How Right-Wing Populists Win Over Vulnerable Workers—and Why Institutions Matter

Context. Technological change is producing labor-market polarization worldwide, but how that economic shift translates into partisan polarization remains underexplored. This paper asks why and how right-wing populist parties and leaders have been able to attract workers who face routine-job loss or automation risk, including voters who previously supported mainstream left parties, and how electoral institutions shape those dynamics.

Research Question. The author investigates the political-economic mechanisms linking labor-market vulnerability to vote switching toward right-wing populists, and examines how majoritarian multidistrict and multiparty proportional systems mediate these processes.

Theory. The paper develops a formal model that identifies the channels by which right-wing populists appeal to three groups: routine workers, workers exposed to automation risk, and former supporters of mainstream left parties. The model maps how outsider candidates and parties adjust messaging and coalition strategies under different electoral rules, producing distinct pathways to political-economic polarization in majoritarian versus proportional settings.

Data and Methods. The empirical strategy focuses primarily on the United States and Germany and combines two complementary approaches:

• Individual-level vote-switching data to track which voter groups defect to right-wing populists.
• Textual analysis of campaign speeches and party manifestos to infer campaign messaging and targeting strategies used by populist actors.

The design links observed voter flows to the content and targeting choices predicted by the model, allowing a test of the proposed mechanisms across institutional contexts.

Key Findings. The evidence is consistent with the theoretical account:

• Voter-switching analyses indicate that routine workers and workers exposed to automation risk are disproportionately represented among those moving toward right-wing populist options, including defections from mainstream left parties.
• Content-based measures show that right-wing populists tailor messages to economic anxiety and cultural grievance themes and target these communications to electorally relevant groups.
• Institutional context matters: the form of coalition-building and the emphasis of appeals differ in majoritarian versus proportional systems in ways the model predicts, affecting how political-economic polarization unfolds.

Implications. By linking labor-market processes, party strategy, and electoral rules, the paper clarifies mechanisms behind recent partisan realignments and offers empirical leverage for debates about polarization, party strategy, and policy responses to automation-induced disruption.