Contextual Effects of Immigrant Presence on Populist Radical Right Support: Testing the “Halo Effect” on Front National Voting in France

• DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957677
• Author: Jocelyn Evans,Gilles Ivaldi
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• Date: 01 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

957677CPSXXX10.1177/0010414020957677Comparative Political StudiesEvans and Ivaldi
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Comparative Political Studies
2021, Vol. 54(5) 823 –854
Contextual Effects of
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Immigrant Presence on
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Populist Radical Right
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020957677
DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957677
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Support: Testing the
“Halo Effect” on Front
National Voting in
France
Jocelyn Evans1 and Gilles Ivaldi2
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between immigration and populist
radical right (PRR) support, based on an analysis of the contextual effects
of immigrant presence on Front National vote in France in 2017. Using a
unique set of survey data geolocalising respondents at the subcommunal
level, it finds evidence for the existence of a curvilinear “halo effect,” with
substantial increases in the probability of PRR vote in areas surrounding
communities with significantly higher-than-average immigrant populations,
and independent of other socio-economic context, as well as individual socio-
demographic characteristics. Most importantly, a path analysis confirms the
presence of individual attitudinal mediators of this halo effect on PRR vote,
thus testing the foundation of the halo, namely that the contextual effects
of immigrant presence act on attitudes which drive PRR support. These
findings provide a significant step forward in understanding the mechanisms
linking subjective experience of immigration with voting for the populist
radical right.
1University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
2Cevipof, Sciences Po, Paris, Île-de-France, France
Corresponding Author:
Jocelyn Evans, University of Leeds, POLIS, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: j.a.j.evans@leeds.ac.uk

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Comparative Political Studies 54(5)
Keywords
immigration, socioeconomic context, radical right vote, France, halo effect
Introduction
Research into the populist radical right (PRR) in Europe identifies immigra-
tion as a key issue for such parties (Mudde, 2007). While the relationship
between immigration and the radical right vote has been firmly established at
the level of individual attitudes (e.g., van der Brug et al., 2000; Van der Brug
& Van Spanje, 2009), there is still a need for a better understanding of how
the presence of immigrants may shape support for the radical right spatially.
The first ecological models looking at socio-economic conditions of PRR
support using a variety of operationalizations across countries found a strong
association between immigration and PRR vote (e.g., Jackman & Volpert,
1996). More recent work confirms that immigration has a significant and
robust effect on voting for the radical right at the meso-level (Georgiadou
et al., 2018). Multi-level tests have tended to confirm these findings (e.g.,
Berning, 2016).
The link between ecological and individual explanations of immigration on
PRR support implies causal links between immigrant presence, ethnocentric
attitudes, and PRR vote. Explanations of such links are generally based upon
the two principal social psychological theories of prejudice, namely ethnic
competition and intergroup contact (Allport, 1954; Quillian, 1995). According
to ethnic competition theory, symbolic perceptions of immigration-related
threats may increase anti-immigrant sentiments, thus fuelling support for the
radical right. Contact theory postulates that, under conditions of high-quality
contact, intergroup contact with immigrants may reduce prejudice, and by
extension, the contemporary literature expects that this will decrease support
for PRR parties. Empirically, however, the recent literature on the relationship
between immigrant presence, immigration attitudes and voting for the PRR
illustrates the complexity of the mechanisms at play, showing mixed results
according to scale of measurement and/or immigration proxy, and notably fail-
ing to account fully for why high levels of support for the PRR may be found
in local areas with low or virtually no immigrant presence.
Combining insights from both contact and ethnic competition theories,
this paper seeks to examine further the link between immigration and the
radical right, and to resolve somewhat the puzzle of PRR support in areas of
low immigrant presence. Specifically, we build on the concept of “halo
effect” developed by earlier contextual studies of the PRR vote to account
spatially for the phenomenon of higher levels of PRR electoral support in
areas adjacent to and at further distance from zones of high immigrant

