Pulling up the Drawbridge: Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Among Russian-Germans




Michael A. Hansen, Jonathan Olsen

2020

German Politics and Society

38

2

109

136

DOIhttps://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3167/gps.2020.380205

https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/gps/38/2/gps380205.xml



The most recent scholarship on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) indicates that citizens primarily cast a vote for the party based on anti-immigrant or xenophobic attitudes. Nevertheless, prominent figures from the AfD suggest that many Germany citizens with immigrant backgrounds vote for it - an argument that has been picked up by the media. In this article, we investigate the most likely potential constituency of immigrants that might support the AfD: ethnic German migrants from the former Soviet Union, so-called Russian-Germans. Using the 2017 Immigrant German Election Study (imges), we find that these ethnic German migrants from the former Soviet Union indeed voted for the AfD in relatively large numbers when compared to the overall population. Furthermore, when predicting vote choice, we find that the main predictor of voting for the AfD among Russian-Germans is not political ideology but rather a simple hostility towards new refugees. Crucially, migrants with a Soviet background are more likely to vote for the AfD if they hold the position that there should be no economic or political refugees allowed into the country.


Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 20:52