Conservative Elites and Anti-Far-Right Mobilization

This project was inspired by the large wave of protests against the AfD in early 2024. What was particularly striking in this context were the ambivalent reactions of conservative elites, especially politicians from the CDU/CSU, to these protests. While Friedrich Merz, the CDU chairman, praised the protesters for their engagement `for democracy, our rule of law, and our freedom', he and other CDU politicians also criticized the demonstrations for being dominated by left-wing extremist Antifa-groups (among other things), who excluded CDU politicians from speaking at some demonstrations.

Research highlights the key role of conservative elites for facilitating democratization and preventing democratic erosion. Most of the work on the role of the mainstream right and the far-right, to our knowledge, however focuses on the electoral effects of center-right positioning on issues such as immigration. In contrast, we know little about how conservative elites might also affect mobilization against the far-right on the streets.  

This project tackles this question. Empirically, we plan to combine observational and experimental evidence. On the observational front, we collect data on the partisanship of mayors, which we plan to combine with data on the location of protests against the the far right. We also conduct an elite endorsement experiment embedded in a survey of German voters to test if positive (negative) statements by conservative politicians about the protests against the AfD have the potential increase (decrease) mobilization against the far-right.