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PEGIDA and New Right-Wing Populism in Germany pp 73–98Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The PEGIDA Demonstrators: Characteristics and Motivations

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Part of the book series: New Perspectives in German Political Studies ((NPG))

Abstract

This chapter presents the existing findings on the socio-demographic characteristics, the motivations and the political preferences of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA) demonstrators and compares them with insights into the support for the political parties in Germany. These empirical insights about PEGIDA can be drawn from the findings of a number of studies. While at the beginning of the protests the characteristics of the rallies’ participants and their motives were unclear, which was due in no small part to a collective rejectionist attitude towards journalists on the part of the organisers and protesters, between December 2014 and April 2016 PEGIDA demonstrators were regularly interviewed by different teams of researchers with the help of standardised procedures. These investigations were complemented by a systematic observation of the corresponding rallies, the organisers and their communication on social media platforms. Despite differing methodical approaches and degrees of success of the individual studies, their results are readily comparable. Taken as a whole they yield an overall picture which provides reliable, validated knowledge about the participants of PEGIDA in Dresden.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. here only Hebel and Reimann (16.12.2014), Lackerbauer (21.04.2015) as well as a feature story on the ARD-magazine Panorama on 18.12.2014, in which a total of over 60 minutes of video material from interviews with PEGIDA demonstrators was collected under the title “Contact attempt: ‘The lying press’ meets Pegida” (Panorama 18.12.2014).

  2. 2.

    Geiges et al. 2015, Vorländer et al. 2016, Patzelt and Klose 2016.

  3. 3.

    Own compilation of information from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 7), Rucht et al. (2015, pp. 8–9), Walter (19.01.2015), Patzelt (2015, p. 3ff.). The studies described here investigated PEGIDA in Dresden at its peak between December 2014 and the split of the organisation team at the end of January 2015. In order to ensure comparability, the presentation of the findings from Walter (19.01.2015) in Fig. 4.1 includes only the data related to Dresden. The researchers from Göttingen did, however, later supplement the data collected with additional surveys in other cities. The study was finally based on an online survey of 727 PEGIDA participants in total, from Dresden, -->Leipzig, -->Hanover, -->Duisburg and -->Braunschweig. According to the authors’ statements approximately 17,500 people were approached. See Geiges et al. (2015, p. 61).

  4. 4.

    Vorländer, Herold and Schäller, and also Patzelt, carried out weekly observations of the demonstrations in Dresden between October 2014 and February 2015. The teams led by Walter and Rucht did the same on 12.01.2015. Furthermore, Geiges et al. (2015) were able to convince nearly 30 people to take part in group interviews. In addition, they, as well as Vorländer, Herold and Schäller, undertook a systematic evaluation of the coverage of PEGIDA in the national and international media and on social media.

  5. 5.

    It was not possible to achieve representative results in the strict sense in any of the PEGIDA studies, since the population of the demonstrators was not determinable a priori. According to general experience in empirical survey research it is fair to assume that in all studies the results are slightly distorted towards the demonstrators who are more educated and more willing to provide information (a “middle-class bias”). This is especially true for both of the online surveys, which additionally presuppose that the participants have a certain degree of experience of using the internet (Diekmann 2014, pp. 422, 520ff.). In the case of the face-to-face interviews, in turn, one cannot exclude distortion in the response behaviour caused by the “social desirability” effect. Furthermore, when evaluating the results of the studies the respective response rates need to be taken into account. One popular interpretation, particularly among politically interested bloggers and activists, was that these, in some instances, low response rates should be taken as a reason to doubt the findings of the investigations in general. As K.-H. Reuband has shown, however, a criticism of this kind—at least in the case of the two face-to-face interviews with rates between 35 and 50 per cent—is misleading (Reuband 2015, pp. 135–136). On the one hand, it would be flawed to assume that there is an inevitable correlation between the response rate and distortion in the results (non-response bias)—for the relationship between the response rate and non-response bias cf. only Koch and Blohm (2015, p. 1ff.). On the other hand, in research using empirical surveys, response rates below 50 per cent tend to be the rule. Even with considerable technical and organisational effort and a significant investment of personnel, professional population surveys conducted face-to-face only reach similar rates (e.g. the German General Social Survey in 2012: approximately 38 per cent, cf. GESIS 2017), in the case of phone surveys the rate is often even lower. A detailed discussion of possible distortions in their PEGIDA survey can be found in Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 31ff.).

  6. 6.

    Own compilation of data from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 43ff.), Rucht et al. (2015, p. 11ff.), Walter (19.01.2015) and Patzelt (2015, p. 5f.). Rucht et al. (2015) did not ask about religious affiliation. In the case of Patzelt (2015) the surveyed participants were not asked about their religious affiliation or origin. In terms of religious affiliation Patzelt and Eichardt (2015, p. 12) determined in their two surveys in April and May that 78 per cent of respondents were non-denominational, 17 per cent evangelical, 4 per cent Catholic and about 1 per cent belonged to another religious community

  7. 7.

    The results of the survey thereby provided a nearly precise depiction of the actual distribution of the religious affiliations in Saxony. According to data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in Saxony 21 per cent of the population belong to an evangelical church or religious community, 4 per cent belong to the Catholic Church, and 75 per cent of the Saxon population are non-denominational or affiliated with another religion (Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder 2014, p. 42).

  8. 8.

