Against this backdrop, the chapter looks at the domestic causes of right-wing populism, xenophobia, and resentments: What were the general social or rather: political cultural preconditions of the protests and demonstrations such as Pegida or the hundreds of anti-asylum marches in Germany? What does Germany’s political culture look like nowadays and what did it look like before the migration crisis? Does the image political culture creates help in solving the puzzle of the recent right-wing protests and riots on Germany’s streets? The mere fact that extremism and populism are a democracy’s “normal pathology”, does not mean both do not deserve academia’s attention with respect to repression and prevention. Instead, their ascension further contributes to a barbarization of political manners, it complicates the formation of stable governments, destabilizes political coalitions, polarizes discourse and therefore undermines a democracy’s persistence (Hibbs, 1973; Powell, 1982, pp. 111–174).
2. VIEWS ON THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY
Let us take a look at Germans’ views on their political community. Maybe this explains why they have been so upset recently. And in fact: If there is an aspect of political culture in which Germany lags behind its European neighbours, it is national pride. Whereas immediately after unification in 1990 the sense of nationality has been expected to either become normal in European terms or to experience a boost of nationalism, the opposite turned out to be true: National pride in Germany had declined in the early 1990s and reached rock bottom in 1997, before it began to rise – but only gradually.
Figure 1: National pride in Germany. Sources: Eurobarometer (div. issues), European Values Study, Allbus 1996/1998.
On the one side, national pride has come to its former levels as recently as the late noughties, on the other it has never reached the level of the whole European Union – and probably never will. And this in turn is characteristic: Whenever one reads a comparative study on national pride, one will find that – despite all the ups and downs – compared to other European countries the sense of nationality always lags behind in Germany – particularly because of its national-socialist past, the political culture of later generations has apparently reacted to it in a slightly overcompensating way. However, this difference should not be overrated – when there is a European average, there will always be countries above and below it.
What is most surprising 25 years after unification, is the fact that East and West do not differ fundamentally in this respect any longer. What, however, they differ in, is the specific aspects they are proud of about Germany. West Germans usually mention political attributes, such as the constitution and the social state. What East Germans instead have in mind, is the “land of poets and philosophers”, that is, culture and literature, achievements in the academic world and in sports (Neller, 2009, pp. 75–76) – all in all rather unpolitical objects, indicating a worrying emergence of political detachment as a consequence of the lack of positive experiences with the political structures in Germany. It is – at least partially – filled with a widespread sentiment of attachment to the socialist GDR, which still about four out of ten East Germans feel close to (Neller, 2009, pp. 76–79).
The label social science has invented for this phenomenon is GDR-Nostalgia or – as the German word for Nostalgia contains the German word for East – “Ostalgie”, which allows a range of various interpretations, such as a defensive attitude concerning the own life in the GDR or disappointed expectations about the economic development or feelings of frustration over the democratic institutions and values. Nonetheless, these differences are not suited for an explanation of the recent upset of several strata in German society, not least because national pride is just about to become normal in European terms and attachment to the historical socialist GDR is constantly decreasing.
3. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TRUST
So maybe trust might be important to bear in mind when one tries to comprehend the current right-wing upheaval. Social trust, that is trust in other members of the society, provides the foundation of social cooperation, for democratic attitudes and political participation, but also for efficient economic relations. Trust in political institutions in turn is known to be a well-known cornerstone of democracy’s empirical legitimacy, of general political interest and the willingness to act and live within the law as well as to engage politically. Taken all together, social and political trust seem to be promising candidates when it comes to the recently growing unrest in German society.
However, the data do no not bear out this conjecture: First of all, over the last years, more and more people have developed trust in their social environment – both in West and East Germany, with the East revealing an even stronger increase in social trust; and both parts of the country being typically European.
Figure 2: Social Trust in East Germany, West Germany, and Europe. Source: Zmerli (2012), p. 149.
Trust in political institutions (parties, parliament, the government, police and the judicial system) turns out to be lower than trust in other people. However, we are witnessing an upward trend over the last few years. What is more, East German trust levels align more and more with West German trust levels – in sharp contrast with the rest of Eastern Europe, where trust in the political institutions has plummeted recently due to the absence of economic successes and the disillusionment with the real economical potential of democracy and its politicians.
Figure 3: Trust in Political Institutions. Source: Zmerli (2012), p. 150.
What can clearly be appreciated in figures 4 and 5 is a trust hierarchy in Germany: “Regulative institutions” – that is the police, the courts, and the administrative body – constantly receive systematically more trust than institutions associated with parties and interests, that is the parliament, the government, and political parties.
Figure 4: Trust in “Regulative” and “Party Institutions”. Source: Zmerli (2012), p. 151.
What are the causes of this trust gap between “regulative” and “party institutions”? Rather than one single factor, a host of explanations comes into question. “Party-dominated institutions” reveal a higher degree of media coverage than regulative institutions; they are more prone to political conflict and susceptible to political controversies on the one side and compromises on the other. This is why trust in “regulative institutions” turns out to be not only higher but also more stable than trust in “party-dominated institutions” – in Germany as well as in most Western democracies. Thus, Germany is no exception. What would be problematic is constantly low trust in all political institutions, as this would lead to a shrinking legitimacy of democracy. This, however, is not the case.
Apart from this, we see a small trust gap between East and West Germany for all political institutions. Nonetheless, this should not worry us all too much, considering the fact that this gap is constantly closing. For example, the cohort born between 1972 and 1990 reveals a gap only when it comes to “regulative institutions”. And East and West Germans born after 1990 are completely identical when it comes to political and institutional trust (Gabriel et al., 2015, pp. 164–166).
Figure 5: Trust Hierarchy. Source: