Roxanne Cooper
June 9, 2024
THE CONVERSATION
Photo by Joshua Kettle on Unsplash
Earlier this spring, the European Parliament voted to overhaul its immigration policy to more evenly distribute responsibility among member states for managing the arrival of migrants and asylum-seekers.
Lurking in the details of the agreement, however, are provisions allowing for payments to third countries to block the entry of asylum-seekers to Europe – and, more ominously, preliminary plans for mass deportations.
Clearly, the EU’s dominant parties hear the footsteps of the anti-immigrant, populist right-wing parties, which are expected to make significant inroads in the EU Parliament elections June 6-9, 2024, and seek to reduce their appeal with stricter limits to those permitted to settle in Europe.
The idea of recapturing voters by appearing tough on immigration is attractive to established parties, but, as scholars of comparative politics and political behavior, we believe that this strategy won’t return many votes.
Younger voters leaving the countryside
While it is commonly held that the electoral success of far-right parties is due to a backlash against newcomers, all this focus on immigration obscures another potent force behind this trend: emigration, or the movement of people out of a region or country.
In a recently published study, our research team found a relationship between out-migration from counties and an increase in votes for populist radical right parties in 28 European countries during the mid-2010s.
People gather to protest the far-right Alternative for Germany party and right-wing extremism in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on Jan. 20, 2024. The sign reads ‘Never again 1933,’ a reference to the year the Nazis came to power. AP Photo/Michael Probst
Out-migration follows a familiar trend across the globe. As countries transition to postindustrial economies, younger generations leave the countryside and small towns for larger metropolitan areas seeking better educational and career opportunities. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in Spain, which has lost 28% of its rural population in the past 50 years. Facing similar declines, Italy recently resorted to paying people to move to its emptying villages.
Counties across the United States are also witnessing precipitous population loss due to a combination of low fertility and out-migration.
But while many people are aware of the economic ramifications this population flight creates, its impact on voters has been explored far less.
Rise of Sweden’s radical right
The case of Sweden illustrates how out-migration can benefit radical right populists. From 2000 to 2020, the country’s immigrant population increased from 11% to nearly 20%. During this time, over half of all Swedish municipalities experienced population decline as people moved to the country’s major cities of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg.
Long dominated by centrist and center-left politics, Sweden is also witnessing a remarkable partisan shift.
The country’s oldest and largest party, the Social Democratic Party, has seen a gradual decline in popularity. Meanwhile, the populist, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, once considered a fringe group with a fascist past, have made significant gains and now hold a fifth of the seats in the national Parliament.
As a result, the country is now governed by a center-right minority coalition that depends on the support of the radical right populists.
While immigration is a key political issue for the Sweden Democrats, our research found growing support for the party in areas relatively unaffected by immigration. In fact, looking at elections over two decades, we found that it was in municipalities that lost population that the radical right was able to score big gains.
What’s more, local immigration was much less of a factor behind this success compared with local out-migration. Tracking five election cycles, we found a persistent gain of half a percentage point in vote share for the Sweden Democrats for every 1% loss in local population – a significant pace over the long term.
Political leanings in depopulating regions
Two key forces explain these dynamics. First, as many studies have shown, the people who move from the periphery to urban areas are more likely to lean left. With their departure, the remaining pool of voters naturally contains a greater proportion of conservatives than before. But composition of the electorate is only part of the story.
Two key forces explain these dynamics. First, as many studies have shown, the people who move from the periphery to urban areas are more likely to lean left. With their departure, the remaining pool of voters naturally contains a greater proportion of conservatives than before. But composition of the electorate is only part of the story.
People walk past election posters for the Swedish Social Democrats ahead of European elections in Stockholm on May 20, 2024.
Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images
The political leanings of voters in depopulating regions also changed, from center-left to populist right. Here, emigration played a key role. As communities lose more and more of their working-age population, they experience a decline in public services – due both to dwindling numbers and a shrinking tax base. As a result, schools and hospitals are shuttered, public transportation is cut and local businesses close.
Along with these quality-of-life declines, living in a place that so many people choose to leave generates a sense of status loss among those who stay. Our interviews with Social Democratic Party leaders revealed how local mayors felt they had to contend with a “collective depression.”
