ABSTRACT
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) is a new political party that has threatened to shake up Germany’s political landscape. With a unique blend of economically left and culturally conservative positions, the BSW appeals to a substantial part of the electorate, especially in eastern Germany. Drawing on original survey data from early 2024 our study examines the ideological positions of BSW supporters. We find that both socio-economic left and socio-cultural conservative orientations increase the likelihood of backing the BSW, with the former being more important than the latter. Additionally, higher levels of dissatisfaction with democracy, political distrust, and populism further bolster the party’s support, which is significantly stronger in eastern Germany. Comparing the ideological proximity of BSW supporters with those of other parties, our study reveals that they are closely aligned with SPD and Die Linke supporters in terms of their socio-economic orientation, with CDU supporters in terms of their socio-cultural attitudes, and with AfD supporters regarding their populist sentiments. These findings underline the BSW’s ambivalent role in the German party system and allow us to conclude by reflecting on likely routes of voter migration, apparent patterns of political competition and possible constellations of cooperation involving the new party.
Introduction
The political landscape in European democracies is currently undergoing profound changes. Over the last decade, most public and academic attention has focussed on the emergence and electoral success of populist radical right parties, which have drastically altered the dynamics of electoral markets. Currently, further shifts are being initiated by another trend within the European left, identified as ‘left-authoritarianism’ or ‘left-conservatism’ (Mudde Citation2024; Pabst Citation2023; Wärnberg Citation2022).Footnote1 As research has shown, there are considerable segments of the electorate in European democracies that combine economically left-wing with culturally conservative positions (Aspelund, Lindeman, and Verkasalo Citation2013; Hillen and Steiner Citation2020; Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann Citation2014; Oesch and Rennwald Citation2018; van der Brug and van Spanje Citation2009). On the supply side, however, this segment of the electoral market is often portrayed as vacant, with only few established parties in Europe trying to appeal to this voter potential. In recent years, such attempts have become apparent in the social democratic parties of Northern Europe, the New Social Contract party in the Netherlands (NSC), the Social Democratic Party in Romania (PSD), the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), as well as Greek’s Syriza that was recently reframed as ‘patriotic left’ (Chazel and Dain Citation2022; Fanoulis and Guerra Citation2021; Loxbo Citation2024).
In Germany, a similar political project launched at the beginning of 2024. Its initiator Sahra Wagenknecht, a former leading figure of the far-left party Die Linke has managed to become one of the country’s most well-known and most popular politicians. With her new party ‘Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht’ (BSW – Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht) she has explicitly declared her intention to appeal to voters who are economically left-wing but culturally conservative (Wagenknecht Citation2021). In June 2024 the party stood for election for the first time and won 6.2 percent of the German vote in the elections to the European Parliament. In September of the same year, it emerged as a big winner in the eastern German state elections, gaining 15.8 percent of the vote in Thuringia, 11.8 percent in Saxony, and 13.5 percent in Brandenburg. At the same time, Wagenknecht’s former party Die Linke has rapidly lost significant political relevance (Jesse Citation2023; Olsen and Hansen Citation2022). Even though this trend was halted in the general elections of February 2025, the BSW still won 4.99 percent of the vote from a standing start, narrowly missing out on entering the Bundestag.
But where are the supporters of BSW located politically? How likely is it that the new party can attract significant portions of the populist radical right voter base in Germany and thus inflict political damage on the AfD? In addition to numerous media reports (Doğan Citation2023; Köppchen Citation2024), there are only a few systematic contributions about Sahra Wagenknecht’s political motivations and calculations (Stokes Citation2024). Initial estimations suggested that her potential supporters are primarily found within a migration-sceptical, politically disillusioned milieu, close to the electorate of the AfD (Braband and Candeias Citation2024; Wagner Citation2023a; Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023). However, as the BSW was only founded in early January 2024, there is only limited knowledge about the party’s voter base (Heckmann, Wurthmann, and Wagner Citation2025; Steiner and Hillen Citation2024; Thomeczek Citation2024; Citation2025b; Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023).
In our paper we address this gap by examining the political attitudes of BSW supporters. We argue that, compared to other voter groups in Germany, they can indeed be located in a left-conservative quadrant of the two-dimensional political space, even if their average socio-economic and socio-cultural positions are close to the centre of the political spectrum. In contrast to supporters of other centrist political parties, however, we argue that BSW supporters show significantly higher levels of political alienation.
