Anti-immigrant sentiment, policy preferences and populist party voting in Australia

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 341-358

  Mughan, Anthony ^a   Paxton, Pamela ^a  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33644906676     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123406000184     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Hans-Georg Betz, 'Introduction', in Hans-Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall, eds, The New Politics of the Right (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998), p. 6.
2. See also Christopher Anderson, 'Economics, Politics, and Foreigners: Populist Party Support in Denmark and Norway', Electoral Studies, 15 (1996), 497-511;
3. Edward DeClair, Politics on the Fringe: The People, Policies and Organization of the French National Front (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 134-7;
4. and Marc Swyngedouw, 'The Subjective Cognitive and Affective Map of Extreme Right Voters: Using Open-Ended Questions in Exit Polls', Electoral Studies, 26 (2001), 217-41, p. 227.
5. Margaret Canovan, 'Trust the People: Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy', Political Studies, 47 (1999), 2-16;
6. and Yves Meny and Yves Surel, Democracies and the Populist Challenge (Basingstoke, Hants.: Palgrave, 2002).
7. Stefan Immerfall, 'Conclusion: The Neo-Populist Agenda', in Betz and Immerfall, eds, The New Politics of the Right, p. 258.
8. Jack Citrin, Donald P. Green, Christopher Muste and Cara Wong, 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration: The Role of Economic Motivations', Journal of Politics, 59 (1997), 858-81;
9. Joel S. Fetzer, Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000);
10. and Paul M. Sniderman, Louk Hagendoorn and Markus Prior, 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities', American Political Science Review, 98 (2004), 35-50.
11. Citrin et al., 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration', passim.
12. For example, Wouter van der Brug, Meindert Fennema and John Tillie, 'Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe: Ideological or Protest Vote?' European Journal of Political Research, 37 (2000), 77-102.
13. Lincoln Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe', American Sociological Review, 60 (1995), 586-611.
14. There are powerful reasons for keeping perceptions of threat and policy preferences distinct. A person might, for example, oppose an official policy of multiculturalism that subsidizes immigrant groups' cultural activities not because she perceives immigrants as a threat, but because her ideological liberalism makes her opposed to state subsidization of any group's cultural activities. See Paul Sniderman and Philip Tetlock, 'Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution in Political Analysis', Journal of Social Issues, 42 (1986), 129-50.
15. This alignment claim should not be taken to imply that Australian voters are knowledgeable and informed about the arguments for and against immigration. Indeed, the opposite is likely to be the case because the main Australian parties have colluded to keep the immigration issue off the electoral agenda since the start of mass non-British migration in the late 1940s. See Ian McAllister, 'Immigration, Bipartisanship and Public Opinion', in James Jupp and Marie Kabala, eds, The Politics of Australian Immigration (Canberra: Bureau of Immigration Research, 1993), pp. 161-78. Making no assumptions about the informational content of their views on immigrants, our argument is simply that voters can respond to parties that clearly champion these views.
16. Herbert Blumer, 'Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position', Pacific Sociological Review, 1 (1958), 3-7;
17. and Russell Hardin, One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).
18. Susan Olzak, The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992).
19. Lauren McLaren, 'Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe: Contact, Threat Perception, and Preferences for the Exclusion of Migrants', Social Forces, 81 (2003), 909-36;
20. and Peter Burns and James Gimpel, 'Economic Insecurity, Prejudicial Stereotypes, and Public Opinion on Immigration Policy', Political Science Quarterly, 115 (2000), 201-25.
21. Results are more contested when personal economic circumstances, as opposed to views about national economic performance, are considered. See, for example, Citrin et al., 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration', passim;
22. and Sniderman et al., 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers', passim.
23. H. Tajfel, Social Identity and Intergroup Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
24. Sniderman et al., 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers', passim.
25. Sniderman et al., 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers', p. 46.
26. Quoted in John Pasquarelli, The Pauline Hanson Story (Sydney: New Holland, 1998), pp. 123-5.
27. Examples of generic measures include the idea that newcomers will 'improve our culture with new ideas and customs' (see Citrin et al., 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration', passim),
28. or fears that 'Dutch culture is threatened by [ethnic minorities]' (see Sniderman et al., 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers', passim).
