Video: policy brief on immigration, local decline, and anti-immigrant backlash

Does local decline drive the radical right vote? Are recent immigrants and other minorities blamed for problems that have nothing to do with them? And, most importantly, how should policymaker address these problems?

Update
The German chunk of this research now forms the base of an open access journal article. Click on the DOI to read it!

  • Arzheimer, Kai and Theresa Bernemann. “‘Place’ Does Matter for Populist Radical Right Sentiment, but How? Evidence from Germany.” European Political Science Review (2023): 1-20. doi:10.1017/S1755773923000279
    [BibTeX] [Abstract] [HTML]

    The notion of ‘place’ has become a central concern in research on the populist radical right (PRR), but scholars seem to have different things in mind when talking about how geography affects individual political attitudes. In our paper, we therefore aim to structure the debate on the impact of place and to understand exactly how place affects PRR attitudes (nativism, right-wing authoritarianism, and populism). Conceptually, we identify four potentially relevant aspects of ‘place’ that underpin much of the current literature: place-related attitudes (localism and resentment), place-specific living conditions, socio-demographic composition, and characteristics unique to a particular place, i.e., its local history and culture. We also discuss how these aspects are related and how they may interact. Empirically, we assess the relative importance of these four aspects of place for PRR sentiment in Germany, a country that is particularly well suited to this type of analysis. Using fine-grained geocoded survey data collected prior to the 2017 election, we find that (1) there is considerable spatial variation and clustering in PRR attitudes, (2) a place’s socio-demographic composition and (3) place resentment account for much of this, while (4) localism has weaker effects. We find (5) no relevant interaction between localism and place resentment, (6) no substantial evidence that mediation through place-related attitudes leads to an underestimation of the other aspects, and (7) no evidence for effects of the unique culture or history of the places we studied. Moreover, (8) location in the former GDR still has a substantial impact, whereas (9) other place-specific conditions (deprivation, demographic decline, migration, rurality) that could be addressed by policy interventions have no or rather weak effects. We conclude that PRR sentiment in ‘places that don’t matter’ results also, though by no means exclusively, from a lack of recognition.

    @Article{arzheimer-bernemann-2023,
    author = {Arzheimer, Kai and Bernemann, Theresa},
    title = {'Place' Does Matter for Populist Radical Right Sentiment, but How?
    Evidence from Germany},
    journal = {European Political Science Review},
    year = 2023,
    pages = {1-20},
    abstract = {The notion of 'place' has become a central concern in research on
    the populist radical right (PRR), but scholars seem to have
    different things in mind when talking about how geography affects
    individual political attitudes. In our paper, we therefore aim to
    structure the debate on the impact of place and to understand
    exactly how place affects PRR attitudes (nativism, right-wing
    authoritarianism, and populism). Conceptually, we identify four
    potentially relevant aspects of 'place' that underpin much of the
    current literature: place-related attitudes (localism and
    resentment), place-specific living conditions, socio-demographic
    composition, and characteristics unique to a particular place,
    i.e., its local history and culture. We also discuss how these
    aspects are related and how they may interact. Empirically, we
    assess the relative importance of these four aspects of place for
    PRR sentiment in Germany, a country that is particularly well
    suited to this type of analysis. Using fine-grained geocoded survey
    data collected prior to the 2017 election, we find that (1) there
    is considerable spatial variation and clustering in PRR attitudes,
    (2) a place's socio-demographic composition and (3) place
    resentment account for much of this, while (4) localism has weaker
    effects. We find (5) no relevant interaction between localism and
    place resentment, (6) no substantial evidence that mediation
    through place-related attitudes leads to an underestimation of the
    other aspects, and (7) no evidence for effects of the unique
    culture or history of the places we studied. Moreover, (8) location
    in the former GDR still has a substantial impact, whereas (9) other
    place-specific conditions (deprivation, demographic decline,
    migration, rurality) that could be addressed by policy
    interventions have no or rather weak effects. We conclude that PRR
    sentiment in 'places that don't matter' results also, though by no
    means exclusively, from a lack of recognition.},
    html = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-political-science-review/article/place-does-matter-for-populist-radical-right-sentiment-but-how-evidence-from-germany/7C639AAC5F6B1BC2F6324F7D57136827},
    pdf = {https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/7C639AAC5F6B1BC2F6324F7D57136827/S1755773923000279a.pdf/place-does-matter-for-populist-radical-right-sentiment-but-how-evidence-from-germany.pdf},
    doi = {10.1017/S1755773923000279}
    }

My colleague Sarah De Lange presents and discusses headline findings from our SCoRE project at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. Also on the panel are Jolanda Jetten (University of Queensland), who looks at these questions from a social psychology perspective, Marie De Somer, who is Head of the European Migration and Diversity programme at the European Policy Centre, and Judith Sargentini, who is an MEP for GroenLinks.

The full policy brief including our main findings and recommendations is freely available from our website.

[button url=”https://www.score.uni-mainz.de/files/2019/02/ORA-policy-brief-for-EPC-long1.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#c8232b” size=”20″ center=”yes”]Get the full policy brief[/button]

1 thought on “Video: policy brief on immigration, local decline, and anti-immigrant backlash”

  1. Small hint: Text inserts need at least 2 times the time to read as to be spoken. Either reduce number of inserts or double the lenght of the video.
    However, thank for publishing the brief!

    Reply

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