Adobe Stock / Sir_Oliver
Support for anti-democratic, extremist ideas threatens democracy. This applies regardless of the ideological content of these ideas. In addition to people who are fully convinced of an extremist world view, attention should also be paid to those who share individual ideas and aspects of an extremist ideology and are therefore partially compatible with extremist ideas.
Our study shows this on the basis of a representative survey:
- Only a minority agree with the statements on extremism in general, right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism.
- When it comes to general extremism, the statements in the utopianism dimension receive the most approval – "I wish that we would live according to the true ideal in the future" (33 per cent approval); "Only if we overcome today's society will a truly good life be possible" (27 per cent). In contrast, there is hardly any support for rule by one person – "There must be one person who alone decides where things go" (7 per cent).
- Statements from the area of right-wing extremist ideology are very rarely agreed with overall. People most frequently agree with the xenophobia dimension – "The way foreigners behave here makes me angry" (14 per cent), followed by the Islamophobia dimension – "German society is being infiltrated by Muslims" (12 per cent).
- Attitudes with an affinity for left-wing extremism tend to be more widespread than attitudes with an affinity for right-wing extremism. The dimensions of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism in particular enjoy a certain degree of approval. Agreement is highest for the statement "The rich exploit the poor" (42 per cent). Rejection of the bourgeois state is rare – "The bourgeois state should be abolished" (4 per cent).
- Agreement with the statements cuts across society. Old and young, men and women, West and East Germans agree with the statements, albeit often only at a low level. There are also individual patterns. A number of attitudes, particularly those with an affinity for general extremism and right-wing extremism, are more popular among older people over the age of 75. Overall, the east-west differences are small. However, in the over 75 age group, East German respondents agree with several statements more often than West German respondents in this age group.
- Voting intention and self-classification on the left-right scale are related to agreement with statements with an affinity for extremism. People who categorise themselves on the far right and people who want to vote for the AfD show higher levels of agreement with attitudes associated with general extremism and attitudes associated with right-wing extremism. Among those who categorise themselves on the far left and those who want to vote for the Left, agreement with statements with an affinity for left-wing extremism is higher. Some attitudes with an affinity for left-wing extremism are held with above-average frequency by both voters of the Left and the AfD.
- Non-voters are more likely than average to agree with several statements that are associated with general extremism, right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism.
- Only when several statements with an affinity for extremism are agreed with does a fundamental proximity to an extremism emerge. The combination of five (general extremism, right-wing extremism) and three (left-wing extremism) statements identifies people who are extremism-affine or partially compatible in the respective sense. People with an affinity for extremism are those who achieve an average of more than 4.0 on the response scale from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5), i.e. on average more than tend to agree. People who are partially compatible are those who achieve an average of more than 3.0 on the response scale, i.e. who on average more than "partly agree and partly disagree".
Please note, to date the study is only available in German.
