Immigration and right-wing party support: The Norwegian case

Immigration and right-wing party support:
The Norwegian case
Rune J. Sørensen
Norwegian Business School (BI)
0404 Oslo, Norway
E-mail: [email protected]
April 14, 2015
Abstract
The in‡ux of immigrants to Norway over the last decades is a large-scale
natural experiment. This paper exploits municipal-level variations in the
immigrant population (1981-2011) to estimate the causal e¤ects on voter
support for the right-wing, anti-immigration Progress Party. The paper
employs models with municipality …xed e¤ects and instrument variables to
handle reverse causality and selection e¤ects. A state refugee placement
program has been used as instrument for the size of the non-western immigrant population. Additional analyses exploit the rotating individual-level
panels of the Election Surveys.
The results indicate that immigration from non-Western countries (Africa,
Asia, Latin-America) has led a larger share of the electorate to support for
the Progress Party. Interestingly, however, the e¤ects are larger in the initial phases of immigration, and almost non-existent when the immigrant
population is larger than 4 percent relative to the native population.
1
1
Introduction
Immigration is probably the most polarized political issue in European politics.
Large shares of the citizenry believe that immigration should be restricted, because it endangers the nation’s economic foundation and undermines historical
and cultural identities. Others support more liberal policies, and argue that immigration is bene…cial for the newcomers as well as the receiving country. The
research question is whether more immigration will increase voter support for the
anti-immigration parties, possibly making political divisions more antagonsitic.
From a political economy perspective, a larger immigrant population could increase voter support for these parties. Key assumptions are that individual voters
have preferences over the size of the immigrant population, that voters are well
informed, and that party positions are relatively stable.1 A larger immigrant population could increase concerns for material and non-material values. Therefore,
more immigration might induce additional natives to support the anti-immigration
party.
However, these assumptions might yield a misleading representation of attitude
formation. First, some empirical studies show that peoples’beliefs on immigration
are very inaccurate ([Sides & Citrin 2007]; for review, see [Hainmueller & Hopkins 2014]).
They tend to overestimate number of immigrants in the local community and in
the country. If beliefs on the size of the immigrant population are unrelated to
actual number of immigrants, increasing or reducing number of immigrants will
not a¤ect attitudes. Second, anti-immigrant attitudes can be due to an irrational
anxiety (xenophobia), various forms of prejudice and stereotyping. It is not clear
whether the size of the immigrant population a¤ects the number of natives with
such attitudes. In fact, meeting immigrants could mean better knowledge and
less resentment towards the immigrants. Over time, immigration could therefore
reduce support for the anti-immigration party (the ’contact hypothesis’, Rydgren
2008). Therefore, more immigrants need not necessarily translate into support for
anti-immigrant policies and for the anti-immigration party.
The empirical literature based on cross-national data o¤ers no scholarly agreement on this issue. On one hand, Lubbers et. al. (2002), Golder (2003) and
Artzheimer (2009) …nd that immigration exert a positive in‡uence on voter support for the anti-immigration parties. On the other hand, der Brug et. al. (2005)
suggest that the number of asylum seekers has no impact on voter support for
the anti-immigrant parties. Sides and Citrin (2007) suggest that contextual fac1
The empirical literature suggests that concerns for public sector welfare is more important
than concerns for wage determination. This appears to be a relevant issue in the Norwegian
case [Bratsberg et. al 2014]. Furthermore, it appears that the economic concerns are not related to individual interests, but to the economic impact of immigration on society at large
[Dustman & Preston 2007] [Hainmueller & Hopkins 2014].
2
tors – which includes the size of the immigrant population - have little bearing
on anti-immigration attitudes. Furthermore, Crepaz and Damron (2009) …nd the
size of the welfare states bears a positive relation to acceptance of immigrants,
while the percentage foreign-born has no statistically signi…cant impact on welfare
chauvinism.
Existing cross-national regressions face a number of problems. Essentially, it is
hard to say whether immigration a¤ects political attitudes or attitudes in‡uences
immigration (reverse causality), and countries di¤er on so many dimensions that
it is practically impossible to include a credible set of explicit controls (omitted
variable bias). Importantly, cross-national data on immigrant populations vary
considerably in quality and relevance.2
In the current paper, I shall argue that research designs based on sub-national
data are better suited at estimating causal e¤ects.3 Similar designs have been employed to address related aspects of immigration4 [Dahlberg et. al 2012] [Dinas & van Spanje 2011]
2
For example, Sides & Citrin (2007) employ OECD data on the percentage foreign borns in
the population. Lubbers et. al (2002) use data on "non-European Union citizens". Similarly,
Golder (2003) and Crepaz & Damron (2008) use data on percentage of the population comprised of "foreign citizens" in general. These data raises questions about country di¤erences in
naturalization and acceptance of double citizenship. van der Brug et. al (2005) and Arzheimer
(2009) use data on number of asylum seekers, which is a main channel for the entry of people
from non-Western countries. Number of applicants are obviously related to the restrictiveness
of immigration policies, which can vary between countries. These indicators are questionable
since the relevant immigrant populations are may come from particular countries, since peoples’
opinions on immigration do not hinge on whether people have gained access to citizenship or
not, and since the immigrant population can comprise more than one generation. Moreover,
data quality varies a lot. The Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and Germany have population registers that yield high quality data on immigration. Many other countries employ on
other data sources, such as labor market data and work permits. This yield lesser quality, and
such data are not necessarily comparable across countries. Rydgren (2008) uses survey data
on ethnic heterogeneity in the residential area and personal friendships, and report correlations
between these self-reported indicators and attitudes to immigration. These results can hardly
be understood as causal e¤ects.
3
For a comprehensive review of the relevant literature based on …eld experiments as well as
observational studies, see [Hainmueller & Hopkins 2014]. One of their conclusions is that research
should address causality by moving away from simple cross-sectional designs, possibly exploiting
panel data, natural experiments or …eld experiments. For examples of studies that use natural
experiments, see [Luttmer & Singhal 2011] [Freier et. al 2014] [Hainmueller & Hopkins 2014].
4
These studies analyze political e¤ects of immigration based on data on
Denmark[Harmon 2012] [Gerdes 2011 ], the Netherlands [Dinas & van Spanje 2011], Sweden
[Dahlberg et. al 2012], Switzerland [Hainmueller & Hangartner 2013] and the US[Hopkins 2010]
[Hero & Preuhs 2007]. Harmon (2012) is the only paper focusing on voter support for the
right-wing anti-immigration parties. He employs municipal-level data, and uses the high-riser
housing stock in 1970 as instrument for the size of the immigrant population. A key limitation
is that this instrument displays cross-sectional variation only. Therefore, the paper analyze
municipal variations in the di¤erences in immigrant populations and party support in from 1981
3
[Gerdes 2011 ] [Hainmueller & Hangartner 2013] [Harmon 2012] [Hopkins 2010] [Hero & Preuhs 2007
The current analysis is based on high-quality municipal level register data on
the size of the Norwegian immigrant population. Starting in the 1980s, Norway
has seen a signi…cant increase in the number of immigrants from Asia, Africa and
Latin-America.5 Immigrants from these non-Western countries are mostly asylum
seekers that have been granted residence permits and citizenship, and relatives
have gained access through family reunions. Over a period covering less than a
generation, we have seen a transformation from highly egalitarian and homogenous
communities to a multi-ethnic society [Brochman & Hagelund 2011].