To test our claims, we make use of novel survey data from Germany that was gathered in February 2024 through random probability sampling. Our results show that the more people position themselves economically left and the more they hold a conservative stance on cultural issues, the more they are inclined to support BSW. We also find that dissatisfaction with German democracy, mistrust in political institutions, and populist sentiments are widespread among those who sympathise with the new party. Furthermore, we reveal that both the general support for the BSW and the ideological proximity between BSW and AfD sympathisers is much greater in eastern Germany. Here, our results provide evidence of substantial divergences between the country’s eastern and western parts leading to an ambivalent role of the BSW within the German party system and to varying constellations of political competition.
With these findings, our study contributes to the assessment of a political trend that is currently changing the dynamics of European party systems and that is associated with a new ‘authoritarian’ or ‘conservative’ turn of parts of the European Left (Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann Citation2014; Oesch and Rennwald Citation2018; Steiner and Hillen Citation2021). More specifically, our study is important to shed some light on the impact of a new political project in Germany that is currently shaking up the country’s party system (Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023). On the one hand, the BSW is expected to bring down the vote share of the populist radical right AfD significantly, especially in eastern Germany (Caspari Citation2023; Eppelsheim Citation2024). On the other hand, the BSW opens up the prospect of new political majorities. Having already become a partner in some state-level coalition governments, it is expected to help break the political deadlock that has emerged in many regions of Germany with the rise of the AfD (Frehler Citation2024).
In the next sections, we contextualise our argument within the broader literature on left-wing conservatism and its political significance in Germany, and provide theoretical justification for our assumptions regarding the political characteristics of BSW supporters. We then describe our empirical strategy and test the claims that emerge from the theoretical discussion against our data, before summarising and discussing our findings.
The BSW as a new Proponent of Left-Conservatism in Germany
Conceptualising Left-Conservatism in European Democracies
In most European democracies, a profound restructuring of party competition has been observed in recent years. In political science research, these changes are usually conceptualised with the help of two orthogonal political dimensions (Bornschier Citation2010; Dalton Citation2018; Kriesi et al. Citation2008; Oesch and Rennwald Citation2018). These dimensions describe differences in positions on political issues that are attributed to underlying social conflicts and political cleavages (Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Marks Citation2024; Jackson and Jolly Citation2021; van der Brug and van Spanje Citation2009). On the one hand, there is the economic left-right dimension, which traditionally determines the positioning on issues of redistribution, taxation and the role of the state in the economy corresponding the traditional class divide between labour and capital (Lipset and Rokkan Citation1967).
On the other hand, there is a cultural dimension which delineates preferences regarding ideas of community, identity and national sovereignty (Jackson and Jolly Citation2021; van der Brug and van Spanje Citation2009). These attitudes mirror the conflict between proponents of open societies, multiculturalism and international governance and those who perceive this as a threat to societal cohesion, national community and their way of life (Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Marks Citation2024). The primary cause of the emergence of this conflict is widely attributed to globalisation, which has created winners and losers even in western democracies and triggered a normative conflict over the openness or closure of borders (De Wilde et al. Citation2019; Kriesi et al. Citation2012). In the literature, the two ends of this resulting continuum of socio-cultural attitudes are referred to by a variety of conceptual pairs – for instance as opposition between cosmopolitan and communitarian views (De Vries Citation2018; Koopmans and Zürn Citation2019; Teney, Lacewell, and Wilde Citation2014), as contrast between green, alternative, libertarian (GAL), and traditional, authoritarian, nationalist (TAN) attitudes (Hooghe et al. Citation2010; Hooghe and Marks Citation2018) or as conflict between liberal orientations on the one hand and authoritarian or conservative attitudes on the other (Bornschier Citation2010; Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann Citation2014).
Socio-economic and socio-cultural dimensions together constitute a two-dimensional political space, in which four positions can be described: left-liberal, left-conservative, right-liberal, and right-conservative (). Although significant voter groups can be found in all areas, most political parties in Europe exhibit either a combination of economically left and culturally liberal positions or a combination of economically right and culturally conservative positions. Some parties can also be located in the right-liberal field. The left-conservative quadrant, however, often remains vacant (Hillen and Steiner Citation2020; Lefkofridi, Wagner, and Willmann Citation2014; Thomassen Citation2012; van der Brug and van Spanje Citation2009). This situation confronts left-conservative voters with a dilemma: Since there is no party that matches their views on both of the two ideological dimensions, they have to choose between congruence in the economic and consistency in the socio-cultural dimension, leaving any decision unsatisfying.
