Is Europe’s right wing turn due to immigration? Empirical evidence from Italy

Abstract

Immigration has unquestionably gained importance in Italian public opinion over the past few years; but what has been its effect on politics? Building on a recent trend in literature, this paper appraises the effect of immigration on the success of far-right parties. We analyze the results of the elections from 2001, when immigration was still marginal, to the last elections held in 2018. Applying time-series-cross-section methods to an original dataset, we find that immigration has had a consistent effect on votes for the far-right. Interestingly, we also show that economic factors likely weigh more on far-right votes than immigration.