This is also the time period where the right-wing, anti-immigration Progress
Party has established itself in Norwegian politics.6 The party was founded as
a liberalistic party in 1973, being based on a program of lower taxes and less
government regulation. A restrictive immigration policy became a key policy ingredient in the 1987 local elections. The current party has broad policy program,
particularly advocating better public health care and old-age care, more generous
old-age pensions and a more rapid development of transportation infrastructure
[Bjørklund & Bergh 2013]. The Progress Party is one of the most successful rightwing, anti-immigration parties in Europe. It was the second largest political party
in three of the four most recent national elections, and it has been the largest party
in several elections to the municipal councils.
To identify causal e¤ects, the empirical analysis exploits the fact that the
immigrant populations vary considerably between municipalities and over time.
Municipal-level data have been combined with data on voter support for the political parties (1981-2011), which facilitates comparisons of party preferences before
and after the arrival of immigrants. The paper o¤ers a baseline analysis on the
impact of immigration on support for the political parties using a di¤erence-indi¤erence (DD) model. Moreover, the elections to the county councils are held on
the same day as the municipality elections. The county authorities, however, have
no responsibility for immigration or integration policies, and voters cannot keep the
county politicians responsible for increases in the immigrant population. A triple
di¤erence estimate (DDD) can therefore strengthen causal inferences by analyzing
di¤erences in voting behavior in the county and municipal elections. Crucially, the
estimation of causal e¤ects is challenging since local government decisions a¤ect
the size of the immigrant populations, and these populations also change as conto 2001. Harmon (2012) …nds that the increased ethnic diversity has increased support for the
Danish anti-immigration parties.
5
For example, in 2013, Norway granted protection status to 6,770 asylum seekers. This
amounts to 135 refugees per 100,000 Norwegians. Only Sweden and Malta accepted more refugees
relative to their population sizes (Eurostat 2014).
6
Party manifestos and newspaper articles suggest that the Progress Party favors a restrictive
immigration policy, while the others take neutral or liberal positions [Gulbrandsen 2010] .
4
sequence of the settlement choices of immigrants and natives. These e¤ects could
understate the partisan e¤ects of immigration. A state refugee placement program
has been used as instrument variable (IV) for the size of the non-Western immigrant population (1995-2011). Additional analyses exploit the rotating individuallevel panel from the National Election Surveys, which covers the 1977-2011 period.
In this way, it is possible to see whether individual voters change their party preference as a response to immigration.
The main result is that immigration from non-Western countries causes an
increase in voter support for the Progress Party. Yet, the voter responses to immigration have been largest in the initial phases of immigration. Once immigration
has reached a certain level, additional increases in the non-Western immigrant
population has little e¤ect on support for the Progress Party. Moreover, the results highlight that immigration does not cause a major right-wing shift in public
opinion. The Progress Party gets a higher share of the votes, but mostly at the
expense of the other rightist parties.
2
The Institutional setting
The Norwegian system is a three-tier system with 429 municipalities at the district level (2011), 19 counties at the regional level and central government at the
national level. Norwegian counties and municipalities are responsible for implementing national welfare policies. The large local government sector delivers a
number of services including child care services, primary and secondary schooling,
primary health care and care for the elderly and various infrastructure services.
The municipal and county governments are …nanced by proportional income taxes
and block grants, while user charges and property taxes account for a smaller part
of the costs. Since the income tax rates are regulated by central government, the
local authorities have a modest in‡uence on total revenues.
2.1
Election system and voting rights
The election system is based on proportional representation to both the local
councils and the national parliament (the Storting). These elections are held
at …xed dates every four years alternating between elections to the municipal
and county councils (’local elections’) and elections to the national parliament
(’national elections’). People who are eligible to vote are automatically registered
in the national population register (’Folkeregisteret’), and they also receive a card
in the mail containing information about the local polling place and the date of
the election.
5
Only Norwegian citizens can vote in the national elections. The criteria for
obtaining Norwegian citizenship di¤ers between groups. Immigrants who do not
have parents with Norwegian citizenship can apply for citizenship if they are at
least twelve years old. It requires that they have held a valid residence permit
for at least one year, that their identity has been properly documented, that they
have not been convicted for criminal o¤ences, that they have lived in the country
for a total of seven of the past ten years, and have held residence permits that
were each valid for at least one year. From 2005 onwards, applicants must also
have completed an introductory language course, or have su¢ cient knowledge of
the Norwegian language. Special rules apply for some groups, particularly citizens
from the other Nordic countries. Foreign nationals can vote in local elections
(to the municipal and county councils) when they had a residence permit in the
country for at least three years.7
2.2
Immigration policies
There two types of immigrants, job seekers and refugees including their family
members. Most seeking work come from the European Union /European Economic
Area (EU/EEA). People who come from other countries to work in Norway need
residence permit, alternatively a more limited residence permit for work. Such
permits are available for various types of specialists, seasonal workers and some
other groups. These cases are treated by a central government body, the Norwegian
Directorate of Immigration (UDI).
The current analysis addresses immigration from non-Western countries. Nearly
all immigrants from these countries have been granted permanent residence as asylum seekers and through family reunions. This is a shared responsibility of the
municipalities and central government, while the county authorities have no in‡uence on immigration policy.8
The national parliament - the Storting - sets the legal framework for the handling of asylum seekers and family reunions. The UDI processes applications for
protection, family reunions and residence permits. It also o¤ers asylum seekers
temporary housing while their applications are being handled.
When a refugee has been granted permanent residence, the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi) has responsibility for the resettlement of refugees.9
It makes speci…c requests to individual municipalities based on the total number of
7
People with citizenship in the Nordic countries can vote for municipal elections as soon as
they have received permanent residence in Norway.
8
The regional authorities - the counties - have responsibility for secondary education, public
transportation, regional roads and regional development policies.
9
The UDI had responsibility for the settlement of refugees before 2002.
6
refugees in need of settlement, and based on municipalities’the population sizes,
the municipalities’competence and experience with settlement of refugees, and local labor market conditions. From 2002, regional units of IMDi regional units work
together with the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS)
in deciding the allocation of requests to the municipalities. Nearly all refugees
receive assistance from the IMDi to …nd housing.
