The Political Geography of Immigration Attitudes and Populist Voting

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Many Western democracies have witnessed a considerable rise in anti-immigration attitudes and populist right voting in recent years. Within these countries, however, there are notable local and regional disparities among places where anti-immigration sentiments and voting are high. Accordingly, this panel examines the sources of within-country variation in support for populist right parties, restrictionist policies, and nativist attitudes in advanced industrial democracies. Specifically, it focuses on the connections between (im)migration, place and receptiveness towards populist right-wing, anti-immigration rhetoric. Leveraging political, social and demographic developments in the United States and Western Europe, the four papers in this panel identify key mechanisms that generate distinct geographic patterns of reactionary attitudes and “radical” political behaviour.

For example, utilizing panel data from Germany, Rahsaan Maxwell finds strong evidence of demographic compositional effects to explain the geographic clustering of pro-immigration attitudes and preferences in ethnically diverse big cities. Yalidy Matos, in turn, draws on analyses of Trump’s and Clinton’s campaign speeches and the American National Elections Studies’ (ANES) 2016 time-series data to illuminate the ways in which “groupness” and the psychological need to belong explain Trump’s popularity in rural and suburban America, and how his support extends far beyond the white working class. Yamil Velez, meanwhile, stresses how recent changes in the American residential landscape contribute to the heightened tensions between the native-born and immigrants, and underscores the central role that residential mobility constraints play in explaining nativist attitudes and hostility towards local ethnic change in the United States. Finally, with individual- and local-level evidence from Finland and France, Pauliina Patana shows that the populist right performs well in areas where access to economic opportunities and basic services are restricted and among residents who have limited geographical mobility and means of reacting to changes in their communities. Taken together, the papers deepen understanding of the considerable urban-rural divides in populist right voting and attitudes. Moreover, they also shed light on the notable disconnections between the objective salience of ethnic diversity and economic conditions and the localities in which they are most strongly contested.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 52: Migration and Citizenship

Individual Presentations

• The Psychology of Populist Voting: Race and Immigration in the 2016 US Election - Yalidy M. Matos, Rutgers University

• Why Are Ethnically-Diverse Big City Neighborhoods so Pro-Immigration? - Rahsaan Maxwell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Residential Constraints, (Im)mobility and Support for the Populist Radical Right - Pauliina Patana, Cornell University

• Fight or Flight: Contested Communities in an Age of Immigration - Yamil Velez, Columbia University

Chair

• Katherine J Cramer University of Wisconsin, Madison

Discussant

• James G. Gimpel University of Maryland, College Park