Can right-wing terrorism increase support for far-right populist parties, and if so, why? Exploiting quasi-random variation between successful and failed attacks across German municipalities, we find that successful attacks lead to significant increases in the vote share for the right-wing,...

This paper shows that import exposure affects voting behavior because it affects local labor markets. We develop a new framework for mediation analysis where one instrumental variable is sufficient to identify three causal effects. Using German data from 1987–2009, we find that import exposure...

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 crisis has affected the way we think about (political) institutions, as well as our broader (policy) attitudes and values. We fielded large online survey experiments in Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, well into the first wave of the...

This paper shows that import exposure affects voting behavior because it affects local labor markets. We develop a new framework for mediation analysis where one instrumental variable is sufficient to identify three causal effects. Using German data from 1987-2009, we find that import exposure...

A widely held view is that increasing globalisation and inequality are fostering support for populist actors. Surprisingly, when focusing on Germany and the U.S., populist voting is highest in less globalised regions with rather equal income distributions. Addressing this puzzle, I ask how the...

Despite controversial debates about the social acceptability of its nationalist program, the rightwing populist AfD has recently entered all state parliaments as well as the federal parliament in Germany. Although professed AfD voters faced a likely risk of social stigmatization, electoral...

This paper investigates the effect of aggregate-level information shocks regarding support for a populist right-wing party on the individual disposition to report a respective political preference in survey interviews. Despite controversial debates about the social acceptability of its...

We empirically examine the relationship between shares of foreigners and shares of votes cast for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the major anti-immigrant party in the 2017 German parliamentary election. The classic theory on the political economy of migration supposes that immigration...