Figure 1. The political parties represented in the German Bundestag in a two-dimensional political space based on CHES 2019 (Jolly et al. Citation2022).
Due to an increased relevance of cultural issues, many left-conservative voters today tend to support economically right-wing parties, as long as they share conservative positions on issues such as migration, lifestyle and values (Kurella and Rosset Citation2018; Steiner et al. Citation2024). Following this pattern, there has been a shift of parts of the working class towards the radical right in recent years (Oesch and Rennwald Citation2018; Olsen Citation2018; Steiner and Hillen Citation2021).
The BSW in the German Political Landscape
With the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), this development has also reached Germany (Arzheimer and Berning Citation2019). Here, too, left-conservative voters are encountering a supply gap in the party system, as all socio-economically left parties such as Die Linke or the social democratic SPD hold clear-cut liberal positions on cultural issues (Bräuninger et al. Citation2019; Hough and Keith Citation2019; Jankowski et al. Citation2022). Against this backdrop, political observers expect Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party to attract a robust electorate and to win back votes from the populist radical right AfD (Caspari Citation2023; Eppelsheim Citation2024; Mudde Citation2024).
In economic terms, Sahra Wagenknecht has moved away from the radical critique of capitalism that she once advocated. Instead, she calls for a return to the original principles of social market economy, as established in the mid-20th century in the tradition of the German ordo-liberalism by Walter Eucken, Wilhelm Röpke and Ludwig Erhard (Wagenknecht Citation2012). The BSW itself has so far only published its political positions in a few short, largely identical position papers (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht Citation2024a; Citation2024b; Citation2024c). In these papers, it calls for state intervention in the economy, investment in infrastructure and the fight against social inequalities. This also includes elements of economic nationalism, such as the announcement of greater support for ‘innovative domestic companies’ and the rejection of ‘billions in subsidies for foreign corporations’ (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht Citation2024a, 2).
In terms of the socio-cultural dimension of political orientations, Wagenknecht has been a sharp critic of the so called ‘wokeism’ and liberal migration policies for years (Wagenknecht Citation2021). Similar positions are taken by the BSW – for instance, calling for immigration to be limited and complaining about ‘cancel culture, pressure to conform and an increasing narrowing of the spectrum of opinion’ in Germany (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht Citation2024a, 4). Due to this combination of economically left-leaning and culturally conservative positions we assume that the supporters of the BSW are likely to be located in the left-conservative quadrant of the political spectrum (H1).
Moreover, Sahra Wagenknecht and the BSW also focus on foreign policy, particularly with a critical stance on NATO, calls for peace negotiations with Russia and an opposition to arms supplies to Ukraine (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht Citation2024a). Recent studies and the results of the European Parliament and German state elections of 2024 have shown that this can also be regarded as a relevant factor in explaining support for the new party (Thomeczek Citation2025b; Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023), even if it is unclear how opinions on foreign policy issues relate to people’s ideological positioning in a political space consisting of socio-economic and socio-cultural dimensions.
For all issues, however, Wagenknecht usually associates a political positioning with a certain rhetoric aimed at mobilising those who are dissatisfied with the current political elites and the political decisions of recent years (Gerster and Schuller Citation2024). The opening sentence of the short BSW programme already includes the populist claim that in Germany ‘the will of the majority has been disregarded for years’ and that a ‘revival of democratic decision-making’ is therefore necessary (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht Citation2024a, 1). This habitus is consistent with recent research showing that there was already a high level of dissatisfaction with democracy among Sahra Wagenknecht’s supporters in 2022 (Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023), while at the same time she is the (former) Die Linke member of parliament with the highest proportion of populist communication (Thomeczek Citation2025a).
The supposed link between BSW and populism is also in line with recent research, which has demonstrated that there is considerable potential for political discontent, disillusionment and populism across Europe on both sides of the political spectrum (Akkerman, Zaslove, and Spruyt Citation2017; Goovaerts et al. Citation2020; Hough and Keith Citation2019). Moreover, it is well established that the potential for disillusionment is further exacerbated when people feel that there is not an adequate supply of parties representing their own political positions (Brockington Citation2009; Castanho Silva and Wratil Citation2023; Schäfer and Debus Citation2018). For this reason, scholars have argued that during the last decades particularly individuals with a left-conservative orientation – even more so than right-conservatives – have turned away from politics, showing high levels of distrust towards political institutions, and a general dissatisfaction with democracy (Federico, Fisher, and Deason Citation2017; Hakhverdian and Schakel Citation2022; Hillen and Steiner Citation2020; Steiner and Hillen Citation2021). With regard to the BSW, it is therefore reasonable to assume that dissatisfaction with German democracy, mistrust in political institutions, and a strong populist sentiment are widespread among those who sympathise with the new party and intend to vote for it in the future (H2).
