Abstract
A number of studies examine the effect of the presence of migrants or refugees on voting behaviour in the same location, overlooking potential interactions between geographical areas. Exploiting unique data on refugee reception centre locations, we provide novel empirical evidence on the geographical spillover effect of refugee premises on voting outcomes in neighbouring municipalities. Our analysis of the 2016 referendum and the 2013 and 2018 general elections demonstrates that proximity to refugee reception centres increases voter turnout and the share of votes for populist parties in Italy, while reducing support for the centre-left. Importantly, the effect varies by municipality population size, per capita taxable income level, former political orientation, and access to broadband internet. Consistent with the hypothesis that opposition parties might have exploited anti-immigration sentiments to influence both referendum and general election ballots, we find that geographical proximity to refugee centres partly contributes to the recent success of populist parties in Italy.
Highlights
In 2016 the arrival of over one million unauthorised migrants put a strain on the European asylum system creating reactions in public opinion and concern among politicians
We report the coefficient of ‘No Turnout’ in the first column since we deem it informative to evaluate how proximity to a refugee centre affects voter turnout and how the casted votes are distributed across the remaining voting outcomes, namely ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Invalid’ votes
The empirical findings are in line with the results obtained for the share of ‘No’ votes in the referendum consultation, suggesting that the 5Star voters might have been affected by proximity to refugee centres in the referendum
Summary
In 2016 the arrival of over one million unauthorised migrants put a strain on the European asylum system creating reactions in public opinion and concern among politicians. Recent empirical contributions reveal that large refugee and immigrant inflows play an important role in shaping the success of populist and right-wing parties and reducing the support for governments in power, especially when they promote open policies towards immigration (Altındağ and Kaushal, 2020; Dustmann et al, 2019; Dinas et al, 2019; Fisunoğlu and Sert, 2019; Vasilakis, 2018) These studies mainly focus on the relationship between the presence of migrants or refugees and voting behaviour in the same location, disregarding any interaction between geographical areas, and relying on the assumption that refugee inflows do not affect voting behaviour in non-hosting municipalities..
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