Losing gamble: Mainstream parties' failed strategy to counter anti-immigrant parties

Abstract

The emergence of anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe has provoked very different responses from mainstream parties. Some have tried to counter the antiimmigrant parties, while others have tried to recapture lost voters by taking a tougher stance on immigration. Country comparative studies have tried to determine the effectiveness of different strategies, but systematic testing has been impaired by small-n problems. Therefore this paper exploits sub-national variation in 290 Swedish municipalities to investigate the effect of mainstream party strategy on anti-immigrant electoral success. The paper finds that a tougher stance on immigration of mainstream parties is correlated with more anti-immigrant party support, even when controlling for a large number of socio-economic, historical and regional factors. This result indicates that mainstream parties legitimize anti-immigrant parties by taking a tougher position on immigration. However, the results presented in the paper show that it is not enough that one mainstream party takes a tougher position, it is only when the entire political mainstream are tougher on immigration that the anti-immigrant party benefits. What is more, toughness of the parties on the left seem to be more legitimizing than the toughness of the parties on the right.