When assessing the electoral potential of a new party in Germany, it is also important to take into account possible differences between the country’s eastern and western parts. Although identification with established parties is generally declining, it is still lower in eastern Germany and the volatility of the party system is greater, making the emergence of new political challengers more likely (Arzheimer Citation2023; Dalton Citation2014; Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Vanhoutte Citation2012; Wagner Citation2023b). Moreover, since the 1990s, far-left parties such as the PDS and Die Linke have enjoyed significantly higher levels of support in eastern Germany than in western Germany, while at the same time these parties have shown pronounced conservative tendencies among their electorates in the new Länder (Heinze Citation2023; Hough and Keith Citation2019). In recent years, even parts of the AfD have increasingly sought to tap into this reservoir of voters by giving the party a profile that is more left in its socio-economic dimension, embracing ideas of economic nationalism and ‘solidarity patriotism’ (Beer Citation2023). Against this backdrop, we also consider possible differences between eastern and western Germany in our analysis and expect the support for the BSW, which presents itself as ‘economically left’ and ‘culturally conservative’, to be higher in the new Länder (H3).
Data and Method
To empirically assess our expectations, we make use of novel survey data from Germany. The sample is representative of the German population aged 18 and older with regard to gender, age, education and region. The survey was conducted during February 2024 through random probability sampling. It was collected by infas and consists to one third of telephone interviews (818 realised interviews) and two thirds of online interviews (2176 realised interviews). Overall, the sample contains 2989 observations. The respondents of the online interviews were recruited offline to prohibit self-selection into the survey. To capture respondent’s affinity towards a party, respondents were asked to rate how likely it is that they would ever vote for it. The list of parties included all relevant parties in Germany: CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, FDP, die Linke, AfD, Freie Wähler, and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). For each party, respondents were asked to place their propensity to vote for them on a scale from ‘−5 – very unlikely’ to ‘+5 – very likely’. The propensity to vote has become an established measure to find out about citizens’ attitudes toward parties (Paparo, de Sio, and Brady Citation2020).
As indicates, around 20 percent of the German population would potentially vote for the BSW. In eastern Germany almost one in three (31 percent) can imagine voting for BSW, compared to only 16 percent in the western parts. The average propensity to vote for the party across all regions is 3.73–3.51 in western Germany and 4.99 in the New Länder. It is interesting to note that four percent of the population in both eastern and western Germany are ‘very likely’ to vote for the BSW. Although the average propensity to vote for the BSW is much higher in eastern Germany, it appears that there is also a stable core of supporters in western Germany.
Figure 2. Propensity to vote for Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in the German population.
Note: Results are weighted according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region; missing values to 100 percent: don’t know and N/A.
To locate supporters of the BSW in the political landscape, we utilise two distinct scales. They draw on statements typically used in political science research, such as the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (Jolly et al. Citation2022). They are each summarised into an additive index and rescaled to range from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates the most economic left-leaning and culturally liberal stance, and 1 means an economic right and socio-culturally conservative position. On one hand, we employ a measure for economic left-right differentiation utilising three items querying respondents’ positions on the relationship between the state and the market, redistribution preferences, as well as support for the economic system. On the other hand, we estimate the respondents’ positions on a socio-cultural axis which delineates differences between liberal and conservative attitudes. Here, we also use three items measuring individual views on gay marriage, gender self-determination, and the role of national traditions and values. All items gauge the degree of agreement with each statement on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ (table SM2).Footnote2
Given that the BSW’s stance on foreign policy is also relevant for the party’s supporters (Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023), we have taken up this issue as well. However, as our data only included one very specific item on this topic, namely on Germany’s role in the Ukraine War (‘Germany should withdraw its support for Ukraine and seek friendly relations with Russia’), and as it is also unclear how such foreign policy preferences relate to people’s positions in a two-dimensional political space along a socio-economic left-right axis and along a cultural liberal-conservative axis, we could only address this issue as part of a robustness check.
To capture political alienation, we draw on three distinct, but closely related concepts: satisfaction with democracy, political trust, and populist attitudes.Footnote3 For political trust and populism we construct two additive indices, both of which consist of six items (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove Citation2014).Footnote4 All variable are rescaled to range from 0 to 1.
