Does Immigration into Their Neighborhoods Incline Voters Toward the Extreme Right? The Case of the Freedom Party of Austria

Martin Halla, Alexander Wagner and Josef Zweimüller ()

No 6575, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper explores one potentially important channel through which immigration may drive support for extreme right-wing parties: the presence of immigrants in one's neighborhood. We study the case of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, this party increased its share of votes from less than 5 percent in the early 1980s to 27 percent by the year 1999. Using past regional settlement patterns as a source of exogenous variation, we find a significantly positive effect of the residential proximity of immigrants on FPÖ votes, explaining roughly a quarter of the cross-community variance in FPÖ votes. It is the presence of low- and medium-skilled immigrants that drives this result; high-skilled immigrants have no (or even a negative) effect on FPÖ votes.

Keywords: immigration; voting; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published - revised version published as 'Immigration and Voting for the Far Right' in: Journal of the European Economic Association, 2017, 15 (6), 1341-1385,

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Related works:
Working Paper: Does Immigration into Their Neighborhoods Incline Voters Toward the Extreme Right? The Case of the Freedom Party of Austria (2012)
Working Paper: Does Immigration into Their Neighborhoods Incline Voters Toward the Extreme Right? The Case of the Freedom Party of Austria (2012)
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