Immigrants are obviously free to migrate from the …rst municipality they settle
in. Signi…cant numbers relocate to new municipalities after a few years, and many
move from the rural communities to larger population centers, particularly in the
Oslo-fjord area. From 2004 all municipalities o¤er an introductory program for new
refugees. The two-year program includes information on society, courses aimed at
developing language skills and some vocational training, and it also o¤ers …nancial
support. Access to this scheme assumes that the refugees do not move to other
municipalities in the two …rst years after settlement. This incentive is probably one
of the reasons why refugee relocations have decreased signi…cantly since 2004.10
The municipalities decide whether they will accommodate the IMDi’s settlement request fully, partially or not at all. A matching grant scheme has been
designed to induce municipalities to take responsibility for refugee settlements.
The grant has been designed to cover municipal costs of providing housing and an
introductory program. When immigrants have been granted permanent residence,
they are entitled access to municipal services like other citizens.
3
Descriptive statistics
In Figure 1, I display data on the size of the immigrant population in Norway.
Following Statistics Norway, the immigrant population has been de…ned as "persons with two foreign-born parents, both those who have immigrated to Norway
and those born in Norway of two foreign-born parents.11 Data on immigrant populations at the municipal and national levels derive from the national population
register. The number of illegal immigrants not covered by the statistics is low,
relative to number of legal immigrants.12 Number of immigrants numbered about
10
For further documentation on refugee relocations,
see Statistics Norway:
http://www.ssb.no/befolkning/artikler-og-publikasjoner/‡yktninger-‡ytter-mindre-enn-formen-mange-vil-til-oslo
11
For further documentation on de…nition and background statistics, see the
relevant homepage of Statistics Norway:
http://www.ssb.no/en/innvandring-oginnvandrere/nokkeltall/immigration-and-immigrants
12
Statistics Norway estimated the number of illegal immigrants to be 18.000 in 2008, potentially
ranging from 10.500 to 32.000.
7
60.000 in 1970, and most came from the other West-European and Scandinavian
countries. The current immigrant population consists of about 740.000 people
(2014), which account for nearly 15 percent of the total population (see Figure 1).
The increases in the 1980s and 1990s were to a large consequence the result
of asylum seekers ‡eeing from civil wars and unrest in various parts of the world.
The spikes in the diagram shows immigration from Vietnam, Chile, Iran and Sri
Lanka in the 1980s, from the Balkan countries, Iraq and Somalia in the 1990s.
Before 2000, most of the immigrant population was located in urban areas in
Southern Norway, particularly in Oslo. About 40 percent of the municipalities
had no non-Western immigrants in 1980. This percentage was reduced to about
14 percent in 1990, and 6 percent in 2000. From the 2000s, the diagram displays additional immigrants from Europe. Several East-European countries were
included in the common labor market from 2004 and 2007, and labor immigrants
from Poland and the Baltic states account for much of the increase in the 2000s.
Figure 1 here
In Figure 2, I show voter support for the Progress Party in the local (municipal)
and national (parliamentary) elections. Voter support is somewhat lower in the
local elections, which is partly due to the fact that the Progress Party did not
o¤er party lists in all local elections. For example, in the 1983 local election, only
a third of the municipalities had Progress Party lists. In the 2011 local elections,
the party had lists in nearly 90% of the municipalities. This illustrates the rapid
development of the party organization.
The overall pattern is one of increasing voter support, largely in parallel with
increases in the non-Western immigrant population. The breakthrough was the
1987 local elections (where immigration was the major political issue) followed by
the 1989 national election. The Progress Party reached a peak level of support of
22,9 percent in the 2009 national election.
Figure 2 here
In Table 1, I display descriptive statistics for the response variables used in the
analyses using data from the o¢ cial election statistics as well as survey data from
the Election Surveys. I also present some additional statistics from the Election
Surveys. The paper addresses e¤ects of immigration from non-Western countries,
and the variables have been classi…ed by municipality-level data on percentages of
non-Western immigrants.
Table 1 here
The percentage voting in favor of the Progress Party is higher in municipalities
where immigrants account for relatively large shares of the population. At face
8
value, it appears that the main di¤erence is between municipalities with very small
immigrant populations (less that 2 percentage points) and those with larger shares
of immigrants. I shall explore this seemingly non-linear relationship in the ensuring
section.
The descriptives indicate that the electorate have a considerable degree of skepticism against immigration. About a third of the electorate think that their views
on immigration policy are closest to that of the Progress Party, and a majority
also wants number of immigrants to be more restricted.
Interestingly, people tend to be more positive to immigrants and immigration
in those municipalities which have relatively large immigrant populations. It is
possible that the natives become more sympathetic to immigration and immigrants
after having been acquainted with the newcomers. These patterns could also be due
to selection e¤ects. Immigrants may settle in municipalities where the population
is more positive to immigrants, and natives who dislike immigration may emigrate
from the municipality.13
Voters must be quite knowledgeable if local variations in immigrant populations
are to a¤ect their voting behavior. In the 2007 Local Election Survey14 , voters were
asked: "Out of 100 persons living in your municipality, how many have a nonWestern background? " And as a follow-up: "Out of 100 persons living in Norway,
how many have a non-Western background? ". The four Local Elections Surveys
conducted in the 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 comprised the following question:
"Do you have immigrants living in your neigborhood? " If asked, the interviewers
should say that the question referred to non-Western immigrants. In Figure 3,
I display how responses to these questions correlated with the actual size of the
municipal-level non-Western immigrant population, using the Statistics Norway
de…nition.
Figure 3 here
A …rst observation is that people do overestimate the size of the immigrant
population. Note that the question did not o¤er a precise de…nition of ’immigrant
background’. Since immigration is a fairly recent phenomenon in Norway, this
overevaluation would probably persist with a broader de…nition which included
13
This appears to corroborate the results in a previous study by [Bay et. al 2007]. The authors
present tables of where immigrant shares in 2005 have been correlated with interpersonal trust,
attitudes to immigrants, immigration policies and support for the welfare state.
14
The data applied in the ensuing analyses are based on the National Election Surveys conducted each fourth year in the period 1977-2009, and the Local Election Surveys from from the
period 1999-2011. The data are provided by Statistics Norway (SSB), and prepared and made
available by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD). The Institute of Social Reserach
(ISF) were responsible for the original study and Statistics Norway collected the data. Neither
ISF, SSB nor NSD are responsible for the analyses/interpretation of the data presented here.
9
children with one immigrant parent, or it comprised additional generations. More
important is the observation that respondents’estimates of municipal immigrant
shares are positively correlated with actual immigrant shares. A higher share of immigrants increases the probability that respondents say that they have immigrants
living in their neighborhood.15 It is also remarkable that respondents’estimates
on national immigrant shares are completely unrelated to actual immigrant shares
at the municipal level. Similar to Lahav (2004), these data suggests that people
are quite well informed.