For our analyses, we use linear regression models (OLS). In all models, we control for age, gender, formal education, political interest and urbanicity of residence and include robust standard errors.
Findings
BSW Supporters in the Two-Dimensional Political Space
Following statements of party founder Sahra Wagenknecht (Wagenknecht Citation2021), speculations within the German public opinion (Köppchen Citation2024), and initial assessments of political science scholars (Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023; Wurthmann and Gerrits Citation2024), we assume that the BSW intends to occupy a political space in Germany that has so far remained largely vacant: the combination of socio-economically left-leaning with socio-culturally conservative positions. But are the potential BSW voters actually to be found in this left-conservative quadrant?
To answer this question, we calculate the average positions of the potential voters of each party in the two-dimensional space that is constituted by the socio-economic and socio-cultural dimensions. illustrates the results. They mirror the CHES assessment of the parties in 2019 as depicted in , which demonstrates the robustness of our measurements for the two axes. also shows that, on average, BSW supporters tend to hold socio-culturally conservative views (0.51), while at the same time taking socio-economically left positions (0.48). Even though these scores are close to the middle of our scale (0.5) on both dimensions, they can still be attributed to the left-conservative quadrant. On the one hand, the average position of BSW supporters is clearly in the conservative range of our sample, which has a weighted mean of 0.39 for cultural orientations. Compared to the average positions of the supporters of the SPD (0.32), the Greens (0.26) and the Linke (0.27), those of the BSW turn out to be much more culturally conservative, rather close to the scores of the CDU/CSU (0.48) and the FDP (0.43). In terms of socio-economic positions, on the other hand, the average positions of BSW supporters are in the left half of the scale, but correspond quite closely to the average views of the German population (0.47).
Figure 3. Potential voters and their placement in the two-dimensional political space.
Note: depicted are the average values for the two indexes measuring a socio-economic and a socio-cultural position; higher scores indicate socio-economic right and socio-cultural conservative positions; solid lines mark the middle of each scale, dashed lines represent the weighted mean of our sample.
To further scrutinise this initial result, we employ OLS regressions to examine the relationship between respondents’ economic and cultural left-right positions and their affinity for the BSW. The results indicate a strong significant relationship in both cases (). Respondents who are very conservative in the socio-cultural dimension (and received a 1 on the index) have an average score of 2.89 points higher on the eleven-point scale measuring the propensity to vote for the BSW than respondents who are very liberal (0 on the index). The result for the socio-economic scale is even stronger: respondents on the socio-economic left score an average of 3.62 points higher on the inclination to vote for the BSW than respondents on the right.
Table 1. Propensity to vote for BSW: Socio-economic and socio-cultural position.
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To compare both dimensions, a look at the standardised betas is informative. Here, an increase of one standard deviation (SD) on the economic left-right axis reduces the tendency to vote for BSW by 0.23 SD. For the cultural left-right axis, an increase of one point SD even changes the affinity for BSW by 0.25 SD. Our assumption that the BSW electorate is predominantly located in a left-conservative quadrant of the political space seems to be confirmed.Footnote5
To put this result in perspective, we regress the propensity to vote for other parties on socio-economic and socio-cultural position using the same model (table SM4). The differences compared to the BSW stand out significantly, as it is the only party in the German party system, which attracts voters with both, a socio-economically left stance and a socio-culturally conservative position. As such, on the one hand, regarding the socio-economic dimension, voters of the BSW align more with voters of SPD, Die Linke and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. On the other hand, with regard to the socio-cultural axis, potential BSW voters tend to be closer to supporters of AfD, Freie Wähler, FDP, and CDU/CSU ().
Figure 4. The relationship between socio-economic and socio-cultural positions and the propensity to vote for parties in the German party system (table SM4).
Discrepancies Between Eastern and Western Germany
All of our analyses have so far confirmed our initial hypothesis that, on average, BSW supporters tend to position themselves to the left on economic issues and to the conservative side on cultural issues. But does this categorisation actually apply to all regions of Germany? To find out, we map the different voters of the parties separately for eastern and western Germany in the two-dimensional political space along socio-economic and socio-cultural attitudes.
As shows, BSW supporters in the West position themselves on average rather in the centre, while in the East they tend to be slightly more conservative and significantly more left-wing in economic respect. Particularly noteworthy is also the different positioning of AfD supporters, as the greatest divergences between eastern and western Germany can be observed here. It appears that large segments of the party’s electorate in the East can also be classified as left-conservative.
Figure 5. Potential voters and their placement in the two-dimensional political space in eastern and western Germany.