One mayor noted: “We like it here. But then someone comes from the outside and says that you’re a failure if you live here … so we are struggling against the public perception of what constitutes a successful individual. We constantly have to work on the psychology of the municipality’s inhabitants.”
Meanwhile, disillusionment with established parties provides fertile ground for radical right parties to exploit.
The political leanings of voters in depopulating regions also changed, from center-left to populist right. Here, emigration played a key role. As communities lose more and more of their working-age population, they experience a decline in public services – due both to dwindling numbers and a shrinking tax base. As a result, schools and hospitals are shuttered, public transportation is cut and local businesses close.
Along with these quality-of-life declines, living in a place that so many people choose to leave generates a sense of status loss among those who stay. Our interviews with Social Democratic Party leaders revealed how local mayors felt they had to contend with a “collective depression.”
One mayor noted: “We like it here. But then someone comes from the outside and says that you’re a failure if you live here … so we are struggling against the public perception of what constitutes a successful individual. We constantly have to work on the psychology of the municipality’s inhabitants.”
Meanwhile, disillusionment with established parties provides fertile ground for radical right parties to exploit.
Quality-of-life declines
While centrist politicians may feel compelled to adopt anti-immigrant stances in response, copying the rhetoric of radical right parties risks alienating their base.
Further, we believe cracking down on immigration is likely to prove an ineffective political strategy in the long run. The Sweden Democrats’ success in depopulating regions is in part a protest against the political establishment.
But once in office, and without clear solutions to the local economic and quality-of-life declines that emigration has set in motion, party officials will likely face the same voter discontent fueling their current success.
Ironically, the forces that have increased the appeal of the far right’s anti-immigrant ideologies – falling birth rates, labor shortages and a lack of new businesses and services – are most feasibly addressed by increasing immigration.
By following the right’s lead to tighten borders, parties closer to the center may condemn industrialized nations to a political doom loop.
Instead, centrist parties may find it pays more dividends to focus attention on addressing the root causes of population decline and restoring public services in peripheral areas.
There are some examples of this already happening. During recent years, Swedish governments have introduced and gradually expanded a national support system for local commercial services, such as grocery stores, in vulnerable and remote locations. In 2021, Spain announced a US$11.9 billion plan aimed at addressing the lack of 5G telephone connectivity and technologically smart cities in rural areas.
Meanwhile, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development is putting over $100 billion toward efforts to support rural areas in its 2021-2027 budget.
Such moves may counter a somewhat paradoxical trend that has seen fiercely anti-immigrant parties gaining ground in places least affected by immigration.
Either way, as parties in Europe and the U.S. prepare for crucial elections this year, understanding the complex interplay of demographic shifts and political dynamics is critical. As is acknowledging that emigration, often overshadowed by immigration rhetoric, is a key factor shaping the rise of the radical right.
Rafaela Dancygier, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University and David Laitin, James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Op-Ed: Right-wing parties in the European Parliament — Gift for Russia and poison for EU
By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
Published June 9, 2024
If the far-right makes inroads, the main question is whether the European Parliament's centre-right will partner with it on at least some issues — © AFP/File MARTIN BERNETTI
Nearly 80 years after the end of World War 2, the stench is happening again. The not-very mysterious simultaneous rise of the right in both the US and Europe looks odd.
These are typically “aren’t we great” nationalist groups, with no real credentials in government or anything else. They usually don’t have much history. The just “sprang up”, like MAGA,
These groups do have a lot in common. Their various criminal matters and incidents regularly show up monotonously on the news. In Germany, the pattern would be drearily familiar to anyone from the mid-20th century.
All these supposedly disparate groups sing from the same old hate hymns and prejudices. They all target people for ethnicity, religion, or any other excuse. They polarize every issue. They disunite.
There is not and never has been any such thing as a right-wing ideology. It’s about grabbing power by any means possible. That’s what Mein Kampf is actually about in practical terms. You’ll note that Hitler didn’t refer to it much himself when in power.
Appeal to stupidity and you’re bound to appeal to somebody. All idiots speak the same language. If you have a populist idiot appealing to other idiots, just pretend to be a news network.