    In the Göttingen study (Walter 19.01.2015) 11.8 per cent came from other federal states, in the study by Vorländer et al. (2015) it was 15.8 per cent of those surveyed (of those: 9.4 per cent from the new and 6.4 per cent from the old federal states).

  9. 9.

    Own compilation of information from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 46f.), Rucht et al. (2015, p. 14) and Walter (19.01.2015)

  10. 10.

    Cf. the numbers from the Federal Employment Agency (Agentur für Arbeit) at https://statistik.arbeitsagentur.de/Navigation/Statistik/Statistik-nach-Regionen/BA-Gebietsstruktur/Saxony-Nav.html (Accessed on 08.06.2017).

  11. 11.

    Own compilation of information from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 48ff.) and Walter (19.01.2015). In the data collections undertaken by Rucht et al. (2015) and Patzelt (2015) there were no questions related to income. As part of their data collection in April and May, Patzelt and Eichardt (2015, p. 14) gave respondents the option to compare their gross monthly income with the Saxon average of €2,800. Here they could use a three-step scale to indicate whether their own gross income was “lower” (60 per cent), “average” (13 per cent) or “higher” (26 per cent)

  12. 12.

    Own compilation of data from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 45f.), Rucht et al. (2015, p. 13), Walter (19.01.2015).

  13. 13.

    For fundamentals see Barnes et al. 1979.

  14. 14.

    Own representation of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research’s analysis of the data from the SOEP v31. The details about income that were provided refer to the year prior to the survey. See Bergmann et al. (2016, p. 2). The figures for NPD also include other small, right-wing extremist parties

  15. 15.

    Cf. Bergmann et al. (2017, p. 62).

  16. 16.

    Rütten (01.12.2016). According to the study the largest proportion of low-income earners (45 per cent) is to be found among the non-voters.

  17. 17.

    See Niedermayer and Hofrichter 2016.

  18. 18.

    Own representation of the comparative data from the Göttinger Institut für Demokratieforschung (2016, p. 17).

  19. 19.

    See Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 57ff.). The basis for the groups of responses shown is the answer to the open question “What is your reason for participating in PEGIDA?”

  20. 20.

    See Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 57ff.).

  21. 21.

    On the basis of their online survey Rucht et al. (2015, p. 48ff.) accordingly named three dominant interpretations of the orientation of the Dresden PEGIDA demonstrators: “criticism of the asylum and immigration policy”, “criticism of current government policy” and “ dissatisfaction with the media and its coverage”. These and other protest motives mentioned by the PEGIDA participants are described in more detail in Chap. 6. For the motivation of the PEGIDA demonstrators also cf. Herold and Schäller 2016.

  22. 22.

    Own compilation of data from Rucht et al. (2015, p. 21ff.) and Walter (19.01.2015).

  23. 23.

    Own compilation of data from Vorländer et al. (2015, p. 51ff.) and Patzelt (2015, p. 23). The question as to the “feeling of attachment to a political party” amongst those interviewed was asked in this form only by Vorländer et al. (2015). Patzelt (2015) determined what he referred to as the “party tendency” of the respondents, by asking them which party they viewed as the most trustworthy (“Which party do you trust most at the moment?”). The answers to both questions are depicted together in Fig. 4.12, because they were both asked in pursuit of similar insights. An attachment to or trust in a party indicates the extent to which the parties are rooted in society and to a certain extent provides information about the political socialisation of the respondents. Low levels of attachment and a low level of trust point to political homelessness or alienation.

  24. 24.

    The voter turnout at the 2014 state election in Saxony was 49.1 per cent (State Statistical Office of the Free State of Saxony 2014).

  25. 25.

    Own compilation of data from Rucht et al. (2015, p. 21f.) and Patzelt (2015, p. 7). The scales of the two studies differ slightly. In the study by Rucht et al. (2015) the respondents were able to provide a self-assessment with the options “extreme left”, “left”, “centre”, “right” and “extreme right” as well as “no position on this scale”. The terms chosen by Patzelt (2015) were a little different (“completely left-wing”, “left”, “exactly in the centre”, “right” and “completely right-wing”). He also opted not to offer a residual response option.

  26. 26.

    One does need to take into account, however, that there is not necessarily a correlation between a possible extreme right-wing attitude of the respondents and the self-defined positioning on the left–right spectrum. Even respondents with “entrenched right-wing extremist attitudes” often do not consider themselves to be on the right, in fact, most even consider themselves to be on the left side of the political spectrum. Cf. Best et al. (2014, p. 82); Best and Salheiser (2012, p. 87ff.).

  27. 27.

    In the two data collections in April and May 2015 by Patzelt and Eichardt (2015, p. 23) in response to the question about voter behaviour at the 2013 Bundestag elections the NPD achieved figures of 11.1 per cent (27.04.2015) and 12.2 per cent (04.05.2015).

  28. 28.

    Own representation of the findings from Patzelt 2016.

  29. 29.

    A similar change in mood occurred after the temporary opening of the border in the summer of 2015 and after the mass sexual assaults on women committed mainly by refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve 2015. However, by now this change in mood had taken place in the entire German population.

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  1. TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Hans Vorländer, Maik Herold & Steven Schäller

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Vorländer, H., Herold, M., Schäller, S. (2018). The PEGIDA Demonstrators: Characteristics and Motivations. In: PEGIDA and New Right-Wing Populism in Germany. New Perspectives in German Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67495-7_4

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