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Does Immigration into Their Neighborhoods Incline Voters Toward the Extreme Right? The Case of the Freedom Party of Austria

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  • Martin Halla
  • Alexander F. Wagner
  • Josef Zweimüller

Abstract

This paper explores one potentially important channel through which immigration may drive support for extreme right-wing parties: the presence of immigrants in one’s neighborhood. We study the case of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, this party increased its share of votes from less than 5 percent in the early 1980s to 27 percent by the year 1999. Using past regional settlement patterns as a source of exogenous variation, we find a significantly positive effect of the residential proximity of immigrants on FPÖ votes, explaining roughly a quarter of the cross-community variance in FPÖ votes. It is the presence of low- and medium-skilled immigrants that drives this result; high-skilled immigrants have no (or even a negative) effect on FPÖ votes.

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  • Martin Halla & Alexander F. Wagner & Josef Zweimüller, 2012. "Does Immigration into Their Neighborhoods Incline Voters Toward the Extreme Right? The Case of the Freedom Party of Austria," Economics working papers 2012-05, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:econwp:2012_05
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    Cited by:

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    2. Christian Ochsner & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Migrating Extremists," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1135-1172.
    3. D’Ambrosio, Anna & Leombruni, Roberto & Razzolini, Tiziano, 2021. ""Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side". Electoral Results and the Workplace Safety of Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 14322, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati, 2020. "Welfare Chauvinism? Refugee Flows and Electoral Support for Populist‐Right Parties in Industrial Democracies," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1600-1626, July.
    5. Sekeris, Petros & Vasilakis, Chrysovalantis, 2016. "The Mediterranean Refugees Crisis and Extreme Right Parties: Evidence from Greece," MPRA Paper 72222, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Barone, Guglielmo & D'Ignazio, Alessio & de Blasio, Guido & Naticchioni, Paolo, 2016. "Mr. Rossi, Mr. Hu and politics. The role of immigration in shaping natives' voting behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-13.
    7. Ubarevi?ien?, R?ta & Burneika, Donatas & van Ham, Maarten, 2012. "Socio-Spatial Transformations, Suburbanisation, and Voting Behaviour in the Vilnius Urban Region," IZA Discussion Papers 7012, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Peri, Giovanni & Mayda, Anna Maria & Steingress, Walter, 2015. "Immigration to the U.S.: A problem for the Republicans or the Democrats?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11001, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Otto, Alkis Henri & Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2014. "Immigration and election outcomes — Evidence from city districts in Hamburg," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 67-79.
    10. Alexandra Avdeenko & Thomas Siedler, 2017. "Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(3), pages 768-800, July.
    11. Brunner, Beatrice & Kuhn, Andreas, 2014. "Immigration, Cultural Distance and Natives' Attitudes Towards Immigrants: Evidence from Swiss Voting Results," IZA Discussion Papers 8409, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya & Kelly, Grace, 2017. "Welfare Chauvinism? Refugee Flows and Electoral Support for Populist-right Parties in Industrial Democracies," MPRA Paper 81816, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Lewis S. Davis & Sumit S. Deole, 2015. "Immigration, Attitudes and the Rise of the Political Right: The Role of Cultural and Economic Concerns over Immigration," CESifo Working Paper Series 5680, CESifo.
    14. Hernan Winkler, 2019. "The effect of income inequality on political polarization: Evidence from European regions, 2002–2014," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 137-162, July.
    15. Barone, Guglielmo & D'Ignazio, Alessio & de Blasio, Guido & Naticchioni, Paolo, 2014. "Mr. Rossi, Mr. Hu and Politics: The Role of Immigration in Shaping Natives' Political Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 8228, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Pascal Jaupart, 2018. "Divided island: Haitian immigration and electoral outcomes in the Dominican Republic," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 951-999.
    17. World Bank, "undated". "Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, November 2016," World Bank Publications - Reports 25341, The World Bank Group.
    18. Dimiter Toshkov & Elitsa Kortenska, 2015. "Does Immigration Undermine Public Support for Integration in the European Union?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 910-925, July.
    19. Eugenio Levi & Rama Dasi Mariani & Fabrizio Patriarca, 2018. "What meets the eye: the effect of the presence of immigrants on personal attitudes to migrations in Europe," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 419-430.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; political economy; voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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