Abstract
Immigration often causes backlash, to the benefit of anti-immigrant parties. Most studies that identify the effect of immigration on native attitudes and behaviors leverage variation in inflows of newcomers who are ethnically distinct from natives. Can we therefore conclude that backlash is the general consequence of exposure to large migration flows? We theorize co-ethnic migrants are not met with backlash and are even welcomed by partisans who are politically aligned with the immigrant group. To test this, we leverage a natural experiment in the exogenous allocation of ethnic Germans arriving from the former USSR to German counties between 1996 and 2006, avoiding bias related to selection effects. Analyses of panel data yield no evidence of increased anxiety over economic issues or crime typically associated with anti-migrant backlash in counties receiving more co-ethnic migrants. Instead, we observe a rise in native empathy for immigrants, conditional on partisanship. Furthermore, we find no anti-migrant electoral backlash. Counties receiving larger inflows saw gains for the CDU party which championed ethnic German migration. This suggests ethnicity and partisanship condition the extent to which local demographic change induces political backlash. Moreover, our case shows that, under certain circumstances, mainstream and pro-immigrant parties can derive significant short-term electoral benefits from immigration.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Political Behavior |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1413-1434 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| ISSN | 0190-9320 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2025 |
Keywords
- Backlash
- Elections
- Ethnicity
- Immigration
- Partisanship