The right-wing groups have maybe far too much in common:
They all started to get globally noisy around 2016. Trump and Brexit happened in that year.
They have more or less the same outdated national and international views.
They’re invariably anti-immigrant.
They’re anti-globalization.
They’re anti-foreign by definition.
They’re therefore anti-Europe by definition. Not too many dots to join there.
They have the same prejudices and hatreds as peasants from the Middle Ages.
They typically appeal to a non-existent patriotic provincial past. The good old days under Soviet rule, and similar fictionalized tales are standard,
Their propaganda is all disinformation, not a fact in sight, and if there is a fact, they spin it into fiction.
This methodology is standard. It’s basic Goebbels with a tinge of McCarthyism when for US consumption.
When in power, they’re disastrous without exception. These “governments” fail on a routine basis. If you think the Nazis and Fascists were “inept”, they’re worse. They’re also utterly incompetent. They’ve already effectively destroyed the UK with the ridiculous, economically and socially illiterate Brexit. (Do Brexiteers have educations? According to whom?)
If they did the same things in the wider EU, it’d be catastrophic. One of the most advanced social and economic entities to ever exist is being systematically sabotaged.
Europe, one of the world’s most popular war zones for the last few thousand years, should know so much better. When not at war with itself, Europe is very like the EU. It’s like a Chamber of Commerce meeting with attached neuroses.
Member nations have their sovereignty and clear rights within the EU. They get funding from the EU. Citizens can travel freely. Companies in the EU can do business without all the red tape.
Now, in context with “the rise of the right”, compare Brexit as standard right-wing anti-EU dogma. The sovereignty case against the EU was completely false and misleading. Britain is now paying an incredibly high price for apathy and ignorance. It’ll take decades to recover.
Basic rule – Disinformation leads to disasters. Sound slightly familiar?
Nobody believed anything as incontrovertibly stupid as Brexit could possibly happen, and it did. Even a watered-down version of Brexit applied to much smaller economies would be just as bad or worse.
From that perspective – Who benefits from EU dysfunction far more than anyone else? Specifically, Russia.
One area in which the West has never really outclassed Russia since the days of Bismarck is diplomacy. When Bismarck was told the Russian ambassador had committed suicide, Bismarck commented, “I wonder what his motive was”, meaning he was wondering what was the ambassador trying to achieve.
The EU woke up and united after the invasion of Ukraine. A common threat can do that. The EU has been a serious herniation of Russia’s bullying since 2022.
So, if you’re Russia, what do you do about that? You weaken the EU, and by default, with a bit of luck, NATO. All you need to do is grow a crop of weaklings in the various European states and disrupt policy by obstruction or simply changing the policies.
Just add some money to the mix and watch the fun. Right-wingers don’t ask questions about why they’re doing things. It’s a form of political slapstick.
It makes perfect sense to use proxies, however unhygienic they may be. It’s not directly confrontational. It’s also a lot cheaper and safer than going to war with NATO.
…And if, perchance, you have to have some infantile fool making noises in the US distracting US foreign policy from an easy kill, so much the better. There is something incredibly unlikely about so many US politicians being so pro-Russia.
The terrible flaw with this whole scenario is that Russia is losing. History is moving on, with or without Russia in its current form. The wellspring of all this new zealotry will as usual dry up when the money runs out.
The longer-term looks far worse. Whoever or whatever comes after Putin will have different objectives and priorities. The shelf life of these pseudo-nationalist groups can’t be very long. It’s a classic “everybody loses” scenario.
If Europe wants to go back to 1945, literally back to the rubble, this is how. Maybe not, eh?
____
By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
Published June 9, 2024
If the far-right makes inroads, the main question is whether the European Parliament's centre-right will partner with it on at least some issues — © AFP/File MARTIN BERNETTI
Nearly 80 years after the end of World War 2, the stench is happening again. The not-very mysterious simultaneous rise of the right in both the US and Europe looks odd.
These are typically “aren’t we great” nationalist groups, with no real credentials in government or anything else. They usually don’t have much history. The just “sprang up”, like MAGA,
These groups do have a lot in common. Their various criminal matters and incidents regularly show up monotonously on the news. In Germany, the pattern would be drearily familiar to anyone from the mid-20th century.
