Left behind and voting right

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the Political Behaviour Colloquium features a presentation by Dani Sandu (Postdoctoral Researcher, TU Chemnitz).

Growing support for populist radical right (PRR) parties in rural areas, especially in post-communist societies, is most often attributed to authoritarian legacies, economic decline or social conservatism in these places. We propose a different but complementary explanation: population loss through domestic migration increases PRR vote shares, through several channels. First, because out-migrants are less likely to support PRR parties, their absence creates a compositional effect that increases local PRR vote shares. Second, population decline leads to tighter local budgets and deteriorating public services, which fuels political discontent that PRR parties capitalise on. Third, sudden large depopulation creates a breakdown of local social capital that loosens anti-PRR social norms. We focus on internal migration, which is qualitatively different from international migration as it is, first, much larger in size of migrating population than international migration, especially in large developed countries, second, significantly more difficult to control or mitigate through governmental policy and, third, significantly less politicised. We leverage the fall of the Berlin Wall as a migration shock affecting former East Germany, when 16 million East Germans were suddenly absolutely free to move to wealthier West Germany as a starting point. Using a unique aggregate-level administrative dataset, we show that districts with higher levels of net population change due to domestic migration register consistently higher electoral performance of the radical right, robust to various specifications and controls. We complement this analysis with individual-level panel data studies to clarify the mechanisms by tracking individuals over long periods of time. Our results show that although much attention has been paid to international migration as a driver of populist radical-right support, the success of PRR parties is largely associated with internal migration, an issue that has received much less attention.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration. If you would like to receive the paper, please contact PoliticalBehaviour.Colloquium@eui.eu.