4
Model speci…cation and identi…cation
The idea in the current paper is to analyze how municipality-level variations in the
immigrant population a¤ects voter behavior. The municipalities have a key role in
the settlement and integration of refugees, and immigration policies are intensely
debated during the local election campaigns. Knowledge of the e¤ects of immigration are at least partly due to direct observations in the local communities. Central
government decide on the main guidelines for immigration, particularly immigration from non-Western countries based on the asylum institute, and immigration
policies are therefore intensely debated during the national election campaigns as
well. To the extent that voters keep governments accountable for immigrations,
the size of the immigrant population should have lesser impact in the elections to
the county councils. In the current section, I discuss the assumptions needed to
estimate causal e¤ects.
4.1
The baseline (DD) model
Like any observational study in this …eld, a number of identi…cation problems
should be addressed. One set of problems is due to political decisions, particularly the municipal councils’decisions related to the refugee settlement program.
Municipalities can also in‡uence immigration through its welfare -, housing-, and
15
The survey question on immigrants living in the respondent’s neigborhood was included in
the Local Election Studies in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 (N=10026). I therefore analyze the
responses in a regression model with municipality and year …xed e¤ects, which also includes
individual level and municipality level controls (respondents’ education level, gender, age; municipalities’population size, the age distribution of the population and share of women). Similar
to the baseline regression model, I estimate e¤ects of the municipality-level immigrant population. A larger non-Western immigrant population share (log-scale) has a signi…cant and positive
e¤ect on the probability that respondents say that they have immigrants in their neigborhood.
The corresponding e¤ect for the Western immigrant population is positive, but much smaller
and marginally signi…cant.
10
employment policies. Other concerns arise as consequence of immigrant relocations
after the initial settlement.
I start out with a di¤erence-in-di¤erence (DD) model based on the assumption
that these characteristics di¤er between municipalities, but are constant over time.
Let j denote municipality and t election year. P artySupportjt is a generic variable
measuring the percentage of the electorate who voted in favor a particular party
(including the Progress Party) in municipality j in election year t. N W Ijt is the
percentage of non-Western immigrants living in municipality j in election year t.
The (native) municipal population has been measured exclusive immigrants. I
display the baseline regression model below.
P artySupportjt =
log(N W Ijt + 1) + Controls +
j
+
t
+
jt
The model has been estimated separately for the elections to the local elections
(to the municipal councils) and the national elections (the Storting). Municipality population sizes di¤er a lot. To obtain estimates that are representative for
the national electorate, I also estimate models with population weights. I use a
logarithmic model speci…cation to account for non-linear e¤ects of the immigrant
population. For documentation of the non-linear relationship, see Appendix 1 and
2.
The model comprises a number of controls, the size of the native population
(measured on a log-scale), share of immigrants from Western countries (measured
on a log-scale), shares of children, young, elderly, women and the unemployment
rate. Note that these variables are potentially endogenous since immigration may
a¤ect the demographics and rates of unemployment ("posttreatment selection
bias"). Excluding the covariates from the regression yields very similar immigration estimates (c.f. Appendix 3).
A critical assumption is that political attitudes and support for the Progress
Party would have followed a di¤erent path in the absence of immigration. I have
data for several election periods, and a signi…cant fraction of the municipalities
did not see the arrival of non-Western immigrants before well into the 1990s.
To account for pre-trends, I also estimate immigration e¤ects using models that
include a municipality-speci…c time trend (Appendix 3).
Furthermore, the analysis rests on the assumption that changes in partisan preferences are caused by immigration to the municipality. One might worry whether
the estimates are due to immigration in a wider geographical area. Statistics Norway has classi…ed the municipalities into 90 economic regions. These are de…ned as
regions with an economic center surrounded by the relevant commuting area16 . To
account for such e¤ects, I estimate models with region-election year …xed e¤ects
(Appendix 3).
16
For further documentation, see https://www.ssb.no/a/english/publikasjoner/pdf/nos_c634_en/nos_c634_en.pd
11
Since the model addresses impacts on the native population, an additional
concern is the voting behavior of the immigrants themselves. However, the nonWestern immigrant account for very low shares of the electorate, which is partly
a due to the fact that a low fraction is eligible for voting. Immigrants also have
low turnout rates. Survey data from the Immigrant Election Studies suggest that
they tend to vote for the leftist parties (particularly the Labour Party) and not
the Progress Party. If anything, this means that the regressions will underestimate
an expected positive e¤ect of immigration on Progress Party support.17
Personal contact may increase the native populations’ knowledge of immigrants. A times goes, the local population are more likely to develop personal
relations with newcomers, which could reduce xenophobia. This might decrease
support for the more restrictive immigration policies proposed by the Progress
Party. The current dataset does not allow a direct test of this hypothesis. However, 257 municipalities had no non-Western immigrants at in 1977. It is therefore
possible to include number of years with one or more immigrants residing in the
municipality as an additional covariate.
The core hypothesis is a demand-side hypothesis. Political parties are more
likely o¤er lists in election districts where they expect to gain representation. 18
The Progress Party o¤ered party lists in a third of the municipal elections in the
early 1980s, and it gradually expanded its municipal-level coverage. Immigration
could have a supply-side e¤ect if the Progress Party presented local lists in response
to increases in the immigrant population. In order to estimate supply-side e¤ects, I
also estimate immigration e¤ects on a dataset which is restricted to municipalities
where the Progress Party o¤ered party lists.19
17
In the national election in 2013 were 213,000 people or 6 percent of the electorate was eligible for voting in the national elections. About two thirds of these came from non-Western
countries, that is about 140.000 persons. The total non-Western immigrant population was
258.000, including those aged 17 years or less. Furthermore, only 40 percent of the voters (from non_Western countries) participated in the election. This means that one out
of …ve non-Western immigrants participated in the national election. The immigrants tend
to vote for the left-wing parties; 55 percent voted for the Labour Party in the 2013 election. For further documentation, see Bjørklund and Bergh (2013) and Statistics Norway:
http://www.ssb.no/en/valg/statistikker/vundinnv/hvert-4-aar/2014-01-16.
18
The Progress Party had lists in all election districts (counties) from the 1977 national election
onwards.
19
Another supply-side e¤ect is that parties shift their policy positions as consequence of immigration [Gulbrandsen 2010]. At the national level, the positions of the Norwegian parties
have been quite stable. Gulbrandsen (2010: 256) has examined the Norwegian parties’policies
on immigration by analyzing party manifestoes and newspapers articles from the 1980s. The
Progress Party has favored restrictive policies throughout the period, while the Liberal Party,
the Christian Peoples’ Party and the Socialist Left Party have taken a liberal position. The
Labour Party and the Center Party are less explicit on immigration policies, but they are on the
12
4.2
The triple di¤erence (DDD) model
Accountability means that the members of the municipal councils are answerable
to their local constituencies. A main hypothesis is that immigration causes a larger
percentage of the municipal population to support the Progress Party (denoted PP
support) because more voters are dissatis…ed with the municipality’s immigration
policy. This implies that immigration to the home municipality impacts on how
the voters cast their votes in the municipal elections.
