Tuesday, 29 June 2021

The Pegida Movement and Its Opponents in Germany: Evidence From a Protest Event Analysis

WZB Talk by Sebastian Hellmeier

 

Right-wing populism (RWP) has been on the rise in many Western democracies. In addition to electoral victories, RWP movements have increasingly taken to the streets in demonstrations expressing anti-elitist and xenophobic sentiment. At the same time, civil society coalitions have mobilized against these movements. In this presentation, I summarize key insights from a project that aims at analyzing movement-countermovement dynamics in the context of the Pegida movement in Germany. Based on original protest event data for all major German cities between 2014 and 2018, I describe key features of Pegida protests (frequency, size, actors, and slogans), and I explore the effect of counter-mobilization on the Pegida movement. The results suggest that counter-mobilization does not prevent protest onset. However, large counter-demonstrations are associated with larger subsequent Pegida protests, and violence against Pegida supporters reduces the likelihood that they will stop protesting.

If you want to get a first impression on Sebastian Hellmeier’s research, you can find his latest article here.

Sebastian Hellmeier is Research Fellow of the WZB research unit Transformations of Democracy.

 

Please note that this event takes place in English only with no translation.

The event is part of the WZB Talks series.

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