“The mother of all political problems?” On asylum seekers and elections
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Date
2020
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Abstract
As immigration to Europe has increased, so has support for extremist parties. While many studies
have examined the effect of immigration on election outcomes, few have probed the effect of asylum
seekers – those fleeing strife and persecution – on voting, nor has there been much research on the
mediating role of local economic conditions. Drawing on county level panel data from Germany, our
study fills both gaps. We find that economic circumstances, as measured by the unemployment rate
and the level of disposable income, condition voters’ responses to the presence of asylum seekers, but
the effects for parties on the far right and left diverge markedly. Under economic prosperity, immigration
increases support on both sides of the political spectrum. As economic conditions worsen,
however, the effect of asylum seekers on the vote share for the far right remains stable, but weakens
for the left, eventually becoming negative. This divergence – which has not yet been reported in the
literature – suggests that an influx of asylum seekers, particularly when coupled with an economic
downturn, could tilt a political system rightwards. From a policy perspective, these results suggest
that heterogeneity arising from local economic conditions has important implications for the regional
allocation of asylum seekers.
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Keywords
asylum seekers, fractional response, voting outcomes, immigration