This article explains the divergent trajectories of anti-far-right mobilization in two German cities: the campaign against the extreme-right movement Pegida in Dresden and its offshoot, Legida, in Leipzig. Drawing on a comparative case study, we argue that the interplay of three city-specific features—namely, activist coalitions, the city’s political identity, and elite support—account for the strength and cohesion of the countermobilization in Leipzig compared to Dresden. Our findings extend the growing literature on civil-society opposition to far-right actors by emphasizing the fundamental relevance of place for understanding variations in anti-far-right resistance. Local city contexts—understood as self-reinforcing combinations of mobilization structures and subjective understandings of contentious action—enable, constrain, and form the course of countermobilization campaigns.
Author notes
* The authors would like to thank the participants of the ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop “How Protests and Counterprotests Interact” held in Toulouse in 2023 for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this article. We also thank two of the three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Mobilization for their constructive and insightful comments, which significantly enhanced the manuscript.