large population segments claimed by
FPÖ or AfD, or both, especially women and pensioners, do not appear to reciprocate these
claims accordingly. This lends empirical support to theoretical contentions that the ambiva-
lence inherent in the political logic of populist radical right parties runs counter to the stand-
ing or acting for someone. Yet, this does not mean they are completely devoid of descriptive
representation. In particular the AfD parliamentary group fits very well with their represen-
tative claims, even though it is not very representative of the general German population and
remains a party of professors (Grimm, 2015). The FPÖ, by contrast, fails to descriptively
represent the two largest social groups it claims, women and pensioners.
Finally, whereas only some of the social groups claimed by FPÖ and AfD for represen-
tation also vote for these parties, other groups that do so are in fact not claimed by the
parties. Arguments that the FPÖ represents workers and the AfD East Germans, given
that these groups disproportionally support these parties respectively, are not supported
by the manifestos. The FPÖ makes no claims towards workers and the AfD does not
even mention East Germans. Thus, it poses an interesting conundrum worthy of
further investigation that social groups systematically seek representations from political
actors that make no specific claim towards these groups.
Notes
1. While we would ideally also investigate the substantive representation provided by these two
parties, the time frame since the elections is too short for such an analysis.
2. FPÖ-MEP Andreas Mölzer claimed the FPÖ was becoming a workers’party of a new type.
https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20090303_OTS0065/moelzer-fpoe-entwickelt-
sich-zur-arbeiterpartei-neuen-typs.
3. These categories were formed inductively by grouping the available information.
4. Other religions are not mentioned in the manifesto.
5. The FPÖ also claimed to represent welfare recipients. The information regarding the MPs
welfare history could not be retrieved.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Reinhard Heinisch is Professor of Comparative Austrian politics at the University of Salzburg,
Austria. He is also a European Studies Center affiliate of the University of Pittsburgh, USA. His
research is centered on comparative populism, political parties, the radical right, and democracy
and has appeared in journals such as Party Politics, West European Politics, Democratization, Rep-
resentation, Comparative European Politics, as well as Politics and Religion among many others.
Since 2019 he has led a research team in the EU funded Horizon 2020 project on ‘Populism and
Civic Engagement’.
Annika Werner is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University, Canberra. Her research
focuses on the development and challenges of democracy, with a special focus on the role of pol-
itical parties, and has been published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Electoral Studies,
Democratization and the International Political Science Review, among others. She is Steering
REPRESENTATION 15
Group member of the Manifesto Project (MARPOR/CMP) and co-editor of the Australian Journal
of Political Science. E-mail: annika.werner@anu.edu.au
ORCID
Reinhard Heinisch http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0019-2423
Annika Werner http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7341-0551
References
Achen, C. and L. Bartels. 2016.Democracy for realists. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Adams, J., Ezrow, L., & Somer-Topcu, Z. (2011). Is anybody listening? Evidence that voters do not
respond to european parties’policy statements during elections. American Journal of Political
Science,55, 370–382.
Arzheimer, K. (2015). The AfD: Finally a successful right-wing populist Eurosceptic party for
Germany? West European Politics,38(3), 535–556.
Betz, H.-G. (1994). Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe. Basingstoke: MacMillan.
Betz, H.-G. and F. Habersack. (2019). Regional nativism in Germany: The Case of the AfD. In R.
Heinisch, E. Massetti and O. Mazzoleni (Eds.), The People and the Nation: Populism and Ethno-
Territorial Politics in Europe, London: Routledge.
Bornschier, S. and H. Kriesi. 2013. Class politics and the radical right. In J. Rydgren (Ed.), The popu-
list right, the working class, and the changing face of class politics (pp. 31–52). New York:
Routledge.
Caramani, D. (2017). Will vs. reason: The populist and technocratic forms of political represen-
tation and their critique to party government. American Political Science Review,111(1), 54–67.
De Wilde, P. (2013). Representative claims analysis: Theory meets method. Journal of European
Public Policy,20(2), 278–294.
Dolezal, M., Ennser-Jedenastik, L., Müller, W. C., & Winkler, A. K. (2014). How parties compete for
votes: A test of saliency theory. European Journal of Political Research,53(1), 57–76.
Fernandez-Vazquez, P. (2014). And yet it moves: The effect of election platforms on party policy
images. Comparative Political Studies,47(14), 1919–1944.