All these supposedly disparate groups sing from the same old hate hymns and prejudices. They all target people for ethnicity, religion, or any other excuse. They polarize every issue. They disunite.
There is not and never has been any such thing as a right-wing ideology. It’s about grabbing power by any means possible. That’s what Mein Kampf is actually about in practical terms. You’ll note that Hitler didn’t refer to it much himself when in power.
Appeal to stupidity and you’re bound to appeal to somebody. All idiots speak the same language. If you have a populist idiot appealing to other idiots, just pretend to be a news network.
The right-wing groups have maybe far too much in common:
They all started to get globally noisy around 2016. Trump and Brexit happened in that year.
They have more or less the same outdated national and international views.
They’re invariably anti-immigrant.
They’re anti-globalization.
They’re anti-foreign by definition.
They’re therefore anti-Europe by definition. Not too many dots to join there.
They have the same prejudices and hatreds as peasants from the Middle Ages.
They typically appeal to a non-existent patriotic provincial past. The good old days under Soviet rule, and similar fictionalized tales are standard,
Their propaganda is all disinformation, not a fact in sight, and if there is a fact, they spin it into fiction.
This methodology is standard. It’s basic Goebbels with a tinge of McCarthyism when for US consumption.
When in power, they’re disastrous without exception. These “governments” fail on a routine basis. If you think the Nazis and Fascists were “inept”, they’re worse. They’re also utterly incompetent. They’ve already effectively destroyed the UK with the ridiculous, economically and socially illiterate Brexit. (Do Brexiteers have educations? According to whom?)
If they did the same things in the wider EU, it’d be catastrophic. One of the most advanced social and economic entities to ever exist is being systematically sabotaged.
Europe, one of the world’s most popular war zones for the last few thousand years, should know so much better. When not at war with itself, Europe is very like the EU. It’s like a Chamber of Commerce meeting with attached neuroses.
Member nations have their sovereignty and clear rights within the EU. They get funding from the EU. Citizens can travel freely. Companies in the EU can do business without all the red tape.
Now, in context with “the rise of the right”, compare Brexit as standard right-wing anti-EU dogma. The sovereignty case against the EU was completely false and misleading. Britain is now paying an incredibly high price for apathy and ignorance. It’ll take decades to recover.
Basic rule – Disinformation leads to disasters. Sound slightly familiar?
Nobody believed anything as incontrovertibly stupid as Brexit could possibly happen, and it did. Even a watered-down version of Brexit applied to much smaller economies would be just as bad or worse.
From that perspective – Who benefits from EU dysfunction far more than anyone else? Specifically, Russia.
One area in which the West has never really outclassed Russia since the days of Bismarck is diplomacy. When Bismarck was told the Russian ambassador had committed suicide, Bismarck commented, “I wonder what his motive was”, meaning he was wondering what was the ambassador trying to achieve.
The EU woke up and united after the invasion of Ukraine. A common threat can do that. The EU has been a serious herniation of Russia’s bullying since 2022.
So, if you’re Russia, what do you do about that? You weaken the EU, and by default, with a bit of luck, NATO. All you need to do is grow a crop of weaklings in the various European states and disrupt policy by obstruction or simply changing the policies.
Just add some money to the mix and watch the fun. Right-wingers don’t ask questions about why they’re doing things. It’s a form of political slapstick.
It makes perfect sense to use proxies, however unhygienic they may be. It’s not directly confrontational. It’s also a lot cheaper and safer than going to war with NATO.
…And if, perchance, you have to have some infantile fool making noises in the US distracting US foreign policy from an easy kill, so much the better. There is something incredibly unlikely about so many US politicians being so pro-Russia.
The terrible flaw with this whole scenario is that Russia is losing. History is moving on, with or without Russia in its current form. The wellspring of all this new zealotry will as usual dry up when the money runs out.
The longer-term looks far worse. Whoever or whatever comes after Putin will have different objectives and priorities. The shelf life of these pseudo-nationalist groups can’t be very long. It’s a classic “everybody loses” scenario.
If Europe wants to go back to 1945, literally back to the rubble, this is how. Maybe not, eh?
____
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