The elections to the county councils are held at the same day as elections to
the municipal councils, and the counties authorities have no in‡uence on immigration or responsibility for integration policies. We can therefore estimate regression
models that use the di¤erence in Progress Party support in the municipal and
county election. If P P SupportCounty
is the support for the Progress Party in
jt
the county council elections (but measured at municipality level, j), the modi…ed
response variable is de…ned by P P Supportjt P P SupportCounty
. Voting behavjt
ior the county elections are likely to tap factors that lead voters to support the
Progress Party, but which are not related to immigration (given the accountability
hypothesis). The numbers presented in Table 1 indicates that municipalities with
large immigrant populations have more Progress Party support as measured by
this indicator, which yield preliminary support for the hypothesis. This leads to
the following triple di¤erence (DDD) model:
P P Supportjt
4.3
=
P P SupportCounty
jt
log(N W Ijt + 1) +
j
+
t
+
jt
The respondent …xed-e¤ect model
The regression models are based on the aggregate election statistics, and estimation captures the gross e¤ects on voter behavior. These estimates could be due to
abstentions, demographic changes, or in- and out-migration from the municipality.
Gross e¤ects are clearly relevant, but it is also interesting to see whether particular
individuals change their party preference following an increase in the non-Western
immigrant population in their home municipality. I therefore estimate the model
with survey data from the National Election Surveys. About half the annual samples were interviewed again in the next national election. I have therefore matched
pairwise samples; that is established a 1977-1981 sample, 1981-1985 sample up to
2005-2009 sample. These pairs have been merged into one dataset.
Let P P V oteijt equal 1 if the respondent voted for the Progress Party, and 0
if he or she voted for another party. The model can therefore be estimated by a
model with respondent …xed e¤ects (& i ):
permissive side. The Conservative Party was positive to immigration in the mid-1980s, but it
shifted towards a more restrictive position from the 1990s.
13
P P V oteijt = ' log(N W Ijt + 1) + Controls + & i +
j
+
t
+ ! ijt
Note that the Controls in model comprises some individual-level controls (respondents’ age and education level). For comparison, the model has also been
estimated on the repeated cross-sectional datasets using municipality and year
…xed e¤ects.
4.4
The IV model
The key assumption in the di¤erence-in-di¤erence approach is that municipalitylevel changes in the immigrant population can be considered a natural experiment.
To the extent this assumption is violated, it is likely to yield an underestimation
of immigration e¤ects. First, more support for the Progress Party could lead to a
drop in the municipalities’willingness to receive refugees as requested by municipal authorities (reverse causation).20 Second, the composition of the municipal
populations (the treatment and control groups) are likely to change as result of
immigration. Large immigration may induce parts of the native population to migrate out of the municipality, particularly those who are negative to immigrants or
immigration. Both concerns may to bias the immigration estimates towards zero.
A study by [Dahlberg et. al 2012] employs individual-level panel data and instrument variables to handle these concerns. In the Swedish case, a state refugee
settlement program was in place from 1985 to 1994. The municipalities agreed to
receive a given number of refugees from state reception centers. Using data from
this program as instrument variable, Dahlberg et. al (2012) …nd that immigration
lowers voter support for the welfare state. Neckby and Petterson-Lidbom (2014)
have replicated and reanalyzed the study by Dahlberg, Edmark and Lundquist.
They point out the actual instrument is central government grants that are allocated on basis of all newly arrived immigrants. When they the model using contracted number of immigrants as instrument, immigration appears to have no signi…cant impact on support for the welfare state [Nekby & Pettersson-Lidbom 2014].
In the Norwegian case, municipal-level data on number of state settlement
requests is available for the 1995-2011 periods. These are not negotiated contracts,
but formal requests from questions from the IMDi. Similar data on local council
decisions are available for the same period. Data on number of persons living in
the asylum reception centers are available from 1998. I display aggregate statistics
in Figure 4.
20
Most political parties pursue policies that increase the number of core supporters. Conservative parties seek to lower taxes and stimulate private ownership to increase number of ‘capitalists’;
Labour Parties try to maintain or expand industries with numerous ‘workers’; Agrarian parties
try to increase number of farmers. This is not the case for the Progress Party.
14
Figure 4 here
Most refugees were settled in urban municipalities in Southern Norway before
the early 1990s. The war in the Balkans in the early 1990s led to a large increase
in the number of refugees, and municipalities across the country were requested to
receive refugees. Since that time there has been a principle that refugees should
settle in all municipalities. According to Figure 2, the share of municipalities
which have been requested has increased considerable since 1995. About 20 percent of the municipalities received requests before the 1999, while nearly all were
requested to settle refugees thereafter. This is due to the large increase in asylum applications starting this year. Although the local councils accepted a higher
number of refugees, requests remained considerably higher. A number of refugees
lived in the asylum reception centers for considerable time periods after residence
permits had been granted.
I use number of settlement requests as percentage of the native population (Rjt )
as instrument variable for the percentage of non-Western immigrants (N W Ijt ).
The …rst-stage regression can be written:
log(N W Ijt + 1) = log(Rjt + 1) + Controls + & j +
t
+
jt
The response variables have been measured each fourth year, corresponding
data are used in the …rst stage. The assumption is that the over-time changes
in refugee placement requests are exogenous with respect to changes in party
preferences of the receiving municipalities (c.f. [Dahlberg et. al 2012]). The …xed
e¤ects speci…cation handles stable preference heterogeneity between municipalities.
Since the requests may take labor market conditions are taken into account, I
include the unemployment rate as a control.21
21
The requests are deliberate requests by a state agency. If requests are adapted to the political
climate in the municipality, we should see the ’hostile’ municipalities receiving more modest
requests that others. This would eventually lead to an undervaluation of causal e¤ects. One way
of testing this assumption is to look at random changes in the party composition of the municipal
councils. I have data which identify those municipalities where the socialist/non-socialist party
bloc won a majority in the municipal council with one seat only, de…ned as OneSeatM ajorityjt .
Let SocialistM ajorityjt denote a dummy variable for socialist seat majority in municipality j in
the local election in year t. I can estimate a regression model with requests in the ensuing years
as response variable:
log(Rj;t+1 + 1) =
2 SocialistM ajorityjt
0 OneSeatM ajorityjt SocialistM ajorityjt +
+ Controls + 'j + t + %jt
1 OneSeatM ajorityjt
+
If requests are set independently of the partisan composition of the municipal councils, we
would expect 0 = 0: I present the evidence in Appendix 5.
