Understanding Rural (Dis)Content
Methodological Approach for the Project ‘Social and Political Consequences of Spatial Inequality‘
Thünen Working Paper 270. DOI:10.3220/253-2025-53
Susann Bischof, Franziska Lengerer, Larissa Deppisch, Anja Decker, Ludmiła Dobrovolná Władyniak, Michał Konopski, Anna Grzelak, Aliaksandra Sidarava, Josef Bernard, Andreas Klärner
The prevailing socio-economic disparities within numerous European nations are becoming increasingly pronounced. However, our understanding of their social and political implications, particularly with respect to the rise of populism and the sentiment of being ‘left behind’, remains limited. The project, titled ‘Social and Political Consequences of Spatial Inequalities: A Case Study of Central-Eastern Europe’ (SPC Spatial) aims to address these issues through empirical verification, international comparison, a focus on East-Central Europe, and a mixed-method approach. This Working Paper is part of the project’s qualitative work package, which specifically targets the perceptions and perspectives of people living in disadvantaged regions. It aims to understand how different age and income groups perceive their local living conditions and how this shapes their future prospects and their relationship to politics. To enhance the transparency of our research, this methodological working paper presents in detail our basic methodological assumptions and the empirical approach, which includes expert interviews, focus groups, the use of visual stimuli, and a thematic analysis of the data.
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Discontent and Disadvantage in Left-Behind Places: Regional Effects on EU-Trust and Status Attainment in Europe
Sociologia Ruralis, Volume 65, Issue 2, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.70001
Josef Bernard
Debates on "left-behind" places, rural resentment, and spatial disadvantage suggest that political discontent often arises from perceived inequalities between regions, particularly along the urban–rural divide. The popularity of this argument is reinforced by frequent mapping of electoral outcomes, which commonly reveals a spatial correlation: increased support for Euroscepticism and populism tends to coincide with rural peripherality, population decline, economic and health challenges, and broader forms of social disadvantage.
This paper contributes to the debate by distinguishing between regional attitudinal effects and the effects of social mobility. It proposes a multidimensional framework for understanding regional left-behindness and demonstrates that regional effects do not operate uniformly across different national contexts.
Drawing on data from the European Values Study, the analysis examines how intergenerational educational mobility and distrust in the European Union are shaped by regional disadvantage across Europe. The findings indicate that these effects are generally weak and vary considerably. While distrust in the EU is more strongly associated with patterns of regional growth, low educational mobility appears to be more influenced by the limited economic prospects typically found in rural areas. However, the strength and nature of these relationships differ markedly across countries.
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Spatial Inequalities and Electoral Preferences in Central Europe
GEOgraphia, vol: 27, n. 58, 2025
Jerzy Bański, Mariusz Kowalski, Josef Bernard, Tomáš Kostelecký, Larissa Deppisch, Andreas Klärner
The study examines the electoral implications of spatial polarization in Poland, the Czech Republic, and eastern Germany. It focuses on the voting behavior of residents in selected disadvantaged regions within these countries, exploring the factors that influence such behavior. In Germany and the Czech Republic, the analysis reveals that support for populist parties is notably higher in the peripheralized regions studied, while it remains low in more dynamically developing areas. There is no single political force that consistently capitalizes on voter discontent in these lagging regions. Instead, the forces that emerge tend to vary depending on the specific cultural and socioeconomic conditions, ranging from right-wing to left-wing, or even centrist. In Poland, support for populist parties in disadvantaged regions mirrors the levels found in wealthier areas. However, political differences in Poland are more pronounced along the conservatism-liberalism axis.
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Left-behind Regions in Poland, Germany, Czechia: Classification and Electoral Implications
Thünen Working Paper 261
Josef Bernard, Martin Refisch, Anna Grzelak, Jerzy Banski, Larissa Deppisch, Michal Konopski, Tomáš Kostelecký, Mariusz Kowalski, Andreas Klärner
The paper proposes an approach to measuring regional left-behindness and explores how it explains voting
patterns. Thus, the paper is motivated by the seminal arguments of the 'geography of discontent' debate.
