THE EDUCATION DIVIDE BEHIND THE POLITICAL RIGHT AND FAR RIGHT

There is a question that Western democracies increasingly need to confront, even if it is politically uncomfortable:

Why does the political right — and particularly the radical and far right — consistently attract a disproportionately large share of voters with lower levels of formal education?

The question becomes even more interesting when Germany, the United States and Italy are examined together.

The AfD in Germany, Donald Trump’s political movement in the United States, and the Italian right led by Fratelli d’Italia represent different political traditions. They cannot simply be placed in the same category. Yet their electorates display an important common characteristic: education has become a major political dividing line.

That does not mean that right-wing voters are stupid.

It does not mean that university graduates are intelligent.

And it certainly does not mean that political preferences can be explained by IQ.

The more serious question is whether lower educational attainment and weaker functional skills can increase vulnerability to political narratives that transform complex economic, social and geopolitical problems into simple explanations and simple enemies.

That is a much more important question for democracy.

GERMANY: THE AFD AND THE EDUCATIONAL DIVIDE

Germany provides one of the clearest examples.

The AfD has developed from a Eurosceptic protest party into a powerful radical-right force. Its electoral support is particularly significant among voters with lower levels of education.

Research on the German electorate has repeatedly identified education as an important dividing line.

The important point is not simply that some AfD voters have less education. The deeper issue is that the probability of supporting the AfD changes significantly across educational groups.

Research on the changing AfD electorate has found that voters with low or medium levels of education have become increasingly more likely to support the party than highly educated voters.

This is not merely an economic story.

The AfD is not simply a party of unemployed people or people living in poverty.

Its electorate includes employees, skilled workers, self-employed people and members of the middle class.

This is precisely why the simplistic explanation — “far-right voters are poor and uneducated” — fails.

The more sophisticated interpretation is:

lower educational attainment + economic insecurity + perceived loss of status + distrust of institutions + cultural anxiety = increased probability of radical-right voting.

Education therefore matters not because a degree makes somebody morally or intellectually superior, but because education is strongly connected to the ability to process complex information, evaluate competing explanations and navigate institutional complexity.

The OECD’s PIAAC 2023 survey provides an important background.

In Germany, 22% of adults aged 16–65 scored at Level 1 or below in literacy, compared with an OECD average of 26%. The same percentage — 22% — scored at or below Level 1 in adaptive problem solving. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

At the other end of the distribution, 14% of German adults reached Levels 4–5 in literacy, while 8% reached Level 4 in adaptive problem solving. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

These numbers do not tell us who votes AfD.

They tell us something different and fundamental: the ability of citizens to understand complex information is not evenly distributed throughout society.

And politics increasingly depends on precisely that ability.

THE UNITED STATES: TRUMP AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE OLD EDUCATIONAL COALITION

The United States offers perhaps the clearest example of education becoming a political identity.

In the 2024 presidential election, 67% of Trump voters did not have a four-year college degree. Among Harris voters, 51% did not have a college degree. (Pew Research Center⁠)

The voting gap was even more striking.

Voters with a four-year college degree or more supported Harris by approximately 16 percentage points, while voters without a college degree supported Trump by approximately 14 points. (Pew Research Center⁠)

Among white voters, the educational divide was particularly pronounced: white voters without a college degree were approximately 20 points more likely to support Trump than white voters with a four-year degree. (Pew Research Center⁠)

This is one of the most important transformations in modern American politics.

The Republican Party was once strongly associated with business elites, professionals and highly educated economic conservatives.

Trump’s political coalition has added another powerful constituency:

the non-college electorate.

But again, the word “uneducated” is misleading.

A person without a university degree may have exceptional practical intelligence, entrepreneurial ability, technical expertise or political awareness.

The correct distinction is therefore not:

educated versus stupid.

It is:

different forms of education, knowledge, information processing and social experience.

The OECD’s PIAAC data show that 28% of American adults scored at or below Level 1 in literacy, while 32% scored at or below Level 1 in adaptive problem solving. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

In numeracy, the figure was approximately 34%. (OECD⁠)

These are large numbers.

But they must not be misrepresented.

They describe the American adult population, not Trump voters.

There is no scientifically valid basis for claiming that 32% of Trump voters have poor problem-solving abilities.

That would be an analytical error.

What we can say is that the United States contains a large population with limited functional skills, while the political coalition supporting Trump is disproportionately non-college educated.

That intersection deserves investigation.

ITALY: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION IS EVEN MORE SERIOUS

Italy presents an especially interesting case because the country’s educational and functional-skill profile is weaker than that of Germany and the United States in several important measures.

The CISE analysis of the 2022 Italian election found a significant relationship between education and support for Fratelli d’Italia.

According to CISE, less-educated voters were significantly more likely to vote for FdI, while the party’s core electorate was nevertheless strongly rooted in the middle class. (cise⁠)

This is an important distinction.

The Italian right cannot simply be described as the political expression of poverty.

It is better understood as a coalition combining:

• lower educational attainment;

• sections of the middle class;

• economic insecurity;

• cultural conservatism;

• distrust of political elites;

• nationalism;

• immigration concerns;

• frustration with institutions.

The Italian data on functional skills are even more striking.

According to the OECD’s 2023 Survey of Adult Skills, 35% of Italian adults aged 16–65 scored at or below Level 1 in literacy. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

In numeracy, the figure was also approximately 35%. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

But the most striking indicator is adaptive problem solving.

45.6% of Italian adults scored at or below Level 1.

