Religious Immunity to Populism: Christian Religiosity and Public Support for the Alternative for Germany

Abstract

European research has largely ignored the role that religion has played in the recent growth of right-wing populist (RWP) parties. In this paper we focus on how religiosity affects electoral support for RWP parties in Germany. Based on a tripartite concept of religiosity (religious practice, religious affiliation, and religious beliefs), we assume that the effect of religiosity is mediated by two intervening determinants of RWP support, namely, anti-immigrant attitudes and party identification. The existing studies have not covered Germany because until recently no significant RWP party existed. To test our hypotheses, we use pooled data from the Long-term Online Tracking of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). The results show that anti-immigrant attitudes are strongly correlated with RWP support and that citizens with party identification are less likely to vote for an RWP party. More importantly, religiosity influences the RWP vote because, first, church attendance is negatively correlated with anti-immigrant attitudes, and, second, all dimensions of religiosity are positively associated with identification with established parties. Our results confirm the thesis that religiosity tends to indirectly ‘immunise’ citizens against voting for RWP parties. We conclude that the recent success of RWP parties in East Germany is partly due to advanced secularisation in this part of the country.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA AND RESEARCH MATERIALS

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the Taylor & Francis website, doi:10.1080/09644008.2020.1723002

Notes

1 The online supplementary materials contain a reference table with all the variables names, the original language documentation, and a translation of the items used in the analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pascal Siegers

Pascal Siegers is head of the Research Data Center German General Social Survey (FDZ ALLBUS) and team leader of National Surveys at the GESIS Data Archive in Cologne. Areas of Research: sociology of religion and morality, quantitative religious research, new data types in social research, research data infrastructures.

Alexander Jedinger

Alexander Jedinger is a Senior Researcher at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. His research interests include political attitudes, ideologies and voting behaviour.