Taking to the Streets in Germany – Disenchanted and Confident Critics in Mass Demonstrations

Figures & data

Table 1. Surveyed demonstrations.

Demonstration	Iraq War	Hartz IV	Stuttgart 21	Peace Vigils	Pegida	TTIP	G20	Fridays for Future	WHES
Year, Place(s)	2003, Berlin	2004, Berlin, Dortmund, Leipzig, Magdeburg	2010, Stuttgart	2014, Berlin, Bremen, Dortmund, Erfurt, Frankfurt / M., Jena	2015, Dresden	2015, Berlin	2017, Hamburg	2019, Berlin, Bremen	2020, Berlin
Survey administration	mail in	mail in	mail in	online	online	online	mail in / online	online / face-to-face	online / face-to-face
Participants	500,000	10,700	17,500	1,630	17,000	200,000	71,000	25,500	27,000
Questionnaires distributed	1,430	1,610	1,500	1,349	670	3,393	3,515	2,200	1,020
Complete Answers	740	783	814	401	123	482	1095	355	256
Response rate	51.7	48.6	54.3	29.7	18.4	14.2	31.2	16.1	25.1

Figure 1. Age distribution.

Figure 2. Gender distribution.

Figure 3. Self-placement on the left-right scale.

Table 2. Overview of two demonstration clusters.

	Disenchanted critics	Confident critics
Satisfaction with democracy	Low	High
Political trust	Low	High
Political Self-efficacy	low/average	High

Figure 4. Satisfaction with democracy in Germany.

Figure 5. Trust in political institutions. Notes: The demonstration cluster of the ‘disenchanted critics’ is highlighted with a grey background. The levels of trust for the Pegida demonstrations and Peace Vigils are slightly overvalued as questionnaires at these demonstrations did not include the option ‘partly trust’ – in contrast to the other demonstrations.

Figure 6. Perceived self-efficacy.

Table 3. Overview of linear regression models.

	Iraq War	Stuttgart 21	Peace Vigils	Pegida	TTIP	G20	FFF	WHES
Satisfaction with Democracy	Gender (+) Left-Right (+)	Education (+) Left-Right (+)	/	/	Left-Right (+)	Education (+) Age (−) Left-Right (+)	Gender (+) Left-Right (+)	Left-Right (+)
Trust in Government	/	Gender (+) Org. mem. (−) Left-Right (+)	/	Gender (−)	Gender (+) Protest Exp. (+) Left-Right (+)	Gender (+) Education (+) Age (−) Left-Right (+)	Left-Right (+)	Protest Exp. (−) Left-Right (+)

Table A1. Linear regression: dependent variable ‘satisfaction with democracy’ (1–5).

		Iraq	S21	MM	Pegida	TTIP	G20	FFF	WHES
Gender	Β	0.157*	0.022	0.030	−0.285	−0.017	0.051	0.232*	0.008
(0–1; 1 = female)	SE	0.078	0.068	0.138	0.210	0.096	0.060	0.101	0.138
	βs	0.078	0.012	0.014	−0.133	−0.009	0.025	0.138	0.004
Education	β	−0.003	0.280***	0.128	0.099	0.194	0.222***		0.026
(0-1; 1 = compl. higher edu.)	SE	0.083	0.068	0.135	0.185	0.101	0.062		0.154
	βs	−0.002	0.149	0.065	0.054	0.105	0.107		0.011
Age	β	−0.002	0.000	−0.003	0.005	0.001	−0.005*	−0.002	−0.001
	SE	0.002	0.002	0.005	0.007	0.003	0.002	0.003	0.004
	βs	−0.027	−0.001	−0.046	0.084	0.022	−0.078	−0.040	−0.020
Protest Exp.	β	0.138	0.003	0.193	0.040	−0.053	0.115	0.147	−0.543
(0–1; 1 = >0)	SE	0.097	0.073	0.135	0.201	0.123	0.111	0.119	0.408
	βs	0.057	0.002	0.102	0.021	−0.023	0.032	0.077	−0.087
Org. Membership	β	0.018	−0.108	0.095	−0.299	0.086	−0.047
(0–1; 1 = yes)	SE	0.081	0.070	0.132	0.208	0.101	0.067
	βs	0.009	−0.058	0.049	−0.158	0.048	−0.022
Left-Right	β	0.152***	0.053**	0.007	0.018	0.096**	0.270***	0.155***	0.306***
(1–11; left-right)	SE	0.031	0.022	0.037	0.054	0.035	0.024	0.032	0.053
	βs	0.197	0.084	0.014	0.032	0.144	0.344	0.299	0.375
R^2		0.045	0.030	0.020	0.047	0.039	0.132	0.093	0.139
R^2 korr.		0.036	0.022	−0.007	−0.010	0.023	0.127	0.079	0.119
N		740	858	401	123	482	1095	355	256

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table A2. Linear regression: dependent variable ‘trust in government’ (1–5).

		Iraq	S21	MM	Pegida	TTIP	G20	FFF	WHES
Gender	β	0.111	0.122*	0.018	−0.301**	0.293**	0.136*	0.172	0.122
(0-1; 1 = female)	SE	0.071	0.051	0.102	0.180	0.098	0.055	0.107	0.124
	βs	0.062	0.086	0.012	−0.163	0.156	0.074	0.097	0.060
Education	β	0.035	0.085	0.034	0.220	0.157	0.124*		−0.033
(0-1; 1 = compl. higher edu.)	SE	0.076	0.052	0.100	0.159	0.103	0.057		0.139
	βs	0.019	0.059	0.024	0.141	0.083	0.065		−0.015
Age	β	0.002	0.001	0.002	0.003	−0.002	−0.005**	−0.007	−0.006
	SE	0.002	0.002	0.004	0.006	0.003	0.002	0.004	0.004
	βs	0.027	0.018	0.038	0.052	−0.030	−0.099	−0.111	−0.105
Protest Exp.	β	0.084	−0.035	0.078	−0.003	0.213**	0.015	0.204	−1.348
(0-1; 1 = >0)	SE	0.088	0.055	0.100	0.172	0.125	0.102	0.127	0.369
	βs	0.039	−0.025	0.055	−0.002	0.090	0.005	0.101	−0.224
Org. Membership	β	−0.034	−0.107*	0.131	0.013	−0.045	0.054
(0-1; 1 = yes)	SE	0.074	0.053	0.098	0.178	0.103	0.061
	βs	−0.019	−0.075	0.091	0.008	−0.024	0.027
Left-Right	β	0.033	0.060***	−0.020	−0.006	0.138***	0.244***	0.153***	0.363
(1-11; left right)	SE	0.028	0.018	0.027	0.046	0.036	0.022	0.034	0.048
	βs	0.048	0.126	−0.052	−0.013	0.200	0.338	0.277	0.459
R^2		0.008	0.036	0.023	0.052	0.075	0.130	0.085	0.249
R^2 korr.		−0.001	0.028	−0.004	−0.005	0.059	0.124	0.071	0.231
N		740	858	401	123	482	1095	355	256

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Data Availability Statement

Survey data used for this paper is not generally available but replication data can be obtained by the authors upon request.