Populism and propagation of far-right extremism

Under which conditions does populist success propagate far-right extremism? This paperexamines how an information shock about the acceptance of xenophobic positions spurs anincrease in far-right protests in more liberal areas in Germany. Using staggered state electionsbetween 2014 and 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment and leveraging novel data, I showthat far-right protests are unleashed in more liberal areas which were ''shocked'' by thesurprising state-level results of the newly emerging right-wing populist AfD party (''Alternativefur Deutschland''). The effect is sizeable, but depends on surprise. When success of the populistparty is severely underestimated, a municipality with a populist vote share 10 percentage pointsbelow state average faces a roughly 30 percent increase of the mean likelihood of an additionalfar-right protest. The effect materializes only after the rightward shift of the AfD and vanisheswhen polling institutions correctly estimate the populist party's success.