29. Quoted in Michael Leach, 'Hansonism, Political Discourse and Australian Identity', in Micheal Leach, Geoffrey Stokes and Ian Ward, eds, The Rise and Fall of One Nation (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000), pp. 42-56, at pp. 50-1.
30. See also Richard Alba and Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003),
31. and Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to American National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).
32. Reacting to this sense of cultural threat, more and more democratic governments have recently introduced such assimilatory measures as getting more immigrant children into kindergarten, compulsory language classes for adults, citizenship courses and pledges of allegiance. See The Economist, 'Forget asylum-seekers: it's the people inside who count', 10 May 2003, pp. 22-4.
33. Robert E. Park, Race and Culture (Glsncos, 111.: The Free Press, 1950), p. 138;
34. Richard Alba and Victor Nee, 'Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration', International Migration Review, 31 (1997), 826-74;
35. and Tamotsu Shibutani and Kian Kwan, Ethnic Stratification (New York: Macmillan, 1965).
36. Robert Park and E. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology: Including the Original Index to Basic Sociological Concepts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 735.
37. Alejandro Portes, Robert Nash Parker and José Cobas, 'Assimilation or Consciousness: Perceptions of U.S. Society Among Recent Latin American Immigrants to the United States', Social Forces, 59 (1980), 200-24, p. 202.
38. Roger Eatwell and Cas Mudde, eds, Western Democracies and the New Extreme Right Challenge (London: Routlege, 2004).
39. Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat', p. 593.
40. See also Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau, 'Why Do They Vote for Le Pen?', European Journal of Political Research, 22 (1992), 123-41, p. 139;
41. Piero Ignazi and Colette Ysmal, 'New and Old Extreme Right Parties: The French Front National and Italian Movimento Sociale', European Journal of Political Research, 22 (1992), 101-21, p. 111;
42. Jaake Billiet and Hans de Witte, 'Attitudinal Dispositions to Vote for a "New" Extreme Right-Wing Party: The Case of the Vlaams Blok', European Journal of Political Research, 27 (1995), 181-202, p. 196;
43. van der Brug et al., 'Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe', pp. 87, 99;
44. and Paul Sniderman, Pierangelo Peri, Rui P. de Figueiredo Jr and Thomas Piazza, The Outsider: Prejudice and Politics in Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
45. See Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat', p. 593. He measures this sentiment by summing individuals' negative responses to the following statements as they apply to 'people of another nationality': 'they exploit social security benefits', 'their presence is one of the causes of delinquency and violence', 'marrying into one of these groups always ends badly', 'to have them as neighbors creates problems', and 'if there are a lot of their children in school, it reduces the level of education'. To this battery, he then adds responses to the questions, 'Generally speaking, how do you feel about the number of people of another nationality living in our country? Are there too many, a lot but not too many, or not many?' and 'Do you personally, in your daily life, find disturbing the presence of people of another nationality?'
46. Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley, 'How Are Foreign Policy Attitudes Structured? A Hierarchical Model', American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 1121-38.
47. Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts and Gabriella Trifiletti, Australians and Globalisation (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 145.
48. Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody and Philip E. Tetlock, Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
49. and Jack Citrin, David O. Sears, Christopher Muste and Cara Wong, 'Multiculturalism in American Political Opinion', British Journal of Political Science, 31 (2001), 247-75. It is important to note that an argument can be made that the relationship is reciprocal in that policy preferences influence beliefs about immigrants. Hausman endogeneity tests, used to establish the direction of causality, indicated a one-way flow of influence from prejudice to policy preferences. The results are detailed in Appendix A, which is available online at http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/pmp/.
