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The other ‘other’: Party responses to immigration in eastern Europe

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Eastern Europe has traditionally been a region of emigration, sending thousands of refugees and migrants to the more developed and democratic west. The recent democratization and rising affluence of some eastern European countries, however, make them increasingly attractive destinations of migrant workers, slowly but surely turning them into immigrant societies. This article addresses the responses of political parties to the issue of immigration and immigrant integration. Through large-N quantitative analyses of 11 eastern European countries using the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys, the 2009 European Election Study, the Database of Political Institutions and World Bank indicators, it analyzes the causes of immigration salience, as well as the reasons behind immigration and integration policy positions. The article argues that partisan and voter views on immigration in eastern Europe are guided by ideological views on ethnic minorities, which have been the traditional ‘out-groups’ in the region. Partisan positions on immigration and immigrant integration are consequently determined by underlying ideological principles concerning cultural openness and acceptance of ‘otherness’. Immigrants to eastern Europe are consequently viewed as the other ‘other’.

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Notes

  1. Note that the exceptional 1995 figure for Croatia is caused by migration in the context of the Yugoslav wars.

  2. Although about 5 per cent of respondents from eastern EU member states consider immigration-related issues (such as labour migration, national way of life or national immigration policy) as pressing, about 33 per cent report a perceived increase in immigration. Furthermore, as many as 84 per cent of these respondents see their perceived immigration increase to be for the worse (EES, 2009).

  3. While Stimson (2004, p. 68) suggests that consistency in issue bundling is learned, and no issue connections are natural, Carmines and Stimson (1989, p. 116) underline the logical association between government action in the area of social welfare on the one hand, and racial concerns on the other.

  4. This article understands ideology as a set of established political preferences held by a political actor – a party, or a voter.

  5. The CHES data include all parties that have at least one representative in the national parliament; at least one representative in the European Parliament; or that received at least 3 per cent of the vote in the last national election. All these parties are included in the analyses here, with the exception of the vote choice analysis reported in Figure 2, which uses left- and right-wing voters only (see Table A2 in the Appendix for details).

  6. Ideally I would include all European countries that transitioned from communism to democracy after 1989, however, data limitations confine the analyses to these 11 countries.

  7. Please note that the two models testing Hypothesis 2 at the party level exclude Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, because of the missing data on the institutional control variables. All eastern countries under study are included.

  8. Table A2 in the Appendix provides the list of parties included.

  9. On immigration (0–4), ranging from liberal to conservative, ethnic minorities score 2.38, whereas the majority scores 2.56, t=3.3299, P<0.000. On integration (0–4), ranging from liberal to conservative, ethnic minorities score 2.65, whereas the majority scores 3.19, t=11.8162, P<0.000.

  10. Although the estimate for the curvilinear effect of integration positioning is significant only at the 0.1 level, the hierarchical linear model in Table A6 of the Appendix shows significance at the 0.01 level.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank CEE and LIEPP, Sciences Po, Paris, and CERGU, University of Gothenburg. Further thanks go to Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, James Stimson and Milada Anna Vachudova for helping shape the ideas on which this work is based. In addition, the author would also like to thank the editors of this special issue, Gregg Bucken-Knapp, Jonas Hinnfors and Andrea Spehar, the participants of the workshop on Political Parties and Migration Policy Puzzles, held at the University of Gothenburg, as well as the anonymous reviewer, for their constructive feedback. Dimitar Popovski provided valuable research assistance. A special thanks is reserved for Allison Rovny, my continuous supporter and editor. All outstanding errors are mine. This research was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), grant number 421-2012-1188.

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  1. Sciences Po, Paris and University of Gothenburg, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume 75337, Paris, Cedex 07, France

    Jan Rovny

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Appendix

Appendix

Tables A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 and A6

Table A1 Descriptive statistics (eastern Europe)
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Table A2 Party classification
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Table A3 Logit models predicting left vote
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Table A4 Replication of Table 1 in the article using hierarchical linear models
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Table A5 Replication of Table 2 in paper using hierarchical linear models
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Table A6 Replication of Table 3 in paper using hierarchical linear models
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Rovny, J. The other ‘other’: Party responses to immigration in eastern Europe. Comp Eur Polit 12, 637–662 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2014.25

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