Crime and Urban Politics

Cities in advanced democracies are seen as cosmopolitan strongholds of the left. I argue that crime can disrupt this pattern by enabling right-wing parties to compete for urban voters. Focusing on Germany, I show that concern about crime is higher in urban areas among both right- and left-wing voters. A text analysis of more than 35,000 Facebook ads indicates that the center right emphasizes crime more in cities, whereas left-wing parties devote little attention to the issue. I then show that this pattern translates into electoral advantages: neighborhood-level panel data from Berlin indicate that rising crime increases the center-right's vote share and reduces support for the Greens, while a conjoint experiment among voters in large German cities suggests that law-and-order positions can attract progressive voters to the center right. These findings suggest that the rightward shift in advanced democracies extends beyond rural areas to cities long regarded as progressive bastions.