Economic Decline and Extreme‐Right Electoral Threat: How District‐Level Factors Shape the Legislative Debate on Immigration

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12215
• Author: Eitan Tzelgov,Petrus Olander
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Published date: 01 November 2018

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 43, 4, November 2018

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12215

EITAN TZELGOV

University of East Anglia

PETRUS OLANDER

University of Gothenburg

Economic Decline and Extreme-Right

Electoral Threat: How District-Level

Factors Shape the Legislative Debate

on Immigration

This research examines the degree to which legislators respond to their

districts by analyzing immigration-related legislative speeches from the Swedish

parliament (2005–16). Using a text-scaling method, we find that the immigra-

tion discourse fluctuates between “socioeconomic responsibility” and “cultural

difference” poles. We argue that socioeconomic declines and extreme-right party

success serve as an indication to MPs that there is demand for “cultural differ-

ence” rhetoric on immigration. Our statistical analyses support the argument and

demonstrate that district-level economic declines can lead to an increase in the

salience of cultural framing of migrants, especially in districts with a higher share

of foreign residents. We also find that district-level extreme-right electoral suc-

cess has a significant influence on legislative immigration discourse. Overall, the

results have implications for studies of legislative texts, dyadic representation, and

the impact of the populist right on legislative politics in Europe.

Politicians don’t often cry in public. A nd yet, in November

2015, the Swedish Deputy P rime Min ister, heading a pro-

immigr ation governing coalition, broke into tears as she was

describi ng new, restrictive imm igration policie s. She then

rationalize d this policy U-tu rn by claiming it was a necess ary

step to respond to the di fficu lties members of her pa rty were

facing at the local level. To us, this memorable press conference

demonstrates the deg ree to which leg islators are always required

to respond to the information reported from the ir constituenc ies.

This responsiveness is espe cially impor tant during pe riods

of systemic shocks suc h as the imm igration crisis fac ed by

© 2018 Washing ton University in St. Louis

650 Eitan Tzelgov and Petrus Olander

European countrie s over the last few years. These p eriods

provide a favorable political-opportun ity structu re for political

entrepreneurs (Arzheimer and Cart er 2006; Kitschelt 1986) who

try to use cr ises to reshape the politic al agenda to their advantage.

In these cas es, mainstream politician s use available inform ation

regarding socia l, economic, and ele ctoral conditions to make

costly decisions a s to which issues to address and what positions

to take on these issu es (Borghetto and Russo 2018; Klüver and

Sagarzazu 2015).

But what factors affect the abil ity of mainstream politicians

to respond to voters’ preference s? And what information do they

rely on to learn about those preferen ces? Previous studies have

pointed to aspe cts such as past ele ctoral results, economic condi-

tions, government part icipation, mainstr eam/niche st atus, party

size, family, and ideologic al positioning relative to newcome rs

and promoters of new issues (Adams, Ezrow, and Glasgow 2004;

Adams and Somer-Topcu 2009; Greene 2016; Green-Pedersen

2007). While ther e is evidence of parties respond ing to voter pref-

erences on the nationa l-party level, we know less about the re -

sponsiveness that exi sts at the district level.

Most studies approach the topic of resp onsiveness by ana-

lyzing election ma nifestos or party press releas es. This model ing

approach is lacking on two fronts. First, by focusi ng on election

campaigns, the r esearch neg lects the dyna mic during the l ife of

the legislature. Se cond, analysis of par ty documents do es not

take into account divergences across leg islators. However, since

legislators take into ac count district-level factors as they decide

whether and how to address an is sue or a political newcome r, we

believe it is essenti al to incorporate these factors i nto the analysis.

The approach taken here is th erefore to analyze t he MP-distr ict

nexus. We focus on responsiveness in t he context of immig ration

politics. Beyond its cur rent impact on global and national poli-

tics, we believe i mmigration is of utter importanc e to broad theo-

retical debates i n the study of party str ategy and responsiveness.

First, the issue is cha llenging for politica l elites, sinc e it does not

map well onto established ide ological dime nsions, and may lead to

party factional ism, splits, and pa rty-system rea lignments (B enoit

and Laver 2007; Bornschier 2010b; Green-Pedersen and Krogst rup

2008; Kriesi et a l. 2008). Second, the mag nitude of migration waves

provides an improved politica l-opportun ity structure for political

entrepreneurs (Arzheimer and Cart er 2006; Kitschelt 1986). Third,

as Van der Brug and van Spanje (2009) argue, there is a demand for