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The Quiet Left: Germany and the Elusive Appeal of Left-Wing Populism Amidst Europe's Right-Wing Populist Surge
Mutungamiri, Tavaka
Mutungamiri, Tavaka
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Abstract
This thesis endeavours to investigate why left-wing populist movements fail to achieve the broad and durable electoral resonance enjoyed by their right-wing counterparts. Using a mixed-methods approach to the research design, the thesis integrates historical analysis, theoretical synthesis, demographic data, media text-mining and elite survey responses to identify structural, cultural and communicative factors that constrain the appeal of parties such as Die Linke and Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). Historically, Germany’s encounter with fascism, state-socialism and post-reunification socioeconomic and cultural divergence, produced a political culture that is wary of ideological extremity, yet frag mented along East-West lines. These divisions continue to shape trust in institutions, attitudes toward migration, and the salience of economic versus cultural grievances. Theoretically, the thesis draws on ideational, strategic, and relational approaches to populism to demon strate that left-wing populists struggle to mobilise emotion around identity-driven issues. Whereas right wing populist actors effectively frame migration as an exogenous threat and dominate media agenda setting, left-wing populist actors anchor their rhetoric to socio-economic critique that resonates less within emotive contemporary communication. Quantitative analysis of YouGov, Statista, and GESIS datasets show that left-wing populist support is concentrated among younger, highereducated, and disproportionately Eastern voters, with limited pen etration across older or less educated groups. Social media corpus analysis further finds that right-wing narrative receives greater amplification and sharper moral framing—advantages that left-wing actors rarely match. Overall, the thesis argues that the asymmetry between left-wing and rightwing populism in Germany stems from differences in demographic reach, media resonance and the structural makeup of the Ger man political system vis-à-vis the 5% threshold hurdle. 2 Ultimately, left-wing populism in Germany is weakened not by a lack of adequate policy but by history, identity, and message misalignment.
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Master of Arts in International Affairs -- John Cabot University, Fall 2025.
Date
2025
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Keywords
Populism, Right-wing extremists, Right and left (Political science)
Citation
Mutungamiri, Tavaka. "The Quiet Left: Germany and the Elusive Appeal of Left-Wing Populism Amidst Europe's Right-Wing Populist Surge". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2025.