15
5
Empirical results
I present the empirical results in the sequence outlined in the previous section.
5.1
The baseline estimates
In Table 2, I present estimates showing the impact of the municipal non-Western
immigrant population (NWI). Table 2 displays estimates for all political parties,
including ’others’which are most relevant for the local party lists in the municipal
elections. I have collapsed voter support for the three centrist parties (the Liberal
Party, the Christian Peoples’Party, the Center Party) to simplify presentation.
Table 2 here
A …rst observation in Table 2 is that non-Western immigration has a positive
and signi…cant impact on voter support for the Progress Party. The estimates are
similar for the local (municipal) and national (parliament) elections. An increase
in the immigrant population from zero to 2.35 percent (measured as an unweighted
average over municipalities, and as the ratio of non-Western immigrants to native
population in 2011) would produce increases of about 2 percentage points in both
local and national elections. This is considerably less than the actual voter support,
particularly in the national elections. The percentage of immigrants is larger in the
populous municipalities. At the national level, number of non-Western immigrants
currently accounts for about 5 percent relative to the native population (Figure
2). The immigration e¤ects on Progress Party support appear to be larger in the
main population centers (see Appendix 3, column (2)). Taking this into account
means that immigration goes a long way in explaining the success of the Progress
Party in the elections to the municipal councils, but not in the national elections.22
That the estimate is smaller in the national elections might re‡ect limitations
of the research design. The size of the non-Western immigrant population is primarily a national policy responsibility. The perceived size of the entire immigrant
population may be of greater relevance for voting in the national elections. The
national e¤ects are probably not fully captured by the current design. It therefore
22
Appendix 3, column (2) presents the population-weighted estimates. An increase in the
immigrant population (NWI) to 5 percent should generate a level of Progress Party support of
about 10 percent in the local elections and 5 percent in the national elections. The Progress Party
gained 22 percent of the votes in the 2009 national election and 16 percent of the votes in the
2013 national election, suggesting that immigration cannot explain much of its electoral success
in the national elections. However, the Progress Party got 18 percent of the votes in the 2007
local elections and 11 percent in the 2011 elections. The estimates suggest that immigration has
been of considerable importance for the advancement of the Progress Party in the local elections.
16
remains an open question whether immigration explains the greater success of the
Progress Party in the national elections.
The logarithmic speci…cation implies that the Progress Party gain tapers o¤ as
the immigrant population becomes larger. I provide additional evidence for this
interpretation in Appendixes 1 and 2. The …rst supplementary analysis employs a
pricewise, linear regression model, which indicates that more immigration has little
impact once the immigrant population has reached about 4 percent relative to the
native municipal population (Appendix 1). A second analysis estimates the impact
of immigration using a model with …rst di¤erences. It employs an interaction term
to capture the non-linear e¤ects on voter behavior. In the local elections, increases
in the immigrant population leads to more Progress Party support when the initial
immigrant population is small, but the e¤ects are modest once immigration has
reached a level of about 3-4 percent. The interaction term is much smaller in the
national elections (Appendix 2, columns C an D).
The estimates in Table 2 indicates that immigration may cause a marginal
increase the total support of the Progress Party and the Conservative Party. This
e¤ect in borderline insigni…cant. In the national elections, more voter support for
the Progress Party implies less support for the other right-wing parties, particularly
the Conservative Party.
In Tables 3.1-3.3, I display regression estimates which address additional speci…cation tests. Starting with the time e¤ects (Table 3.1), it is evident that controlling for number of years with non-Western immigrants in the municipality has
little bearing on the key estimates (compare with Table 2, Panel A). The e¤ects
indicate that long-term exposure to an immigrant population increases Progress
Party support, particularly in the elections to the municipal councils.23
In Table 3.2, the baseline estimates are reproduced in columns A and B, and
they can be compared with the pure demand-side estimates. When party lists are
available, the immigration e¤ects are somewhat larger. This is due to the fact that
the party were able to set up lists somewhat earlier in municipalities with large
immigrant populations (see Appendix 4). The di¤erences between the estimates
are not statistically signi…cant.
Finally, Table 3.3 presents triple di¤erence estimates (DDD). The estimates
are positive, suggesting that immigration has a larger, positive impact on Progress
Party support in the elections to the municipal councils relative to those in the
county council elections.
23
Rydgren (2008) addresses the ’contact hypothesis’by correlating attitudues to immigrants
with the extent to which they have immigrant frieds. In most countries, the correlation appears
to be quite weak. However, Norwegian voters with immigrant friends signi…cantly less likely
to vote for the Progress Party (Rydgren 2008: 757). Since people choose their friends, the
correlation can hardly be understood as a causal e¤ect.
17
Table 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 here
5.2
The individual-level e¤ects of immigration
In Table 4, I present analyses of Progress Party voting based on the survey data
collected during the national election campaigns (the National Election Surveys).
These analyses yield estimates which are comparable to the population-weighted
estimates presented for national elections in previous tables, taking into account
that the response variable is a dummy variable and not a percentage.
Table 4 here
The …rst model (column A) is based on data from the nine cross sectional
datasets covering the 1977-2009 elections. The respondents were asked which political party they voted for in the national election. In addition to the municipalitylevel controls used in the previous analyses, I also include controls for respondents’
age, education level and gender.24 The estimate is about 0,03, but is somewhat
imprecise. It is quite similar to that obtained in Table 2 (lower panel).
The second model (column B) exploits the rotating panels in the National
Election Surveys. It includes year and respondent …xed e¤ects, and it estimates
whether immigration leads individual respondents to shift party preference in response to a larger immigrant population. The estimate for the size of the nonWestern immigrant population is 0,06, which is also comparable to previous estimates. This indicates that immigration leads individual voters shift their partisan
preference in favor of the Progress Party.
5.3
Instrumental variable e¤ects of immigration
I present instrumental variable estimates for Progress Party voting in municipal
and national elections based on the Election Statistics. The estimates are not
population weighted, so they are representative for the population of municipalities
and comparable to estimates in Table 2 (upper panel). Both the …rst and second
stage estimates have been presented in Table 5.
Table 5 here
24
In additional analyses, I have estimated models where education levels have been interacted
with the size of the immigrant populations. The immigration e¤ect is quite large for people with
primary schooling, lower for those with secondary education, and very small for those with a
university degree (or equivalent).
18
The …rst stage regression performs quite well (F-test statistic >>10). The IVestimates indicates that immigration increases support for the Progress Party. For
the national elections, the estimate is rather imprecise, but comparable to the OLSestimates (Table 2). For the local elections, the e¤ect is signi…cant, and the point
estimate is larger than those obtained without instrument variables. This is in line
with the expectation that DD-estimates tend to underestimate the immigration
e¤ects. The IV-estimates are rather imprecise, and do not di¤er signi…cantly from
the OLS-estimates.
