Immigrants as the ‘Antagonists’? Populism, Negative Emotions and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Ecuador

Abstract

Given the increasing migration inflows in Ecuador in recent years, both the ruling government and the opposition, as well as a part of the public opinion, have expressed concerns about the very presence of certain foreign residents, occasionally portraying them as the ‘antagonist’ by natives. Considering this context of rising anxiety for Ecuadorians over immigrants of certain nationalities, particularly Colombians, Cubans and Venezuelans, we focus in this chapter on emotions and the political psychology of the voter. This is to explore to what extent Ecuadorian voters’ emotional underpinning and anti-immigrant attitudes are associated with their populist and elitist attitudes. Using individual-level data and structural equation modelling to unpack the nexus between different negative emotions, attitudes and prospective electoral behaviour, our results report that populist attitudes significantly lead to higher immigrant attitudes and are also positively correlated to electorally supporting a populist radical left-wing candidate. Furthermore, having negative emotions – predominantly anger and distrust – towards some foreign residents increases the probability of depicting anti-immigrant attitudes and voting for populist choices.