Declining populism in the political center
It is striking that the anti-populist shift is underpinned and driven to an above-average degree from the political center. In the Populism Barometer 2018, this segment of the electorate was still showing the greatest increase in populist attitudes. Now, however, the proportion of non-populist voters in the political center has risen even more significantly than it has on average across the electorate. "The political center in particular is proving to be able to learn and to be robust in dealing with the populist temptation, and is thus proving to be the cornerstone of this change in public opinion," Vehrkamp emphasizes.
This is also shown when the voters of parties in the political center are analyzed. Their populism has declined sharply in prevalence and intensity. Thus, for the time being, the Union parties and the FDP have been prevented from sliding further into the populist voter segment. "The temptation of the CDU/CSU and the FDP to follow the populism of the AfD, to imitate it or at least rhetorically adapt to it, is losing its electoral appeal," says Wolfgang Merkel, democracy researcher at the WZB and co-author of the study.
The same applies to the SPD, and in the left-liberal center the Greens are once again defending their brand essence as the party least susceptible to populism. All in all, the party landscape in Germany is thus showing itself to be significantly more resistant to populism in the year before the 2021 federal elections than it was before and after the 2017 elections.