The role of party identifications in radical right voting is underappreciated, especially concerning negative party identifications. After all, radical right parties are often perceived as enemies of liberal democracy, suggesting that opposition to such parties may become part of one's political identity.
Germany presents a likely case for finding such identities. The country has maintained a strong cordon sanitaire against far right parties for decades. However, this 'firewall' has recently come under pressure due to the rise of 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD), a party blurring the distinction between radical and extreme right.
Using a specially commissioned survey, I demonstrate that AfD holds a unique position in the German party system: an unusually large share of respondents claim they could never vote for AfD because they reject the party's worldview, and that disidentifying with AfD voters is important to their sense of self. This negative identification is primarily driven by rejection of AfD's core ideology — nativism and populism — and by support for minority protection as a core principle of (liberal) democracy. Gender, education, and religion also play important roles, although religion's influence is somewhat ambiguous. These relationships hold even when closeness to other political parties is controlled for.
These findings have significant implications, as such negative identifications represent a mass-level equivalent to the elite strategy of a cordon sanitaire. Whether these identifications will fade as a consequence of AfD's normalization and recent events challenging the 'firewall' or whether they will constrain the democratic parties and fuel the ongoing counter-mobilisation against AfD remains to be seen.