Note: depicted are the average values for the two indexes measuring a socio-economic and a socio-cultural position; higher scores indicate socio-economic right and socio-cultural conservative positions; solid lines mark the middle of each scale, dashed lines represent the weighted mean of our sample.
illustrates the proportions involved here. According to our classification, a total of 19 percent of eastern Germans, but only 7 percent of western Germans, hold political attitudes that are clearly located in the left-conservative quadrant.Footnote6 Here too, the differences between the two region’s voter potentials prove to be quite substantial. Our initial assumption that eastern Germans tend to be more inclined to vote for BSW turns out to be valid (H2).
Figure 6. Shares of the German population according to their placement in the two-dimensional political space in eastern and western Germany (with socio-economic scores < 0.5 = ‘left’ and > 0.5 = ‘right’; socio-cultural scores < 0.5 = ‘liberal’ and > 0.5 = ‘conservative’; respondents with a score of exactly 0.5 are excluded from this figure).
To further illustrate these disparities between the two parts of the country, we repeat all regressions that were reported in the last chapter including an interaction term indicating whether a respondent lives in eastern or western Germany. The positive and significant coefficient of the dummy indicates that those living in the East have a higher propensity to vote for BSW. Holding all other variables constant at their means, the average propensity to vote for the party in western Germany is 2.97. In eastern Germany, it is 1.57Footnote7 points higher with a value of 4.54 (, model 1). Considering the 11-point scale, this is quite remarkable.
Table 2. Propensity to vote for BSW: Socio-economic and socio-cultural position in eastern and western Germany.
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Do eastern and western German voters also differ regarding the relationship between socio-economic and socio-cultural positions on the one hand and the propensity to vote for BSW on the other? depicts the statistically significant interaction between the dummy indicating respondents’ place of residence and their position on the two axes. Both orientations – leaning economically more to the left as well as being socio-culturally more conservative – are more strongly associated with the propensity to vote for BSW in eastern Germany. A change from fully liberal (0) to fully conservative (1) on the socio-cultural dimension is associated here with an increase of 3.66 points on the eleven-point scale indicating the propensity to vote BSW. For people living in western Germany, the propensity only increases by 2.25 points. This difference is even greater when it comes to the socio-economic position. Here, respondents living in eastern Germany with a very left position (0) on average have a stunning 5.48 points higher propensity to vote for the BSW than those with a very right position (1). For those living in the West the increase is only 2.93 points. Interestingly, among those on the far right in socio-economic terms, there is no longer any discernible difference between respondents from eastern and western Germany ().
Figure 7. The relationship between the propensity to vote BSW and socio-economic and socio-cultural position in eastern and western Germany ().
In summary, our results are consistent with the assumption that respondents living in eastern Germany tend to be more inclined to vote for BSW (H2). Additionally, the correlation between socio-economic and socio-cultural position and the propensity to vote for BSW differs between the regions. While a left-wing position on socio-economic issues and a conservative attitude in the socio-cultural dimension increases the affinity to the BSW in both eastern and western Germany, this effect is much more pronounced in the East.
Political Alienation and Propensity to Vote for BSW
Another factor that we suspect to determine BSW’s voter potential is what we describe as political alienation. It is presumed that part of the popularity of Sahra Wagenknecht and her party is due to frustration with political processes, institutions, and decision-makers (Gerster and Schuller Citation2024). Does the BSW therefore appeal to a politically dissatisfied electorate, as it is the case for the AfD (Schulte-Cloos and Leininger Citation2022)?
displays the results of our analysis. They show that people who are dissatisfied with democracy, mistrust political institutions, and have higher levels of populist attitudes are more likely to vote for the BSW. The relationship is not only significant but also remarkably strong. For instance, a decrease of one standard deviation in democratic satisfaction increases the propensity to vote for BSW by 0.18 standard deviation. Similar effects are observed for political trust and, with the opposite sign, for populist attitudes. illustrates that this relationship is consistent across all three measures of political alienation. When distinguishing the relationship between political alienation and BSW support in eastern and western Germany, the non-significant interaction terms indicate that there is no difference (, model 2).
Figure 8. The relationship between indicators of political alienation and the propensity to vote for BSW ().
Table 3. Propensity to vote for BSW: Political alienation.
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These results, again, confirm our initial assumption. The more politically disillusioned people are, i.e. the less confidence they have in German democracy, its institutions, and elites, the more likely they are to have sympathies for the BSW party. Moreover, a comparison between BSW supporters and those of other parties suggest that among all parties in Germany, only BSW and AfD – and to a lesser extent the Freie Wähler – are able to appeal to the potential of politically frustrated, disillusioned and alienated voter groups (table SM7).
