 Backlash in policy attitudes after the election of an extreme political partyMagnus Carlsson, Gordon Dahl and Dan-Olof Rooth Journal of Public Economics, 2021, vol. 204, issue C Abstract: This paper studies how public attitudes towards reduced immigration, the signature policy of the far-right Sweden Democrats, respond once the party increases their political representation at the local level. To identify causal effects, we use panel data from 290 municipal election districts and compare otherwise similar elections where the Sweden Democrats either barely win or lose an additional seat. We estimate that a one seat increase for this far-right, anti-immigration party decreases negative attitudes towards immigration by 1.8 or 4.1 percentage points (depending on which national survey we use), contrary to the party’s policy position. Consistent with these attitudinal changes, we find suggestive evidence the Sweden Democrats lose the incumbency advantage experienced by other small parties in Sweden. Exploring possible mechanisms, we find evidence for higher politician turnover and a rise in negative newspaper coverage. These findings demonstrate that political representation can cause an attitudinal backlash as a fringe party and their ideas are placed under closer scrutiny. Keywords: Far-right parties; Immigration; Policy attitudes; Political backlash (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:204:y:2021:i:c:s0047272721001699 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104533 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.