Its proponents have argued that rising support for populist, right-wing nationalist-conservative and anti-
system parties is often closely linked to spatial patterns of regional inequality. This argument has been
repeatedly tested in Western European countries, but has remained under-researched in Central Eastern
Europe. Using our approach, we were able to confirm the validity of the "geography of discontent" as a
central thesis for all three countries studied.
The novelty and added value of this study is that it extends the understanding of left-behindness and voting.
Our multidimensional approach to left-behindness allows for a comprehensive interpretation of spatial
patterns of populist voting in Central Eastern Europe. The relationship between regional left-behindness
and voting behaviour varies in strength across different countries. In Czechia, there are strong associations
for the parties ANO and SPD, but not for the KSČM. In eastern Germany, the association between left-
behindness and support for the AfD is weaker, as is the case in Poland for the PiS.
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Urban newcomers as candidates in rural municipal elections: Explorations in the political dimension of lifestyle migration
Journal of Rural Studies, Volume 115, April 2025, 103571
Anja Decker
The lived experience and the transformative effects of urban-to-rural lifestyle migration are key research interests of rural studies, but we know little about what happens when urban dwellers make use of their local voting rights after relocating to rural areas. The paper presents insights from ethnographic explorations in a peripherialized rural region of Czechia in which social and spatial disadvantages intersect. Using an agency framework to bring the scholarship of lifestyle migration into conversation with the literature on transforming modes of political participation, the paper investigates how lifestyle migration affects the subjective perceptions and practical enactment of political agency among both lifestyle migrants and other rural residents.
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Left-behind regions in the European Union: Conceptualisation – Operationalisation – Classification
Thünen Working Paper 260
Josef Bernard, Martin Refisch, Tomáš Kostelecký, Anna Grzelak, Michał Konopski, Andreas Klärner
The joint Czech-Polish-German team paper focuses on left-behind regions in the EU. In the methodological part of the working paper we present a new conceptualisation and operationalisation of left-behind regions in EU countries. For this we analysed a total of 918 regions across 25 countries using indicators related to economic viability, social structure, and population development from 1993 to 2021.
Our empirical analysis highlights how the nature of “left-behindness” varies across Europe, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe. In these regions, left-behindness is closely tied to regional disadvantages, characterized by low economic prosperity, reduced social status, and higher poverty rates. These areas often experience stagnation or shrinkage, with non-metropolitan regions being particularly affected, possibly due to poorer infrastructure. In other parts of Europe, the different dimensions of left-behindness are less coherently associated and do not form clear spatial patterns.
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Nierówności przestrzenne a geografia niezadowolenia. Przykład preferencji wyborczych na obszarach problemowych w Polsce [Spatial inequalities and the geography of discontent. Examples of voting preferences in problem areas of Poland].
Przegląd Geograficzny 95(4), pp. 421-446, DOI:10.7163/PrzG.2023.4.4
Jerzy Bański, Mariusz Kowalski, Michał Konopski
The consequences of spatial inequalities pose a threat to social cohesion as well as contribute to injustice and marginalization, potentially leading to political divisions. A reflection of social discontent is the growing importance of populist and protest parties directed against the establishment. This paper addresses the issue of socio-economic spatial inequalities on a regional scale and the resulting geography of discontent among communities that feel “left behind.”
The analysis focuses on political preferences by comparing two electoral districts located in problem areas—characterized by delayed urbanization (Chełm district) and post-transformation shock (Koszalin district). The results of the last four parliamentary elections (2011, 2015, 2019, 2023) were examined. These outcomes were contrasted with nationwide political orientations and with those of one of the most elite—presumably the least populist—localities in Poland (the Poznań district). On this basis, the thesis that populations in problem areas have more populist voting preferences can be confirmed.
However, populism does not always represent a specific ideology along the left-right axis and shows the potential to attract voters in both conservative and more progressive local communities. Ideologically distinct parties, both right- and left-wing, achieved comparable or even higher results than the national average in both types of disadvantaged communities. Meanwhile, mainstream parties, recognizing the potential of populist movements, have adapted their electoral programs to compete for the votes of discontented communities in the “left-behind” areas.
You can read the paper here.