Immigration, Attitudes and the Rise of the Political Right: The Role of Cultural and Economic Concerns Over Immigration

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. With the rise of the far-right parties in the European parliamentary elections, concerns over immigration and national identity have again come into the limelight. In this paper, we document the empirical relationships between immigration, native concerns over the economic and cultural impact of immigration, and the rise of rightwing political parties in Europe. Empirical analysis first establishes the critical and distinct roles played by economic and cultural concerns over immigration in determining citizen's rightward ideology and voting for rightwing parties. Second, we investigate the determinants of economic and cultural concerns over immigration, finding strong and consistent evidence for the salience hypothesis, which suggests that immigrant share of a country's population shapes citizen concerns over immigration. Thereafter, we document the roles of macro-level economic and cultural channels in determining the strength of salience effects. Finally, we investigate how the characteristics of the immigrant population affect native concerns over immigration. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Codes: D720, F220, Z130.

The dynamic relations between economic conditions and anti-immigrant sentiment: A natural experiment in times of the European economic crisis

“…1 Previous studies suggest that the economic crisis has not necessarily resulted on average in more negative attitudes toward immigrants across European countries (Davis and Deole 2015;Hatton 2014aHatton , 2014bZiller 2014). This could be attributed to the fact that in some countries attitudes became more positive and in others more negative.…”

“…Along this line of logic, researchers contend that not only individual-level characteristics (e.g. sociodemographic and economic attributes) but also a country’s economic conditions are predictive of anti-immigrant attitudes (Blalock, 1967; Coenders et al, 2004; Davis and Deole, 2015; Gorodzeisky, 2011; Kunovich, 2004; Lahav, 2004; Meuleman et al, 2009; Pichler, 2010; Quillian, 1995, 1996; Scheepers et al, 2002; Semyonov et al, 2006). The studies we cited above advance the argument that bad and unfavorable economic conditions increase economic competition.…”

A Path Toward Inclusive Social Cohesion: The Role of European and National Identity on Contesting vs. Accepting European Migration Policies in Portugal

“…The 2008 crisis and the intense immigration inflow increased cultural and economic security concerns, fueling the debate on free movement, national security, border control, and EU and national migration policies ( Wodak and Boukala, 2015 ). Some political leaders potentiated public contestation against migrants, leading to the surge of new support to right-wing parties across Europe ( Volkan and Fouler, 2009 ; Davis and Deole, 2017 ). The intensification of the migratory flow was proceeded by the rise of Euroscepticism, populist rhetoric, and right-wing leaders with strong anti-immigration positions across Europe ( Torreblanca and Leonard, 2013 ; Dennison and Dražanová, 2018 ; Ruedin and van Heerden, 2018 ).…”

An introduction to the economics of immigration in OECD countries

“…Studies by Hainmuller and Hiscox (2007), Hainmuller et al. (2015) and Davis and Deole (2015) all confirm that the labour market competition hypothesis is not the main determining factor in attitudes towards immigration. Rather, a large component of the link between education and attitudes toward immigrants is driven by differences in cultural values.…”