Alarm signal from the heart of youth: The Backlash Barometer of the Allianz Foundation
The second "Next Generations" study develops a new early warning system for anti-democratic tendencies – with disturbing findings on nostalgia, exclusion and willingness to use violence
In summer 2025, the SINUS Institute, commissioned by the Allianz Foundation, surveyed a total of 8,508 young people and young adults aged between 16 and 39 in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain. A central instrument of this second edition is the so-called Backlash Barometer – a newly developed measuring tool that systematically records the extent to which anti-democratic and nostalgic attitudes are prevalent among European youth.
Backlash is defined as a political strategy that uses nostalgia to restore a supposedly better past societal state – even if it involves hatred and violence. The barometer measures this affinity along four dimensions. Almost half of young Europeans (47 percent) feel politically overlooked. An average of 43 percent harbor nostalgic feelings for an idealized past. 28 percent favor regressive societal ideas with restored gender roles and marginalized minorities. A full 10 percent openly approve of online hate, illegal protest actions, and even violence against people in political office – if those who at least partially agree with these actions are included, the proportion rises to 21 percent.
On the subject of discrimination, the study reveals a paradoxical picture. Particularly surprising is that among respondents with a migration background, the level of concern regarding discrimination due to origin tends to be low – which means that fewer people are also engaged in this issue. 28 percent of young people in Germany long for a "yesterday" with less immigration, traditional gender roles, and less engagement with German history.
Study director Simon Morris-Lange warns that this segment of young people questions the achievements of democracy – their hatred of dissenters and their approval of political violence are breeding grounds for radical movements that fuel social division.