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Evans and Ivaldi
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population, but lower in those “migrant” areas themselves (Bon & Cheylan,
1988; Bowyer, 2008; Rydgren & Ruth, 2013).
In its original formulation, the halo theory postulates that individuals liv-
ing adjacent to ethnically diverse areas experience sporadic contact with
immigrants through daily commuting and retail activities, but lack quality
contact and therefore will be more likely to perceive those groups as a threat,
resulting in higher support for the PRR. In contrast, individuals living in
areas with high immigrant presence experience quality intergroup contact
which reduces their prejudice and in turn their propensity to vote for the PRR
(Perrineau, 1998). By linking context with attitudes and behavior, the concept
of halo potentially provides new insights into the mechanisms underpinning
the contextual effects of immigration on voting for the PRR. However, the
majority of tests of the halo effect to date have relied exclusively upon quali-
tative accounts and/or ecological inference, mapping areas of migrant popu-
lation and PRR support. A link to individual behavior, let alone to individual
attitudes, has only been tested recently (David et al., 2018; Janssen et al.,
2019; Klinger et al., 2017; Savelkoul et al., 2017), not yet in the French case,
and not systematically in terms of halo effect.
This paper fills this empirical gap by focusing on individual behavior, and
the effect of local context on this, to understand better the presence of a
mechanism between immigrant presence and PRR support. Drawing on a
unique set of geocoded data from a survey of French voters, we present a first
test of the halo effect at both the ecological and individual level, using a
series of multi-level models to test for evidence of such an effect on the vote
for the Front National (FN) in the first-round of the 2017 French presidential
election. The first section discusses the concept of halo in relation to existing
theories of ethnic contact and competition. We then turn to describing the
survey and methodology, before we present our main findings. We find evi-
dence for a significant curvilinear halo effect at the individual level, among
voters living around and at further distance from areas with significantly
higher-than-average immigrant populations. A series of alternative specifica-
tions confirm that this effect is robust to different model specifications and as
far as these can be tested, to competing theories such as ethnic change and
residential segregation, as well as the regional composition of the immigrant
population in respondents’ neighborhoods. Moreover, the halo is independent
of the general socio-economic context in which voters live, tested by unem-
ployment and education levels, as well as socio-demographic voter attributes.
Most importantly, a path analysis confirms the presence of halo effects on
associated individual attitudes related to PRR voting, thus providing a sig-
nificant step forward in understanding the mechanisms linking subjective
experience of immigration with radical right vote.

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Comparative Political Studies 54(5)
Immigration and the Populist Radical Right Vote
The voluminous body of research on the PRR vote has established a strong
link between immigration and support for the radical right. Typically, PRR
parties formulate a nativist platform framing immigration as a threat to the
welfare and cultural fabric of Western societies (Mudde, 2007). In individual
vote choice models, opposition to immigration has been identified over time
as one of the main attitudinal drivers of support common to these parties’
otherwise diverse voters (Ivarsflaten, 2008; Oesch & Rennwald, 2018; van
der Brug et al., 2000; Van der Brug & Van Spanje, 2009; Zhirkov, 2014).
Earlier ecological studies have found a strong relationship between immigra-
tion and PRR voting (Georgiadou et al., 2018; Golder, 2003; Jackman &
Volpert, 1996; Knigge, 1998). Multi-level tests have confirmed the role of
anti-immigration attitudes as one of the main drivers of the PRR vote
(Arzheimer, 2009; Berning, 2016; Edo et al., 2019; Lubbers et al., 2002).
Explanations of such links between immigrant presence, ethnocentric atti-
tudes, and PRR vote are generally based upon mechanisms derived from
social psychological theories of prejudice, most notably conflicting theories
of intergroup contact, on the one hand, and ethnic competition, on the other
hand. The former draws upon Allport’s contact theory (1954) which hypoth-
esizes that, under certain specific conditions, the existence of significant
cooperative interactions with minority groups will produce a reduction in
ethnic prejudice and stereotyping of members of these groups, and therefore
a decrease in support for the PRR. Similar research stresses the importance of
such personalized interactions, intergroup friendships (Pettigrew, 1998) and
“acquaintance...