When on April 21st 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far-right Front National made it to the second round of the French presidential election, it sent shockwaves through the political system. It was an unprecedented result that no one had expected. All other political parties united to elect his opponent and eventual winner, Jacques Chirac. When 15 years later, in 2017, Jean-Marie’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, made it to the second round of the French presidential election, it came as a surprise to no one. This demonstrates the transformation Western Europe’s political party system has undergone in the last 20 years, chief among which has been the rise of far-right populist parties whose platform is built on Euroscepticism, anti-immigrant sentiments if not outright racism and a strong anti-establishment message. This time period saw either the establishment of new far-right parties, the strengthening of old ones or the radicalisation of others. Several of them ended up joining governments, like the FPÖ in Austria or the League Nord in Italy.
For a long time period, Germany seemed resilient to this trend. While some far-right parties would win a regional election here or there, none ever made it into the Federal parliament, the Bundestag. It seemed like Germany’s history with fascism, WWII and the holocaust would insulate Germans from ever voting for a far-right party in high enough numbers again. This all started changing with the Euro financial crisis in the early 2010s. A new party was founded called the Alternative for Germany or AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) that opposed supporting the Southern European countries and demanded Germany go its own way. The party quickly moved further to the right adopting the same incendiary language used by other far-right parties in Western Europe: demonizing migrants, demanding Germany be reclaimed for the Germans and strongly opposing Germany refugee policies in 2015 -2016. The refugee crisis powered their rise to become the third largest party in the German federal parliament in 2017 and the largest opposition party.
This meteoric rise was driven by a particular type of voter. This voter is likely never to have attended college, more likely to be male and to profess not to be religious. This voter is also much more likely to be living in the former communist GDR, Eastern Germany, where the AfD has often achieved results close to 20-20% in regional elections.
Education is the strongest predictor of far-right voting in Germany
Having a high school degree or less had the biggest effect on the predicted probability of voting for the AfD in the German 2017 national election
The strength of education as a predictor of far right and populist voting is not only a German phenomenon. Blue-collar men whose education stopped at a pre-college level are more likely to support the nationalist populists all over the Western world. These voters are often described as the losers of modernization, unable to cope with the multi-cultural world and globalized knowledge economy of the twenty-first century we currently live in.
While research shows that education actually has a causal effect and not just a correlation on voting for the far-right, the mechanism by which additional years of formal education actually affect voting behaviour is disputed. Does education teach one to be more tolerant and accepting? To be less susceptible to populist messages? Or does education allow one to profit from today’s knowledge economy and thus, have fewer resentments to fuel voting for the far-right? While the answer remains elusive, education seems to be this new cleavage in society, replacing class and religion, the cleavages of years past. Today, the level of education separates people by income, values, type of jobs, whom they interact with, their social circles and where they live. And while one would hope that an increase in the percentage of the population attending college might reverse this dynamic and increase their share in the voting population, the German example shows what a smaller, albeit increasing, proportion of the overall voting population they actually are.