Search

This paper addresses the question of whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a turning point (Zeitenwende) in public opinion on foreign and defense policy in Germany. To this end, we provide a theoretical analysis of how the concept of turning point can be applied to public opinion. We identify the durability of the change in attitudes as well as its significance as necessary conditions to speak of a turning point. In the remainder of the paper, we focus on the argument that changes in different types of orientations are significant to different degrees. Change in core postures is more significant than change in policy attitudes; change in attitudes thematically distant from the Russian invasion is more significant than change in attitudes directly related to the event. Empirically, we present a panel data analysis of attitude change triggered by the Russian invasion. Analysis of data from several waves of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) panel survey collected before the invasion (2017–2021) and in two waves after (May and October 2022) shows that there were sizable shifts in policy attitudes directly related to the event. Postures remained essentially unchanged, as did thematically distant attitudes. We conclude that there has been no turning point at the level of public opinion (yet).

The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has been more successful electorally in eastern than in western Germany. In this paper, we look at nativism coupled with populist attitudes as possible contributors to the 2017 federal electoral outcome. We compare two alternative mechanisms for the varying election results, the first being whether individuals living in eastern Germany are, on average, more nativist and populist inclined; the second, whether nativism and populism are more salient when these voters go to the polls. The results show that there indeed exists a slightly higher level of nativist and populist sentiment among the east German citizens than among the west Germans. This difference concerns older east Germans in particular, who were politically socialised during the German separation. Furthermore, elements of nativist and populist ideas explain electoral support for the AfD in both parts of the country, but nativism appears to be more relevant in the east. Overall, the analysis of the short-term campaign panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study suggests that the inspected ideational foundations contribute to the east–west gap in AfD support without accounting for it completely.

This paper studies the relation between party institutionalization and intra-party preference homogeneity in democracies. In weakly institutionalized parties, it cannot be taken for granted that party actors have similar policy views because they lack the capability or motivation to coordinate agreement and to recruit personnel in line with this agreement. This should matter most when other safeguards against preference heterogeneity are missing. Empirically, we explore the association between institutionalization and intra-party preference homogeneity at the level of candidates to the national legislature based on survey data. In a single-country study, we first look at the case of Germany in 2013 and 2017, contrasting the young and weakly institutionalized Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the older, established parties. In a second step, we study the link between party institutionalization and preference homogeneity in a cross-country analysis of 19 established democracies. We find that parties with high value infusion—parties whose candidates are committed to the party—are generally more homogenous in their policy preferences. Moreover, value infusion is more consequential when the issues in question are not constitutive for the party and when candidates are selected in a decentralized way. Similarly, routinization of internal party behavior—the second dimension of institutionalization that we account for—seems to contribute to preference homogeneity only when parties are less policy oriented and have decentralized candidate selection procedures. Dieser Artikel argumentiert, dass ein höherer Grad der Institutionalisierung von Parteien zu homogeneren Präferenzen innerhalb von Parteien beitragen sollte. Um den Zusammenhang zwischen Institutionalisierungsgrad und interner Präferenzhomogenität empirisch zu untersuchen, nutzen wir Daten aus Befragungen nationaler Parlamentskandidaten in einer Fallstudie zur AfD und in einer komparativen Analyse von Parteien aus 19 Demokratien. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass „value infusion“ – das Ausmaß, in dem sich Kandidaten ihrer Partei verpflichtet fühlen – die Homogenität von Sachfrageorientierungen innerhalb von Parteien begünstigt, insbesondere, wenn unwichtige Themen betroffen sind und die Kandidaten dezentral ausgewählt werden. Die zweite berücksichtigte Dimension von Institutionalisierung, die Routinisierung von Parteiprozessen, scheint die Präferenzhomogenität (nur) in Parteien mit geringer Policy-Orientierung und dezentraler Kandidatenauswahl zu erhöhen.

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Bedeutungsdimension nationaler Identität in Deutschland zu drei Zeitpunkten. Unter Verwendung gruppenvergleichender konfirmatorischer Faktorenanalysen werden auf Grundlage der ISSP-Module zur nationalen Identität aus den Jahren 1995, 2004 und 2014, indivdueller patriotischer Nationalstolz, völkisch-kulturalistische Haltungen und Chauvinismus als distinkte Dimensionen der Identitäten der Deutschen identifiziert. 1995 korrelieren diese noch deutlich stärker als 2004 und 2014. Explorative latente Klassenanalysen zeigen sowohl Gemeinsamkeiten als auch Unterschiede in den Ausprägungskombinationen, die die Deutschen zu den drei Zeitpunkten auf den drei Dimensionen aufweisen. Wir diskutieren die Implikationen dieser Befunde sowohl für die Konzeptualisierung und Messung nationaler Identitäten als auch für den Wandel des Verhältnisses der Bevölkerung zu Deutschland im Untersuchungszeitraum. In this article we study the content dimension of German national identity at three points in time. We run multigroup confirmatory factor analyses with data from the ISSP modules on national identity to demonstrate that in 1995, 2004, and 2014 three distinct latent dimensions can be identified in the meaning Germans attach to their nation, namely civic pride, ethnoculturalism, and chauvinism. These dimensions correlate substantially higher in 1995 than in 2004 and 2014. Exploratory latent class analyses show both continuity and change in the combination of positions citizens manifest on these dimensions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the conceptualization and measurement of national identities as well as for the development of German citizens’ relationship to their nation in the period studied.