Grimm, R. (2015). The rise of the German Eurosceptic party Alternative für Deutschland, between
ordoliberal critique and popular anxiety. International Political Science Review,36(3), 264–278.
Heinisch, R. (2003). Success in opposition–failure in government: Explaining the performance of
right-wing populist parties in public office. West European Politics,26(3), 91–130.
Helbling, M., & Tresch, A. (2011). Measuring party positions and issue salience from media cover-
age: Discussing and cross-validating new indicators. Electoral Studies,30(1), 174–183.
Huddy, L. (2001). From social to political identity: A critical examination of social identity theory.
Political Psychology,22(1), 127–156.
Huddy, L. 2013. From group identity to political cohesion and commitment. In L. Huddy, D. O.
Sears and J. Levy (Ed.), Oxford handbook of political psychology (pp. 737–773). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Jagers, J., & Walgrave, S. (2007). Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of
political parties’discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research,46(3), 319–345.
Klingemann, H. D., R. I. Hofferbert and I. Budge. 1994.Parties, policies, and democracy. Boulder:
Westview Press.
March, L. (2017). Left and right populism compared: The British case. The British Journal of Politics
and International Relations,19(2), 282–303.
Merz, N. (2017). Gaining voice in the mass media: The effect of parties’strategies on party–issue
linkages in election news coverage. Acta Politica,52(4), 436–460.
Moffitt, B. (2017). Transnational populism? Representative claims, media and the difficulty of con-
structing a transnational “people”.Javnost - The Public,24(4), 409–425.
16 R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
Moffitt, B., & Tormey, S. (2014). Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style.
Political Studies,62(2), 381–397.
Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition,39(4), 541–563.
Mudde, C., & Rovira Kaltwasser, C. (2013). Exclusionary vs. inclusionary populism: Comparing
contemporary Europe and Latin America. Government and Opposition,48(2), 147–174.
Mudde, C. and C. Rovira Kaltwasser. 2017.Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Müller, J. W. 2017.What is populism?. London: Penguin UK.
Otjes, S. and T. Louwerse. 2015. Populists in parliament: Comparing left-wing and right-wing
populism in the Netherlands. Political Studies 63 (1): 60–79.
Pitkin, H. F. 1967.The concept of representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Plasser, F., & Ulram, P. (2000). Rechtspopulistische Resonanzen: Die Wählerschaft der FPÖ. In F.
Plasser, P. A. Ulram, & F. Sommer (Eds.), Das Österreichische Wahlverhalten, 225–241. Vienna:
Signum.
Rooduijn, M. (2018). What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing the electorates of
15 populist parties. European Political Science Review,10(3), 351–368.
Rooduijn, M., & Akkerman, T. (2017). Flank attacks: Populism and left-right radicalism in Western
Europe. Party Politics,23(3), 193–204.
Roßteutscher, S., R. Schmitt-Beck, H. Schoen, B. Weßels, C. Wolf, I. Bieber, H. Giebler et al. 2017.
Vor- und Nachwahl-Querschnitt (Kumulation) (GLES 2017). GESIS Datenarchiv, Köln: ZA6802
Datenfile Version 1.1.0.
Rydgren, J. 2005. Is extreme right‐wing populism contagious? Explaining the emergence of a new
party family. European Journal of Political Research 44(3): 413–437.
Saward, M. (2006). The representative claim. Contemporary Political Theory,5(3), 297–318.
SORA. (2017). Wahlanalyse Nationalratswahl 2017 im Auftrag des ORF. Report, Institut für
Strategieanalyse. Retrieved from https://strategieanalysen.at/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ISA-
SORA-Wahlanalyse-NRW2017-2.pdf
Taggart, P. (2000). Populism. Concepts in the social sciences. Philadelphia: Open.
Thau, M. 2019. How political parties use group-based appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015.
Political Studies 67(1): 63–82.
Wagner, M., J. Aichholzer, J.-M. Eberl, T. M. Meyer, N. Berk, N. Büttner and W. C. Müller. 2018.
Autnes online panel study 2017 (SUF edition). AUSSDA Dataverse, V3.
Appendix
The following tables show the overlap between the social groups as well as the results of logistic
regressions explaining voting for AfD and FPÖ, including interactions between these groups.
These are more conservative tests for the acceptance of representation by the claimed groups,
which confirm the main analysis.
