The Refugee Crisis and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from the Italian Dispersal Policy

The Political Assimilation of Immigrants: Migrant-to-Native Differences in Western Europe

“…Over the past 20 years, immigration has been one of the most controversial issues in European politics, all the more since the so-called 2016 refugee crisis sparked new interest in the matter. In the last few years, European countries have witnessed drastic political changes: Voters in receiving countries have responded to the immigrant influx by increasing their support for right-wing nationalist parties that promote stronger anti-immigrant platforms (Campo et al, 2021;Otto and Steinhardt, 2014;Barone et al, 2016;Dustmann et al, 2019;Becker and Fetzer, 2016;Halla et al, 2017). Against this backdrop, many scholars believe that growing opposition to immigration is mainly driven by anxiety over cultural change, 1 ethnic diversity or weakened social norms (Card et al, 2012;Harmon, 2018;Mendez and Cutillas, 2014;Dustmann and Preston, 2007;Hopkins, 2014-2015;Tabellini, 2020).…”

Geographies of Discontent: Public Service Deprivation and the Rise of the Far Right in Italy

“…Far-right parties have proven particularly effective at mobilizing cultural fears and prejudice in these contexts (Dancygier & Laitin, 2014;Dinas et al, 2019;Dustmann et al, 2019;Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2015;Halla et al, 2017)(cf. Schaub et al, 2021, especially in Italy, which we study here (Campo et al, 2021;Devillanova, 2021). A growing body of work also shows that anti-immigrant sentiment thrives in contexts where natives perceive to be competing with non-natives over state-provided resources and how worries about this type of competition electorally favors far-right parties (Cavaille & Ferwerda, 2022;Gennaro, 2022).…”

“…While our argument about how public service deprivation helps us understand geographical patterns in far-right support, we do not suggest that it is the root cause of the electoral success of far-right parties. The literature thus far has made important strides in showing how large-scale economic developments (e.g., Autor et al, 2016;Colantone & Stanig, 2018Emmenegger et al, 2012;Gingrich, 2019;Im et al, 2019;Kurer & Gallego, 2019;Margalit, 2011;Rodrik, 2016) and distinct patterns in the mobility of people (e.g., Bratsberg et al, 2021;Campo et al, 2021;Dancygier et al, 2022;Dinas et al, 2019;Dustmann et al, 2019;Maxwell, 2019Maxwell, , 2020Riaz et al, 2021;Schaub et al, 2021) -or the combination of both (Patana, 2020) -coincides with higher support for far-right parties. What we argue here is that the geographical concentration of both economic decline and foreign-born population coincides with distinct patterns of access to public services at the local level.…”

The Migration Crisis in the Local News: Evidence from the French-Italian Border

“…The empirical findings show that there is this ambivalence in the case of Upper Austria. Campo et al (2021) explore the effects of the Italian refugee crisis on voting for anti-immigrant parties within the Italian context. Focusing on the national dispersal policy, strongly reinforced in 2014 by the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the authors find that anti-migrant voting, as measured by the difference between 2018 and 2013 election outcomes, concentrates in municipalities that hosted migrant centers.…”

“…These events inflamed the public debate both nationally and at the EU level, leading to viral attention in the media discourse (Chouliaraki et al, 2017). 1 Several scholars attributed the widespread success of populist, anti-immigrant parties in various EU countries to the direct exposure of natives to the presence of, or proximity to, migrant inflows (Campo et al, 2021;Edo et al, 2019;Otto and Steinhardt, 2014). Moreover, the role of media has been identified as an important mechanism of diffusion and persuasion of attitudes and expressed political preferences (Bratti et al, 2020;DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007;Djourelova, 2020;Gentzkow, 2006).…”