Study by the University of Leipzig: Right-wing extremist worldview is more widespread than it has been for a long time

dpa | Acceptance of democracy is declining in Germany - this is the finding of the latest edition of the Leipzig Authoritarianism Study. For the first time since the representative study began in 2002, support for democracy as an idea is below the 90 percent mark (89.3 percent) nationwide.

According to the information, this is due to “the drastic decline in East Germany,” where support for democracy fell from 94.6 percent in 2024 to 85.7 percent now. In the West there was a slight increase over the same period. The study is carried out every two years based on an opinion survey.

The proportion of people who have a closed right-wing extremist worldview has increased. According to the study, it is currently 6.9 percent nationwide. The last time the scientists found a higher value was in the survey in 2012. At that time it was 8.8 percent.

Here too there is a significant difference between East and West. While 6.5 percent of West Germans have a right-wing extremist worldview, the figure is 8.5 percent in the East.

The numbers also differ between genders: according to the survey, 5.6 percent of men support a right-wing authoritarian dictatorship, while only 3 percent of women do so. The tendency to chauvinism - the belief that one's own group is superior to others - is also more pronounced among men (22 percent) than among women (18 percent).

According to their own statements, the scientists at the University of Leipzig found a “regressive nostalgia”, in which a political contrast is constructed between an idealized past and a present perceived as corrupt and threatening, in 15 percent of those surveyed. This “aggressive expression of nostalgia” is significantly more common among older people, in low income groups, among East Germans and those surveyed without a high school diploma than among younger people, West Germans and people with higher education and more income.

To measure these attitudes, respondents should position themselves with statements such as: “It annoys me that people like me no longer receive the same respect in our society as I used to” and “I feel longing when I think about the economic advantages that people like me used to have.”

The survey took place from March 16th to June 3rd. The 2,507 participants were people aged 16 and over who had to have sufficient knowledge of German in order to fill out a comprehensive questionnaire. The study was carried out in cooperation with the Green Party-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Otto Brenner Foundation of IG Metall. This year it is entitled “The Unstoppable Rise of the Authoritarian”.