What Determines BSW Support?
For a comprehensive assessment of the BSW’s voter potential, in the final step of our analysis, we ask how the factors examined so far relate to each other. Which political orientation is most decisive for an affinity with the BSW? To assess this, we test the correlation with all independent variables in a combined model. The results show that the robust and statistically significant relationship to all three indicators of political alienation remains. The BSW evidently generates particularly strong sympathies among people who are dissatisfied with democracy and more distrustful of political institutions and elites ().
Table 4. Propensity to vote for BSW: Full Model.
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Regarding the socio-economic and cultural dimensions, it is noticeable that respondents’ position regarding the socio-cultural dimension is much weaker than the socio-economic stance. This suggests that ultimately, it is primarily the economic left orientation that determines the likelihood of voting for the BSW.
Moreover, respondents who live in eastern Germany are on average much more willing to consider voting for the BSW (). If we also consider both regions separately here by including an interaction term between a dummy for place of living and the relevant independent variables, the results show that there is a discernible difference between the two regions only with regard to the socio-economic position. For respondents living in eastern Germany, the positive correlation between socio-economic left position and the propensity to vote for the BSW is stronger than for those in the west.
To compare the effect sizes of the relevant independent variables, we take a look at the standardised beta coefficients (). Here we can see that the socio-economic position with a standardised coefficient of −0.18 has the strongest impact on the propensity to vote BSW, followed by populist attitudes (0.16), democratic satisfaction (−0.15), political trust (−0.09), and the socio-cultural position (0.05).
Figure 9. The relationship between different explanatory factors and the propensity to vote BSW (, model 1).
Lastly, a comparison with the potential voters of the populist radical right AfD and the left-wing Die Linke reveals interesting differences (). First, with regard to political alienation it appears that potential BSW voters are much closer to potential AfD voters than to those of Die Linke. It seems that these are the parties that mobilise the politically dissatisfied and disillusioned, benefiting from their populist resentments towards the political elites. However, regarding the socio-economic position, potential BSW voters are much closer to supporters of the Linke than AfD.
Figure 10. The relationship between different explanatory factors and the propensity to vote BSW, AfD, and Die Linke (table SM8).
To further test the robustness of these results, we conduct a series of additional analyses. First, we include the individual items that make up the socio-economic and socio-cultural dimension without combining them into an index. Even with this variation, the overall results remain the same. With regard to the socio-cultural dimension, however, only the item that captures preferences regarding gender self-determination remains statistically significant (table SM9).
Second, regarding the socio-cultural axis, one could argue that also attitudes towards migration as well as the position on climate change is part of this dimension. To account for this, we re-run the regression analysis with an updated index that includes two additional items: ‘The migration of foreigners to Germany should be restricted’, and ‘The political measures to combat climate change in Germany already go much too far’. The overall results hold, but the socio-cultural dimension remains significant across all models (table SM12).
Third, we account for whether and to what extent our results are influenced by respondents’ foreign policy preferences. However, even when including an additional control variable asking respondents about their position on Germany’s role in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the results remain largely the same (table SM13).
Lastly, we introduce two alternative measures for our dependent variable. On the one hand, we utilise like-dislike scores for the BSW and re-run our models (table SM11), on the other hand, we dichotomise the propensity to vote for BSW and run a logistic regression model (table SM10). In both cases, the overall results remain the same.
Conclusion: The BSW and its Ambivalent Impact on the Political Landscape in Germany
In this paper we have assessed the electoral potential of the new Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party in Germany. First, we have confirmed the finding of other studies that there is indeed a significant voter potential in the left-wing conservative segment in Germany (Steiner and Hillen Citation2021; Wagner, Wurthmann, and Thomeczek Citation2023). However, it is much more pronounced in eastern Germany than in western Germany.