Table A1. Overlap of German social groups in the survey dataset.
Note: White cells: share of row category in column category, share of row category in whole sample in parenthesis; grey
cells: share of column category in row category, share of column category in whole sample in parenthesis; e.g., *32.8% of
rural inhabitants are retired while 29.7% of the whole sample are retired; **33.5% of retired are rural inhabitants while
30.4% of whole sample are rural inhabitants. Deviations of total shares due to missing data.
REPRESENTATION 17
Table A2. Odds of voting for AfD in 2017.
Odds
Ratio
Std.
Err. P>z
[95% Conf.
Interval]
Odds
Ratio
Std.
Err. P>z
[95% Conf.
Interval]
Retired 0.50 0.10 0.001 0.34 0.75 0.52 0.19 0.068 0.26 1.05
Rural 1.46 0.23 0.018 1.07 2.00 1.84 0.43 0.009 1.16 2.91
Low income family 1.50 0.33 0.059 0.98 2.30 1.23 0.59 0.660 0.48 3.15
Female 0.55 0.09 0.000 0.40 0.76 0.42 0.11 0.001 0.25 0.70
Retired*Rural 0.57 0.34 0.342 0.18 1.83
Retired*Lowfam 1.02 0.73 0.979 0.25 4.13
Rural*Lowfam 1.06 0.73 0.932 0.27 4.10
Retired*Rural*Lowfam 0.79 0.95 0.845 0.07 8.44
Retired*Female 2.28 1.21 0.121 0.80 6.45
Rural*Female 1.12 0.47 0.782 0.50 2.54
Retired*Rural*Female 0.33 0.31 0.235 0.05 2.05
Lowfam*Female 2.54 1.69 0.163 0.69 9.38
Retired*Lowfam*Female 0.42 0.47 0.434 0.05 3.74
Rural*Lowfam*Female 0.45 0.44 0.418 0.07 3.06
Retired*Rural*Lowfam*Female 1.25 2.43 0.907 0.03 56.4
Cons 0.22 0.05 0.000 0.14 0.36 0.12 0.02 0.000 0.09 0.16
N 2896 2896
Pseudo R2 0.03 0.04
AIC 1624 1629
Table A3. Overlap of Austrian social groups in the survey dataset.
Note: White cells: share of row category in column category, share of row category in whole sample in parenthesis; grey
cells: share of column category in row category, share of column category in whole sample in parenthesis; e.g., *57% of
welfare recipients are women while 50.9% of the whole sample are women; **26.7% of women are welfare recipients
while 24.7% of whole sample are welfare recipients. Deviations of total shares due to missing data.
Table A4. Odds of voting for FPÖ in 2017.
Odds Ratio Std. Err. P>z
[95% Conf.
Interval] Odds Ratio Std. Err. P>z
[95% Conf.
Interval]
Female 0.85 0.07 0.04 0.72 1.00 0.86 0.13 0.310 0.64 1.15
Retired 0.92 0.11 0.49 0.74 1.16 0.97 0.24 0.905 0.60 1.58
Welfare 1.33 0.18 0.04 1.01 1.74 2.77 0.81 0.001 1.56 4.92
Rural 1.16 0.10 0.08 0.98 1.36 1.17 0.16 0.240 0.90 1.52
Female*Retired 0.92 0.31 0.799 0.47 1.79
Female*Welfare 0.31 0.13 0.007 0.14 0.72
Female*Rural 1.04 0.20 0.855 0.70 1.53
Retired*Rural 0.94 0.31 0.858 0.50 1.78
Welfare*Rural 0.29 0.13 0.006 0.12 0.70
Female*Retired*Rural 1.11 0.51 0.821 0.45 2.74
Female*Welfare*Rural
a
5.62 3.34 0.004 1.75 18.01
Cons 0.42 0.06 0.00 0.32 0.55 0.35 0.04 0.000 0.28 0.43
N 2992 2992
Pseudo R2 0.00 0.01
AIC 3461 3462
Note:
a
Of 220 females living in rural areas receiving welfare, 64 voted for FPÖ (29.1%).
For most categories, the overlap of categories does not distort the general shares of social groups in the sample. The only
exception is that all retired people are welfare recipients, but 75.4% of the respondents are neither welfare recipients nor
retired.
18 R. HEINISCH AND A. WERNER
