Do right-wing parties foster welfare chauvinistic attitudes? A longitudinal study of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

Abstract

The surge of immigration to Europe starting in 2015 is one of the most important political challenges in recent history. In this research note, we address the question of whether the ‘refugee crisis’ has contributed to welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Germany, a country attracting a large share of asylum seekers. Moreover, we ask whether party rhetoric in general and from a new radical right-wing party in particular has influenced the expression of such attitudes. Using individual-level panel data, we show that welfare chauvinism increased markedly during the first year of the crisis. This increase is not restricted to new radical right wing voters. Although parties diverged in their position on immigration, we observe increased welfare chauvinism among supporters of all parties. Only support for a harsher version of welfare chauvinism (making benefits conditional upon citizenship) increased disproportionately among new radical right-wing voters. We conclude that the refugee crisis activated dispositions to make in-group/out-group distinctions that are to some extent independent of party rhetoric.

Introduction

Mass immigration, as currently experienced in Europe, raises the question of whether social solidarity is extended to members of other ethnic groups. A large literature claims that the answer often is negative. The primary examples are welfare chauvinistic reforms that either aim at excluding immigrants from social benefits or at retrenching benefit programmes in which immigrants are overrepresented (Careja and Emmenegger, 2013). Given the twin pressures on European welfare states in the form of budgetary crises and mass immigration, it is an important goal for social scientists to understand why and when people adopt welfare chauvinistic attitudes (WCA).

Existing research distinguishes two main motives for WCA, self-interest and values (Goerres et al., 2017, Mewes and Mau, 2012, Reeskens and van Oorschot, 2012, van der Waal et al., 2010). The self-interest perspective argues that conflict about scarce resources such as jobs or welfare benefits are reasons for natives to support welfare chauvinism. According to the values perspective, basic cultural differences, authoritarian values or social justice beliefs are the main explanations for WCA. In this vein, WCA can be linked to a general (and potentially evolutionary) psychological disposition that produces a reluctance to extend solidarity to any “out-group” (Kam and Kinder, 2007, Kinder and Kam, 2009, Petersen, 2015). Moreover, WCA reflect socially constructed prejudices and beliefs about migrants' (low) deservingness to receive welfare benefits (van Oorschot, 2006). Recent research has emphasised the role of party politics in constructing or activating these prejudices and beliefs (Alesina and Glaeser, 2004, Bay et al., 2013; de Koster et al., 2013). In the European context, it has been discussed in particular whether right-wing populist parties not only benefit from, but actively facilitate anti-immigration attitudes such as WCA (Schmidt and Spies, 2014, Semyonov et al., 2006). With this research note, we contribute to the debate about whether the framing of political parties contributes to the emergence and growth of WCA. More precisely, we ask if party attachments influence the development of WCA as a response to growing immigration.

To answer our research question, we analyse individual-level panel data collected in Germany during the recent surge of immigration that was triggered in particular by the war in Syria. The exogenous character of this “refugee crisis” (as it is dubbed in German media) provides us with some analytical leverage to address the question of how WCA emerge and to explore the role of right-wing populist (and other) parties in this process. Germany is a particularly interesting case to study the influence of extreme right-wing rhetoric on WCA. The reason is that Germany for a long time did not have a major far right party. It was only the immigration crisis that ultimately facilitated the breakthrough of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Hence, our data collection took place during a period in which German voters select into this new party for the first time without being used to its rhetoric already. Therefore, while we do not have the ideal counterfactual design to observe the rise of immigration with and without right-wing framing, we can observe plenty of voter movements towards the AfD and assess whether such a transition is associated with a move towards WCA. Moreover, the refugee crisis also led to marked position shifts on immigration of some established parties. As we will show, these changes happened in a short period of a couple of months. By comparing WCA of supporters of these parties before and after the position shifts, we can gain additional analytical leverage.

Because we repeatedly measured WCA and vote intentions shortly before the outbreak of the crisis and a year after, we are in a position to observe precisely for whom an immigration shock translates into WCA. To be clear, this does not allow us to establish causality between increasing immigration on the one hand, and WCA or voting for populist right-wing parties on the other. Though, recent research suggests that increasing immigration leads to right-wing voting (Becker and Fetzer, 2016) and exclusionary attitudes (Enos, 2014). But our design and case selection provide an exceptionally favourable opportunity to assess whether an immigration shock increases WCA independently or whether it operates through closeness to specific parties and their respective rhetoric.

Concretely, if party cues matter, we should observe variation in WCA growth by party support. This is because levels as well as changes in party rhetoric differ markedly between parties (see below). WCA growth should be particularly strong among new supporters of an anti-immigration party as well as among supporters of parties that move towards a restrictive position on immigration policies. Conversely, WCA growth should be small or negative among supporters of parties that have a stable positive stance on immigration or that move to such a position during the crisis. If we find, by contrast, that WCA increases across the board despite differences in party rhetoric, this would clearly speak against the party cue hypothesis and in favour of a general psychological disposition to respond to immigration by limiting out-group solidarity.

Our first noteworthy finding is that WCA strongly increased between May 2015 and May 2016. This qualifies reports in the popular media about the German Willkommenskultur. Secondly, we find that this increase in WCA (although not its levels) is remarkably even across supporters of all parties. Indications of disproportionate increase among voters switching to the AfD are rather subtle and can only be detected for a harsher version of WCA. This across-the-board increase could, in principle, result from contamination or spill-over effects of AfD rhetoric (Schumacher and van Kersbergen, 2016). However, the fact that we observe an increase even among Green voters (a least likely candidate for anti-immigration rhetoric, as we will show) strongly points towards a general activation of in-group favouritism through the refugee crisis.

Before presenting our data and findings, we provide some essential background information on the timing of the refugee crisis, the German benefit system, and party system change.