6
Summary
Immigration from non-Western countries has contributed to the success of the
right-wing Progress Party. In fact, in the absence of immigration from these countries, the Progress Party would have been a much smaller political party in the local
elections. This result is based on a number of empirical tests, including regression
models with municipality, year, and region-year speci…c e¤ects, and municipalityspeci…c time-trends. Additional analyses are based on individual-level panel data,
and IV-estimates based on the settlement requests by central government.
The voting behavior in the municipal elections can be understood in the framework of political economy. Support for the Progress Party is a protest against the
municipality’s immigration policy. Citizens are quite well informed about the size
of the non-Western immigrant population in their home municipality (c.f. Figure
3). The immigration e¤ect is not explained by the Progress Party being more
likely to o¤er party lists in municipalities with a large immigrant populations (the
supply-side). The e¤ect is due to voters’responses to local immigration patterns
(the demand-side). The observed di¤erences in voter behavior in the municipal
and county elections yield further support for this interpretation (c.f. Table 3.3).
To a large extent, it is the municipality’s responsibility for the settlement and integration of refugees that account for the e¤ect of immigration on voter behavior.
This accountability interpretation is consistent with empirical analysis on party
e¤ects on immigration policies. Party representation had a causal e¤ect on immigration in Swedish municipalities [Folke 2013]: More seats to the anti-immigration
party (’New Democracy’) led fewer immigrants to settle in Swedish municipalities. A similar e¤ect may exist in Norwegian municipalities [Gulbrandsen 2010].
The relatively small anti-immigration parties can in‡uence municipal immigration
policies.
In the Danish case, Roemer and Straten (2006) have argued that xenophobic attitudes lead to larger voter support for the anti-immigrant party. Since this
party is right-wing, this leads to a bundling of political issues [Lee & Roemer 2006].
19
The right-wing parties gain additional clout, which implies signi…cant decreases in
public sector spending. More recent analyses appear to go against this hypotheses
[Gerdes 2011 ]. Similarly, Dahlberg et. al (2012) suggest that greater ethnic diversity in the Swedish municipalities leads voters to prefer less redistribution and
smaller social bene…ts. A recent reanalysis has triggered a debate on the validity
of these this …nding [Nekby & Pettersson-Lidbom 2014] [Dahlberg et. al 2013]. In
the Norwegian case, immigration does not cause a more rightist voting pattern.
More support for the Progress Party does not imply less voter support for the
leftist parties, the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party. This suggests that
increased ethnic heterogeneity does not induce partisan preferences that might
imply cutbacks in social security or public service provision.
Finally, it appears that support for Progress Party becomes exhausted when the
immigrant population reaches a certain level, around 4 percent measured relative
to the size of the native population. Further immigration appears not to cause
additional support. Importantly, this is not a timing e¤ect, i.e. that citizens take a
more favorable view on immigration after being used to having immigrants in the
vicinity (’the contact hypothesis’, cf. Table 3.1). Neither is it a reverse causality
e¤ect, i.e. that all parties agree on limiting number of non-Western immigrants
once this population has exceeded a particular level (cf. the IV-estimates, Table
5). Therefore, the an anti-immigration party platform has a limited mobilizing
potential.
Acknowledgement 1 The paper has bene…tted from useful comments and suggestions at presentations at the department seminar at Department of Economics,
BI Norwegian Business School, and the National Political Science Conference, 5-7
January, Oslo, Norway. I particularly appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions by Benny Geys (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, VUB/BI), Jon H. Fiva (Norwegian Business School, BI and Jørn Rattsø (Department of Economics, NTNUNorwegian University of Science and Technology).
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23
Figure 1. The immigrant population in Norway 1970-2013
Immigrant population
Immigrants per year
650000
50000
600000
550000
40000
500000
450000
400000
30000
350000
300000
20000
250000
200000
150000
10000
100000
50000
0
1970
0
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Year
Annual increases
Continent
Source:Statistics Norway
Africa
Oceania
Total immigrant population
Asia (incl. Turkey
North America
South America
Europa (not Turkey)
Figure 2. Progress Party voter support
25
4
Progress Party (%)
20
15
3
10
2
5
1
0
19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
Year
Progress Party (%), in local elections
Progress Party (%), in national elections
Percent non-Western Immigrants
Source:Statistics Norway
Non-Western immigrant population (%)
Source: Statistics Norway
11:40 Thursday, April 9, 2015
Figure 3. The perceived size of the immigrant population. 2007.
0.9
25
0.8
%
20
0.7
15
0.6
10
0.5
5
0.4
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Non-Western immigrant poopulation (%)
Non-Western immigrants in the municipality (%), 1 Standard Error
Non-Western immigrants in the country (%)
Immigrants in the neighborhood (=1)
Correct estimate (%, 45 degree line)
12
Immigrants in the neighborhood (=1)
30
1
Figure 4. The Norwegian settlement program for refugees
Source: The Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi)
Number of settlements
Share of municipalities
18000
1.0
17000
0.9
16000
15000
0.8
14000
13000
0.7
12000
11000
0.6
10000
9000
0.5
8000
0.4
7000
6000
0.3
5000
4000
0.2
3000
2000
0.1
1000
0
1995
0.0
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
Year
Right vertical axis
Left vertical axis
Share of municip. requested
Number of settlements requested
Number in asylum recep. centers
Number of settlements approved
Table 1. Descriptive statistics
Voter preferences by percentage of non-Western immigrants relative to the native population in the municipality.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Pct. non-Western immigrants in the municipality
All
0-2%
2-4%
4-6%
6%%
(N)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Survey data
0,078 (16098)
Voter support for the Progress Party in national elections (=1)
0,061
0,116
0,116
0,084
0,326 (6115)
The Progress Party has the best immigration policy (=1)
0,369
0,341
0,331
0,275
0.541
Social security benefits should be improved (=1)
0.583
0.540
0.481
0.557 (13783)
0,596
Number
of
immigrants
to
Norway
should
be
restricted
(=10)
0,650
0,647
0,671
0,644 (10787)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Progress Party offers party list in the municipal (local) elections (=1)
Voter support for the Progress Party in municipal (local) elections (%)
Voter support for the Progress Party in county (local) elections (%)
Difference in support for Progress P. in municipal less county election (%)
Voter support for the Progress Party in national elections (%)
0,776
5,9
8,1
-3,1
10,2
0,983
12,4
14,6
-2,2
20,0
0,996
13,2
14,2
-1,0
19,3
0,999
13,4
13,7
-0,4
20,1
0,869
6,9
8,9
-2,9
11,2
(3366)
(3368)
(3366)
(3368)
(3366)
Register data
Voter support for the Conservative Party in municipal (local) elections (%)
17,5
19,4
16,5
18,8
18,0
(3368)
20,6
Voter support for the Conservative Party in national elections (%)
19,2
22,5
23,5
23,5
(3366)
20,1
Voter support for the center parties in municipal (local) elections (%)
26,0
15,4
10,5
7,9
(3368)
12,0
Voter support for the center parties in national elections (%)
24,5
16,6
12,8
20,8
(3366)
29,9
Voter support for the Labour Party in municipal (local) elections (%)
32,6
29,3
29,7
31,3
(3368)
35,2
32,3
32,5
32,4
34,1
Voter support for the Labour Party in national elections (%)
(3366)
6,9
7,5
6,2
10,3
7,4
Voter support for the Socialist Left Party in municipal (local) elections (%)
(3368)
7,3
8,2
8,0
Voter support for the Socialist Left Party in national elections (%)
10,6
7,8
(3366)
7,9
13,7
21,5
19,3
11,7
Voter support for other parties in municipal (local) elections (%)
(3368)
Voter
support
for
other
parties
in
national
elections
(%)
3,0
3,4
3,2
5,3
3,3
(3366)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sources: Survey questions: National Election Studies 1977-2009; Election statistics.
