AfD partijos didėjančio palaikymo priežastys: Saksonijos atvejo analizė /

The main goal of this research paper was to examine the reasons for the growing support of the far-right party AfD in the German region of Saxony. The main tasks for the research were as follows: 1. to look into the existing literature about far-right party support in Europe and Germany; 2. Based on research into populist parties, to identify the most significant variables for populist party support and formulate hypothesis based on them; 3. Description of the chosen methodology for the study; 4. Analysis of the support for the AfD party in the selected case, through the development of a causal chain based on the process tracing method; 5. Analysis of the results of the study, formulation of the conclusions. 4 hypotheses were formulated based on 4 variables significant for populist party support. These 4 hypotheses were as follows: 1. Growing dissatisfaction with the traditional German parties among Saxon citizens might have led them to support the newly formed AfD party; 2. Growing dissatisfaction with the personal and regional economic situation among the citizens of the region might have led to a higher support for the AfD as an alternative to the existing economic policy; 3. Increasing opposition to immigration policy in Saxony may have led to increased support for the AfD party, which represents a stricter immigration policy; 4. Declining trust in traditional news sources among the Saxon population may have encouraged support for the AfD. To get a deeper understanding of the specific events that may have impacted party support in Saxony, the process tracing method was to be applied to the extreme case analysis in a period of 10 years since the party’s creation – from 2013 to 2022. Based on the already positively perceived and further improving perception of personal and regional economic situation of Saxon citizens, there didn’t appear to be a significant link between the growing party support and a dissatisfaction with the economy. A similar outcome was perceived in the case of opposition to immigration policy. Saxon citizen feelings towards migrants generally improved throughout the decade that the party’s support grew, showing that there was no significant correlation between anti-immigrant sentiments and AfD party support in the region. It appears that most of the support the party managed to successfully achieve was through opposition to the traditional German parties. The low trust that Saxon citizens show towards German parties and the federal government support this fact. The various discreditation of the traditional media by influential party members may have also aided in garnering support as Saxon citizens show less trust in traditional news sources, than the average German citizen. Because the work was so closely focused on the state of Saxony, the results are unlikely to be representative of the trends in every other German state. Also, some events may have been left out due to personal bias, of what events I perceive to be significant enough to mention. Some meaningful events may have also been missed due to unavailability of sources covering them or human error during research. These previously mentioned limitations of research can be mitigated through further research into the region, based on the conclusions of this work. Future research may look deeper into the variables that were found to be meaningful for AfD party support in Saxony to get a better understanding about the impact these variables truly have. Further research may also look into applying the research results for other German regions, to see if there appears to be similar trends in AfD party support in other parts of Germany. Despite the limitations of the research, this work provides a better understanding into what processes were the most meaningful in the growing support for AfD in Saxony. Based on these findings, better policy choices can be made to mitigate the growing far-right party support in the region.

Grantor dc:publisher

Institutional Repository of Vilnius University

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Leonavičius, Jurgis,

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

lit

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.vu.lt/VU:ELABAETD210581640&prefLang=en_US

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vu.lt:elaba:210581640