Second, our assumption that those who tend to vote for the BSW have, on average, left-oriented attitudes on economic issues and conservative views on cultural issues has proven to be correct, even if their average position on both dimensions is rather moderate and close to the centre of the political spectrum. However, compared to the actual political attitudes of the German population, the socio-cultural orientations of BSW supporters appear to be clearly on the conservative rather than the progressive side. They are far more conservative than the attitudes of supporters of the SPD, the Greens and the Linke, and more similar to those of the supporters of the CDU and the Freien Wähler. On the other hand, when comparing the two dimensions, we found that a socio-economic left orientation is more important for BSW support than a culturally conservative attitude. This suggests that support for the BSW in the German electorate may have less to do with socio-cultural issues than even Sahra Wagenknecht herself might assume (Wagenknecht Citation2021). At the very least, it suggests that many moderately conservative voters in Germany who are not economically left-leaning still tend to favour parties such as the CDU, while conversely a significant proportion of economically left-leaning voters support Sahra Wagenknecht’s party even if they do not have strong culturally conservative attitudes. Taken together, however, our findings do not allow us to conclusively assess the extent to which support for the BSW in Germany is driven by an economic or a cultural divide – especially since our analysis cannot establish causal relationships. Further research is needed to clarify this issue.
Third, our analysis has also revealed remarkable differences between the BSW supporter in eastern and western Germany. While they show a much greater ideological proximity to supporters of the populist radical right AfD in eastern Germany, potential BSW voters tend even more towards the centre of the political spectrum in western Germany, both in terms of their socio-economic and their socio-cultural positions. At the same time, AfD supporters turned out to be significantly more economically right-wing in the country’s western parts.
Fourth, we have found that apart from the AfD and – to a lesser extent – the Freie Wähler, only the BSW appeals to a political protest potential, i.e. those parts of the German electorate who are disappointed and frustrated by political processes, institutions, and decision-makers. This further intensifies the competition between the BSW and the AfD. By contrast, supporters of all other parties tend to be satisfied with democracy in Germany, tend to trust political institutions and reject populist reservations, including those of the Linke. In both parts of the country, there is a remarkable ideological distance between the supporters of Sahra Wagenknecht’s new and old political home, particularly in socio-cultural terms. As the September 2024 elections in the eastern German states showed, the Left has indeed lost a significant proportion of its left-wing conservative and anti-establishment voters to the BSW, more than halving its share of the vote in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg.
Fifth, if we assume that voters prefer parties that are as congruent as possible with their views (Downs Citation1957), then two different conclusions emerge from our study. On the one hand, the BSW is indeed competing with the AfD on the electoral market, meaning that it could well win over some politically disillusioned voter groups from the populist radical right AfD. However, these effects can only be expected to be regionally limited, as a comparison of the positions of supporters of all parties represented in the Bundestag reveals a different picture. It turns out that the supporters of the BSW are closest to the Social Democratic SPD in terms of their socio-economic left-right positioning, whereas they are closest to the CDU/CSU in terms of their socio-cultural orientation.
Consequently, if the BSW succeeds in establishing itself on the German electoral market, losses can be expected not only for the Linke and the AfD, but also for parties such as the SPD and the CDU. Based on our results, one could indeed argue that the attractiveness of the BSW for individual voter groups may depend on the specific electoral context and the salience of certain issues. When socio-economic issues are considered important, some conservative CDU supporters may switch to the BSW if they favour a more left-leaning economic policy. When socio-cultural issues are salient, the BSW could in turn gain votes from former supporters of SPD and Linke who prefer a more restrictive stance on migration, for example. Beyond these general considerations, however, our results do not allow us to assess where potential BSW voters come from.
In particular, the state elections in eastern Germany in September 2024 and the general election in 2025 have provided further insights here, which at first glance are broadly consistent with our findings, but need to be examined in more detail in future analyses. Furthermore, apart from a robustness check, positions on foreign policy and international security were not part of our analysis, even though there is much to suggest that they are important to BSW voters (Wurthmann and Wagner Citation2025). Future research on the political attitudes of BSW supporters should therefore take greater account of the influence of issues such as Germany’s support for Ukraine, the rearmament of the Bundeswehr, and the planned stationing of US long-range missiles in Germany.
Regarding the possible political role of the BSW, our results suggest that there is certain room for a cooperation between the BSW and parties such as the SPD and CDU. The relative ideological proximity of the supporters of these three parties makes such an alliance at least more plausible than a coalition between the CDU and the Linke. This was confirmed by the successful formation of SPD–BSW and CDU–SPD–BSW coalitions in Brandenburg and Thuringia in autumn 2024, even though no such alliance could ultimately be established in Saxony. In any case, however, our study shows that people in Germany, regardless of their specific socio-economic and socio-cultural positions, are significantly more likely to support Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party if they feel alienated from the country’s democratic system, institutions and elites. In this sense, the BSW could also be viewed as a new form of populism among parts of Germany’s moderate left and political centre, the implications of which for the country’s party system and political landscape remain to be seen.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
