Alexander GAULAND, AfD party chairman at the AfD Federal Party Congress 2018, Augsburg, Germany. Oryk Haist/Sven Simon/Press Association. All rights reserved.
Among political analysts, it has for a long time been commonsense to highlight the importance of individual leaders’ public appeal. In an extreme form, the likes of Jörg Haider or Jean-Marie Le Pen were even portrayed as the main causes of their party’s success. Importantly, social scientists are pointing to the limits of such perspectives: on average, radical right leaders do not matter more for voting choice than the front runners of other parties.
