IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ajk/ajkdps/381.html

From Weimar to Today: Mapping Populism Across German Parliaments

Author

Listed:
  • Paul C. Behler

    (University of Bonn)

  • Laurenz Guenther

    (Bocconi University, Toulouse School of Economics)

Abstract

While the recent rise of populism has led many scholars to study populism in the modern era, its long-run evolution remains underexplored. This paper analyzes German parliamentary speeches to study populism over the long run, covering the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) and the united Federal Republic (1991–today). We employ a tailored and validated machine learning model to measure populism and dissect it into anti-elitism and people-centrism. We find that in both republics, populism is similarly common, similarly distributed across the ideological spectrum, and increases over time. Moreover, in both states, left-wing parties were initially the most populist group but were eventually overtaken by right-wing parties. However, we find a difference in the form of populism: in the Weimar Republic, the increase in populism is driven by a surge in the anti-elitism of right-wing parties, while in the Federal Republic, it is due to a general rise in people-centrism.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul C. Behler & Laurenz Guenther, 2025. "From Weimar to Today: Mapping Populism Across German Parliaments," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 381, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_381_2025.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2025
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Margaret Canovan, 1999. "Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 47(1), pages 2-16, March.
    2. Di Cocco, Jessica & Monechi, Bernardo, 2022. "How Populist are Parties? Measuring Degrees of Populism in Party Manifestos Using Supervised Machine Learning," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(3), pages 311-327, July.
    3. Bart Bonikowski & Yuchen Luo & Oscar Stuhler, 2022. "Politics as Usual? Measuring Populism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism in U.S. Presidential Campaigns (1952–2020) with Neural Language Models," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 51(4), pages 1721-1787, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Manacorda & Guido Tabellini & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Mobile internet and the rise of political tribalism in Europe," CEP Discussion Papers dp1877, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Reinhard Heinisch & Oscar Gracia & Andrés Laguna-Tapia & Claudia Muriel, 2024. "Libertarian Populism? Making Sense of Javier Milei’s Political Discourse," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-27, November.
    3. Fernando Filgueiras & Pedro Palotti & Graziella G. Testa, 2023. "Complexing Governance Styles: Connecting Politics and Policy in Governance Theories," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    4. Lasco, Gideon & Curato, Nicole, 2019. "Medical populism," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 1-8.
    5. Gradstein, Mark, 2024. "Social Status Inequality and Populism," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 434-444.
    6. Nicholas Clark & Robert Rohrschneider, 2021. "Tracing the development of nationalist attitudes in the EU," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(2), pages 181-201, June.
    7. Lebano, A., 2010. "The concept of corporate social responsibility," ISS Working Papers - General Series 21243, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    8. Koch, Cédric M., 2021. "Varieties of populism and the challenges to Global Constitutionalism: Dangers promises and implications," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 400-438.
    9. Kim, Seongcheol, 2022. "Von Lefort zu Mouffe. Populismus als Moment und Grenze radikaler Demokratie [From Lefort to Mouffe: Populism as moment and limit of radical democracy]," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 767-786.
    10. Artur Lipinski, 2010. "Europe as a Symbolic Resource - On the Discursive Space of Political Struggles in Poland," KFG Working Papers p0010, Free University Berlin.
    11. Sofia Rebelo & Manuel João Cruz & Cristiano Gianolla & Luciana Sotero & Lisete Mónico, 2025. "Discriminated and Violent? The Social Representations of Minorities in the Rise of Radical Right Populist Parties in Portugal and Italy," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, March.
    12. Gianpietro Mazzoleni & Roberta Bracciale, 2018. "Socially mediated populism: the communicative strategies of political leaders on Facebook," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    13. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    14. Kun He & Scott A. Eldridge II & Marcel Broersma, 2024. "Tactics of Disconnection: How Netizens Navigate China’s Censorship System," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    15. Marco Manacorda & Guido Tabellini & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Mobile Internet and the Rise of Communitarian Politics," CESifo Working Paper Series 9955, CESifo.
    16. Michael Hameleers, 2020. "Populist Disinformation: Exploring Intersections between Online Populism and Disinformation in the US and the Netherlands," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 146-157.
    17. Anbarci, Nejat & Kirmanoglu, Hasan & Ulubasoglu, Mehmet, 2007. "Why is the support for extreme right higher in more open societies?," Working Papers eco_2007_03, Deakin University, Department of Economics.
    18. Jennings, Colin, 2011. "The good, the bad and the populist: A model of political agency with emotional voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 611-624.
    19. repec:osf:socarx:wpjbz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Appe Susan & Barragán Daniel & Telch Fabian, 2019. "Organized Civil Society Under Authoritarian Populism: Cases from Ecuador," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-12, October.
    21. Danielle Resnick, 2010. "Populist Strategies in African Democracies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-114, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • C89 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ECONtribute Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econtribute.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.