This article explores the relational and moral aspects of the perception of class structure and class identifications by young people in objectively vulnerable labour market conditions in Poland and Germany. Drawing on 123 biographical interviews with young people in both countries, it demonstrates that young precarious Poles and Germans tend to identify themselves against the ‘middle class’ – understood variously in the two countries – and attribute the sources of economic wealth and social status in their societies to individual merits and entrepreneurship. Positioning oneself in the broad middle and limited identification with the precariat is explained by the youth transition phase, country-specific devaluation of class discourses and the effects of individualisation.

This article explores the selected cases of the biographies of right-wing supporters from a larger sample of narrative interviews with young (18-35 years old) people in Poland and Germany. In the existing literature, we can find the socio-economic explanations of the sources of the right-wing turn (related to economic deprivation, precarisation, social exclusion, labor market competition with immigrants and others), as well as cultural explanations connected with new identity politics, symbolic exclusion and divide between society and political elites, the disembedding from previously solid communities, and the fear of new risks related to the inflow of cultural Others. Despite notable exceptions, it is rather uncommon to discuss in this context the actual biographical experiences of right-wing and far-right supporters. In the article, we take a closer look at four biographical cases of people declaring their political support for far right parties. The analysis of the cases leads to the distinction of socio-economic and socio-political pathways to right-wing populist support.

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