Regaining Control? The Political Impact of Policy Responses to Refugee Crises

Abstract

In response to the political turmoil surrounding the recent refugee crisis, destination countries swiftly implemented new immigration and asylum policies. Are such countercrisis policies effective in mitigating political instability by reducing anti-immigrant backlash and support for radical-right parties? The present study exploits two surveys that were coincidentally fielded during significant policy changes, sampling respondents right before and immediately after the change. I employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the short-term causal effect of the policy change on public opinion within a narrow window of the sampling period. The findings show that both Swedish border controls and the EU–Turkey agreement significantly reduced public opposition to immigration in Sweden and Germany, respectively. In Germany, support for the AfD party also decreased following the new policy. Public opinion time trends suggest that the policy effects were short lived in Sweden but durable in Germany. These effects are similar across different levels of proximity to the border and are accompanied by increasing political trust and a sense of government control over the situation. The findings have implications for understanding the impact of border controls on international public opinion, as well as for assessing the electoral effect of policy responses to global refugee crises.

Changes in Perceptions of Border Security Influence Desired Levels of Immigration

“…For example, anti-immigrant parties might persistently push the “spinning-out-of-control” narrative even when the incumbent government more silently increase spending on border security and hardens the country’s borders. Notably, the cumulative findings in the literature indicate that a similar pro-immigration effect to the one we find here at the time of the Trump Administration can be found across various political contexts, including outside the survey environment and in cases where right-wing populist parties or candidates are in the opposition pushing the out-of-control narrative that could fuel anti-immigrant sentiments (Heinrich, Kobayashi, and Cilizoglu 2023; Schwartz et al 2020; Solodoch 2021b). Yet to test this proposition and get a definitive answer in future work, our experiments should be replicated with the addition of party cues and the identity of the incumbent government randomly assigned to respondents simultaneously with the original set of treatments.…”

“…Our findings also add to extant research on the effects of immigration policies (Abdelgadir and Fouka 2020;Fouka 2019;Hainmueller, Hangartner, and Pietrantuono 2015;Marbach, Hainmueller, and Hangartner 2018;Solodoch 2021b). Specifically, this study suggests that those trying to increase immigration and advance immigrant inclusion should be aware of the potentially counterproductive effect of promoting the idea of "open borders" or abolishing immigration enforcement agencies.…”

Losing on the Home Front? Battlefield Casualties, Media, and Public Support for Foreign Interventions

“…Taking advantage of the staggered timing of survey enumeration, we identify combat events involving casualties of a troop-sending nation around the interview date specific to each individual respondent and specific to the nationality of the respondent. This design follows recent innovations in the study of domestic politics of international issues, including Mikulaschek, Pant and Tesfaye (2020) and Solodoch (2021). Consistent with the theoretical argument, we document that own-country casualties are associated with a worsening of the support for continued military intervention, while non-combat troop deaths have no discernible impact on support.…”

Numbers, Selectivity, and Rights: The Conditional Nature of Immigration Policy Preferences

“…Previous research has explored immigration policy trade-offs for governments (Ruhs, 2013, 2018), but has not explored how public preferences may also exhibit trade-offs. There has been research on the trade-offs that immigrants face as they integrate into host societies on multiple dimensions (Maxwell, 2012), and research suggesting that public views on migrant groups incorporate multiple dimensions of evaluations (Sobolewska et al, 2017; Solodoch, 2021). However, this paper breaks new ground by exploring immigration preferences across a range of policy dimensions, and highlighting the conditionality of those views.…”