Italy ranked 28th out of 31 countries in average adaptive problem-solving performance, while 45.6% at or below Level 1 placed Italy third-highest among the participating countries. (OECD Education GPS⁠)

This is a major structural problem.

And it is not a problem belonging to the right.

It is a problem belonging to Italy.

It affects the entire political system.

WHAT DOES “FUNCTIONAL INTELLIGENCE” ACTUALLY MEAN?

This is where political discussion frequently becomes intellectually careless.

There is no reliable scientific database that measures the IQ of AfD voters, Trump voters or Meloni voters.

Nor should intelligence be reduced to IQ.

A much more useful concept is functional cognitive capacity.

Can a person:

• understand a long and complex text?

• interpret a graph?

• distinguish percentage from percentage points?

• understand compound interest?

• identify a causal fallacy?

• recognize manipulated statistics?

• compare competing explanations?

• evaluate whether a political promise is economically realistic?

• update their opinion when new evidence appears?

• distinguish correlation from causation?

These abilities are directly relevant to democratic citizenship.

The OECD defines literacy as the ability to access, understand, evaluate and reflect on written texts in order to achieve goals, develop knowledge and participate in society.

That last phrase is crucial:

participate in society.

Functional literacy is not merely an educational issue.

It is a democratic issue.

THE DANGEROUS SIMPLIFICATION

The easiest political conclusion is:

“Right-wing voters are ignorant.”

It is also the weakest conclusion.

It creates contempt rather than understanding.

The more serious hypothesis is:

people with weaker educational and functional skills may, under certain conditions, be more vulnerable to political narratives that simplify complex reality.

This does not mean they will necessarily vote right.

Low functional skills can exist among voters of every political orientation.

Nor does education automatically protect people from propaganda.

Highly educated people can believe extraordinary nonsense.

History provides countless examples of highly educated societies embracing authoritarianism, nationalism and political extremism.

Education is therefore not a vaccine against irrationality.

But it can increase the tools available for evaluating complexity.

WHY SIMPLE POLITICAL NARRATIVES WORK

Modern politics increasingly rewards simplification.

Inflation becomes:

“The government is stealing your money.”

Immigration becomes:

“Immigrants are the reason wages are falling.”

Globalization becomes:

“Foreign countries are taking our jobs.”

Climate policy becomes:

“Elites want to control your life.”

European integration becomes:

“Brussels controls everything.”

Economic inequality becomes:

“The establishment is corrupt.”

Some of these statements may contain elements of truth.

The problem is the transformation of a multidimensional problem into a single cause.

Complex economic outcomes usually have multiple causes.

Inflation can involve monetary policy, fiscal policy, energy prices, supply constraints, wages, expectations and geopolitical shocks.

Unemployment can involve technology, productivity, trade, taxation, education and demographics.

Migration involves labour markets, demographics, public services, asylum policy, security and international inequality.

But political communication has discovered something extremely powerful:

complexity is difficult to sell; simplicity is emotionally efficient.

THE REAL DIVIDE IS NOT LEFT VS RIGHT

The emerging divide may be more profound:

high-information citizens versus low-information citizens.

Not necessarily rich versus poor.

Not necessarily educated versus uneducated.

And certainly not intelligent versus stupid.

The new political divide increasingly concerns the ability to process complexity.

This creates a dangerous paradox.

Democracies need citizens capable of understanding increasingly complex systems.

Yet political communication increasingly rewards messages that eliminate complexity.

The result is an asymmetry:

the more complex reality becomes, the greater the political reward for simplifying it.

GERMANY, THE UNITED STATES AND ITALY: THREE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME PROBLEM

Germany has relatively strong adult functional skills, yet the AfD has successfully mobilized voters with lower educational attainment.

The United States combines a very strong higher-education sector with a large non-college electorate that has become central to Trump’s coalition.

Italy faces the deepest structural problem in functional skills among the three countries examined here.

The OECD figures are particularly revealing:

Literacy at or below Level 1

Germany: 22%

United States: 28%

Italy: 35%

Adaptive problem solving at or below Level 1

Germany: 22%

United States: 32%

Italy: 45.6%

(OECD Education GPS⁠)

These figures do not tell us which party people vote for.

But they tell us something about the cognitive environment in which democratic politics operates.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE CONCLUSION

The politically fashionable statement is:

“The far right is the party of ignorant people.”

That statement is too crude.

The more defensible statement is much more uncomfortable:

Radical-right movements have demonstrated a particular ability to mobilize citizens with lower educational attainment, especially where lower education intersects with economic insecurity, cultural anxiety, perceived status loss and distrust of institutions.

That does not make those voters inferior.

It tells us that a democratic system has failed if large numbers of citizens feel that complex institutions no longer speak their language.

The answer cannot be contempt.

The answer must be education.

Not education understood simply as university degrees.

But education as the ability to:

read, calculate, question, compare, verify, reason and change one’s mind.

Because the ultimate defence against political manipulation is not a particular political ideology.

It is cognitive independence.

And a democracy whose citizens cannot independently evaluate political claims becomes vulnerable to whoever is most successful at turning complexity into fear.

That is the real educational divide.

And it may become one of the defining political conflicts of the 21st century.

Sources

OECD, Survey of Adult Skills 2023 / PIAAC; Pew Research Center, Detailed demographic profiles of Trump and Harris voters in 2024; Pew Research Center, Voting patterns in the 2024 election; CISE-LUISS, L’identikit degli elettori italiani 2022; academic research on the changing AfD electorate.

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