The "Right" Migrants: Party Determinants of Immigrant Support for the Far Right

• In Event: New Approaches to the Study of Populism and the Far Right

Abstract

Far-right nativist parties (FRNP) are staunchly anti-immigrant, drawing much of their support from citizens with similar anti-immigrant attitudes. Yet despite their virulently nativist rhetoric, FRNP still enjoy considerable support from voters with immigration backgrounds. We address this puzzle by examining how parties can attract immigrant background voters through the strategic use of party rhetoric. In particular, we argue that FRNP which disaggregate immigration by origin--as opposed to general opposition--can provide immigrants the ability to view themselves as the 'right' immigrant, thereby increasing the probability of their vote. Using evidence from a novel dataset of hand-coded party manifestos and individual European Social Survey data (2001-2021), we find immigrant voters are significantly more likely to vote for FRNP using origin-based language. Moreover, this pattern is unique to origin-based language, as opposed to other immigration flow distinctions. Further, we show that this pattern appears unique to far-right parties, as center-right parties gain no electoral benefits when disaggregating by origin. Finally, we employ sentiment analysis to show that parties who use more negative language towards immigrants suffer no penalty among immigrant background voters. These findings thus add significantly to our understanding of how FRNP attract the same voters who they rhetorically denigrate.

Authors

• James Fahey, University of Memphis

• Hannah Marie Alarian, University of Florida