50. To describe the study briefly: a stratified systematic random sample of Australian adults was drawn from the Commonwealth Electoral Roll and sent a mail questionnaire (with two follow-up questionnaires sent to non-respondents). The final sample size was 1,896 with a 58 per cent response rate. The survey asked respondents in detail about their personal social and economic characteristics and their political attitudes and behaviour. The dataset is available from the Australian National University's Social Science Data Archive. See Clive Bean, David Gow and Ian McAllister, Australian Election Study 1998 [computer file] (Canberra: Social Science Data Archives, The Australian National University, 1998). The full text of the questions used in this analysis is available in Appendix B at http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/pmp/.
51. Kenneth A. Bollen, Structural Equations with Latent Variables (New York: Wiley, 1989).
52. The model is estimated using listwise deletion, N = 1,675, although the results do not differ substantially if missing data are accounted for through a maximum likelihood procedure (see Paul Allison, Missing Data (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2002)).
53. While its constituent variables are technically ordinal, they have enough categories that there is little attenuation in their correlations (see Kenneth A. Bollen and K. H. Barb, 'Pearson's R and Coarsely Categorized Measures', American Sociological Review, 46 (1981), 232-9). Therefore, the results presented here treat the variables as continuous.
54. Paul Hainsworth, ed., The Politics of the Extreme Right: From the Margins to the Mainstream (London: Pinter, 2000), pp. 10-11. Our results and conclusions would be no different had we excluded this variable from the model.
55. The two dimensions of anti-immigrant sentiment are significantly correlated, with a correlation of 0.66. This correlation is reasonable - neither so low as to suggest utterly different concepts, nor so high as to challenge our contention that the dimensions are separate.
56. 2 (see Kenneth A. Bollen and Robert A. Stine, 'Bootstrapping Goodness of Fit Measures in Structural Equation Models', in Kenneth A. Bollen and J. Scott Long, eds, Testing Structural Equation Models >(Newbury Park, Calif: Sage, 1993)) and obtained a slightly higher p-value, indicating a slightly better fit to the data, although it was still significant. Bootstrapping the standard errors made no difference to the results.
57. Kenneth A. Bollen, 'A New Incremental Fit Index for General Structural Equation Models', Sociological Methods and Research, 17 (1989), 303-16.
58. Karl G. Joreskog and Dag Sorbom, LISREL VI: Analysis of Linear Structural Relationships by Maximum Likelihood and Least Square Methods (Mooresville, Ind.: Scientific Software, 1986).
59. J. H. Steiger and J. C. Lind, 'Statistically Based Tests for the Number of Common Factors' (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Iowa City, 1981).
60. 2 was not significant (0.6 with 1 df).
61. Green and Citrin, 'Measurement Error and the Structure of Attitudes', passim;
62. and Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat', passim.
63. Ann Capling and Brian Galligan, Beyond the Protective State: The Political Economy of Australia's Manufacturing Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992);
64. Robert Lambert, 'Globalization and the Erosion of Class Compromise in Contemporary Australia', Politics & Society, 28 (2000), 93-118;
65. and Anthony Mughan, Clive Bean and Ian McAllister, 'Economic Globalization, Job Insecurity and the Populist Reaction', Electoral Studies, 22 (2003), 617-33.
66. Michael Leach, Geoffrey Stokes and Ian Ward, eds, The Rise and Fall of One Nation (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000);
67. and Marian Simms and John Warhust, eds, Howard's Agenda: The 1998 Australian Election (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2000).
68. The five-point scale on the restrictionism variables runs from 'reduced a lot' and 'gone much too far' to 'increased a lot' and 'not gone nearly far enough', while that on the isolationism variables spans 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'.
69. See, for example, Mayer and Perrineau, 'Why Do They Vote for Le Pen?', passim;
70. Billiet and de Witte, 'Attitudinal Dispositions to Vote for a "New" Extreme Right-Wing Party', passim;
71. Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995);
72. van der Brug et al., 'Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe', passim;
73. and Rachel Gibson, Ian McAllister and Tami Swenson, 'The Politics of Race and Immigration: One Nation Voting in the 1998 Election', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25 (2002), 823-44.
