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the electoral payoff of immigration flows for anti-immigration parties: the case of Italy’s Lega Nord

European Political Science volume 17, pages 378–403 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine and quantify the relationship between regular immigration and voting for anti-immigration parties in Italy’s eight Northern regions – from 1992 to 2015 – and in Italy’s forty-five Northern provinces from 2004 to 2015. Firstly, we identified the Lega Nord as Italy’s main xenophobic party, then we used a fixed effects regression model for panel data to test our hypothesis, while controlling for a series of social, political and economic variables. Our results suggest that there is a positive and significant effect: an increase of 1 per cent in the number of new regular immigrants is associated with an increase of more than 2 per cent in the votes given to the Lega Nord; voter-turnout is significantly and negatively associated with Lega Nord’s vote-share, and a high perception of crime – but not actual crime – is positively associated with anti-immigration votes. At the provincial level, we also found a positive association between Muslim foreign population and Lega Nord’s vote-share. These results ought to be considered along with the fact that Northern Italy is highly representative of the wealthiest and most densely populated regions of Europe, suggesting the possibility that similar phenomena could be witnessed in other comparable contexts.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank co-editor Associate Professor Daniel Stockemer and the anonymous reviewers of EPS for their helpful comments on this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

    gabriele abbondanza

  2. Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

    francesco bailo

Authors
  1. gabriele abbondanza
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  2. francesco bailo
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Correspondence to gabriele abbondanza.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

ITANES survey questions

  • 1996: Is immigration the most or the second-most serious problem in Italy? (binary).

  • 2001: Do you consider immigration the most or the second-most important problem in Italy? (binary).

  • 2006: How much do you agree with the opinion that immigrants are a threat to our culture and our identity? (1 to 4 scale).

  • 2008: How much do you agree with the opinion that immigrants are a threat to our culture? (1 to 4 scale).

  • 2013: How much trust do you have in immigrants? (1 to 4 scale).

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abbondanza, g., bailo, f. the electoral payoff of immigration flows for anti-immigration parties: the case of Italy’s Lega Nord. Eur Polit Sci 17, 378–403 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-016-0097-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-016-0097-0

Keywords

  • euroscepticism and the European Union
  • far-right politics
  • political parties and electoral behaviour