74. Virtually all native-born Australasians and immigrants from the British Isles are white. See Siew-Ean Khoo and David Lucas, Australians' Ancestries (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2004). The major exceptions would be Australian aboriginals and New Zealand Polynesians, but they are small in number and are highly unlikely to have been picked up in this survey in other than negligible numbers. The survey itself provides no way of identifying them. The excluded category contains individuals born in a range of countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
75. Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat', passim;
76. and Fetzer, Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany.
77. Ann Capling, 'Economic Nationalism in the 1990s', Australian Quarterly, 69 (1997), 3-14;
78. and Lambert, 'Globalization and the Erosion of Class Compromise in Contemporary Australia', passim.
79. Anthony Mughan and Dean Lacy, 'Economic Performance, Job Insecurity and Electoral Choice', British Journal of Political Science, 32 (2002), 513-33;
80. and Mughan et al., 'Economic Globalization, Job Insecurity and the Populist Reaction', passim.
81. Citrin et al., 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration', passim.
82. Van der Brug et al., 'Anti-Immigrant Parties in Europe', passim.
83. While no variable in the model had a large number of missing values, in combination the original sample size is cut nearly in half. Unfortunately, the best techniques for dealing with missing data (e.g., multiple imputation or maximum-likelihood with missing data) were not available in the statistical package we used to account for both the latent variables in the model and the limited nature of the dependent variable. To check the robustness of our results, we analysed the full sample with a maximum-likelihood missing value procedure without accounting for the limited nature of the dependent variable, and this led to very similar results.
84. While 7 per cent is not an extremely rare event, our dependent variable is still not evenly split. The estimation of models with 'rare events' is discussed in Gary King and Langche Zeng, 'Explaining Rare Events in International Relations, International Organization, 55 (2001), 693-715. Having a large sample size can mitigate some of these problems. Based on the charts provided in their article, our split/sample size combination should not inflate the predicted probability of our dependent variable beyond a very small amount.
85. Bollen, Structural Equations with Latent Variables, pp. 433-46.
86. Quillian, 'Prejudice as a Reponse to Perceived Group Threat', passim.
87. Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter, Globalization and the Perceptions of American Workers (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 2001).
88. Citrin et al., 'Public Opinion Toward Immigration', passim.
89. Sniderman et al., 'Predispositional Factors and Situational Triggers', passim.
90. David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969). This conclusion seems to be contradicted by the assimilationist threat's direct effect on ONP voting, but, as we argue in the text, this direct effect is likely to persist only because we do not have a measure of preference in an area of policy that can be expected to follow from an assimilationist threat. Views on multiculturalism are an example of such a policy area.
91. We also ran the model as a multinomial logit to determine whether there were differences in voters' responses to One Nation vs. Liberal-National and One Nation vs. Labor. In general, the results are similar to those seen in Tables 1 and 2, with some evidence that the dynamics leading to Labor defections are different from those leading to Liberal-National defections. For example, respondents born in Australia or New Zealand were significantly more likely to vote One Nation over Labor, but not significantly more likely to vote One Nation over Liberal. Feelings about the national economy display a classic incumbent effect, as those with negative feelings were more likely to vote for One Nation over Liberal, and more likely to vote Labor or Liberal, but not more likely to vote One Nation over Labor. As for anti-immigrant sentiment and policy preferences, the findings generally support what is found in Tables 1 and 2, with the exception that Isolationism, significant in the analyses pooling Labor and Liberal, is not significant in either's comparison with One Nation alone.
92. James Jupp, 'Immigration and National Identity', in Geoffrey Stokes, ed., The Politics of Identity in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1997), at p. 135.
93. Our auxiliary multinomial logit results demonstrate that the assimilationist threat impacted the relationship between One Nation voting and Labor voting, but not the relationship between One Nation voting and the Liberal-National coalition voting, lending further support to this conclusion.
94. More generally, see Rogers Brubaker, 'The Return of Assimilation? Changing Perspectives on Immigration and Its Sequels in France, Germany and the United States', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24 (2001), 531-48.