Number of immigrants to Norway should be restricted (=10): Then there is the question of Norwegian immigration policy. The value 0 expresses the view that we should make it easier for
immigrants to enter Norway; while the value 10 expresses the opinion that the number of immigrants coming to Norway should be restricted to an even greater extent than at present.
Where would you place yourself on this scale, or havent you given much thought to this issue?' Coding: 0= Should make it easier for immigrants to enter Norway; … 10= Stronger restrictions
on immigration.
Social security benefits should be improved (=1): What is your opinion. Do you think that in the future there should be less of the benefits, that they should be maintained as they are now, or
they should be built further out? Coding: 0=Should be less; 0.5=Maintained as now; 1= Extended and developed further.
The Progress Party has the best immigration policy (=1): We would now like to hear your views on some questions of current interest. We would like to know which party you consider to
have the best policy within different areas of politics? When it comes to immigration. Which party has, in your opinion, the best policy? Coding: If Progress Party =1, other parties or no party
Register data: The register data includes the elections to the municipal councils and the parliament (Stortinget) in the 1981-2011 periods (population weighted averages). The center parties
includes the Christian Peoples' Party, the Liberal Party and the Center Party.
Table 2. The impact of immigration on voter support for the major political parties. 1981-2011.
Local and national elections.
Source: Election statistics
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Political party /party group
Right-wing party support
Progress Party +
Progress Party +
Conservative
Socialist Left
The center
Conservative
Progress Party
Labour Party
Other parties
Conservative
Party
parties
Party
Party + center
Party
parties
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Local
1,874 **
-0,666
-0,635
-0,744
-0,157
0,328
1,123
0,414
elections
(0,579)
(0,738)
(0,916)
(0,952)
(0,359)
(1,414)
(0,847)
(1,225)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
National
1,556 ***
-0,157
0,013
0,102
-0,006
0,360
-0,325
-1,148 ***
elections
(0,323)
(0,550)
(0,478)
(0,245)
(0,498)
(0,434)
(0,609)
(0,310)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Election
year
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the various political parties in local and national elections. The percentage who voted for "other parties" and local lists
has not been included in the analyses. The estimates are effects of non-Western immigrant population in the municipality, measured as percentages and on a logarithmic scale, i.e. log(NWI+1).
The standard errors are robust standard errors clustred at the municipality level. The model includes the following controls: percentage of immigrants from Western countries [log(WI+1)],
children (share of population aged 0 to 6 before 1996, 0 to 5 later), young (share of population aged 7 to 15 before 1996, 6 to 15 years after), elderly (share of population aged 66 years and
more), women (share of women in the population) and unemployment (share of registered unemployed persons relative to number of inhabitants aged 16-66 years). Source of demographic
Indicators: Fiva, Halse & Natik (2012), http://www.jon.fiva.no/data.htm
Table 3.1 Years of immigrant exposure and Progress Party support
The impact of number of years with non-Western municipal residents.
Source:
Election statistics
__________________________________________________________________________________
A
B
C
D
__________________________________________________________________________________
1,773 ***
1,661 ***
1,456 ***
1,439 ***
log(NWI+1)
(0,593)
(0,578)
(0,322)
(0,322)
Annual
0,330 ***
Annual
0,122 **
NWIYears
effects
effects
(0,053)
(0,041)
__________________________________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
Election
year
X
X
X
X
__________________________________________________________________________________
Elections
Local
Local
National
National
__________________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the Progress party. NWIYears has been defined as
0 when there is no non-Western immigrants in the municipality (when NWI=0), and as number of years since the first nonWestern immigrant settled in the municipality (when NWI>0). The model includes the same controls as in Table 2.
Table 3.2 Progress Party list offerings
Separate estimates for municipalites where the Progress Party offers party lists.
Source:
Election statistics
_____________________________________________________________________________
A
B
C
D
_____________________________________________________________________________
1,037 *
1,427 *
2,967 **
1,502
log(NWI+1)
(0,481)
(0,572)
(1,022)
(0,902)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
Election year
X
X
X
X
Covariates
X
X
X
X
Trend
X
X
_____________________________________________________________________________
Sample
With local
With local
All
All
selection
lists
only
lists only
_____________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the Progress Party in municipal elections.
"With local lists" represesents estimates based on a sample of municipality-election years where the Progress Party
offered party lists in the elections to the municipal councils. Trend is a municipality-specific linear time-trend. The
model includes the same controls as in Table 2.
Table 3.3 Triple-difference (DDD) estimates
Triple-difference estimates on Progress Party support using differences in voting ou
Source:
Election statistics
____________________________________________________________________
A
B
D
____________________________________________________________________
2,677 ***
1,347 ***
1,232 *
log(NWI+1)
(0,237)
(0,379)
(0,567)
____________________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Election year
X
X
X
Municipality
X
X
Trend
X
____________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is Progress Party voter support in municipal elections less Progress
Party voter support in county council elections. The analyses are based on a sample
selection that includes municipalities where the Progress Party offered party lists in the
municipal elections. The model includes no covariates.
Table 4. Individual-level panel data estimates
Source: National Election Surveys (1977-2009)
_______________________________________________________________
Repeated crossIndividual-level panel
sections
data
A
B
_______________________________________________________________
log(NWI+1)
0,030
(0,017)
0,061
(0,025)
log(WI+1)
0,037
(0,030)
0,023
(0,030)
Education (=Primary)
Education (=Secondary)
Education (=Tertiary)
-0,063
(0,007)
-0,011
(0,006)
Ref.
***
*
-0,028
(0,015)
-0,013
(0,012)
Ref.
-0,018
**
-0,041
(0,006)
(0,107)
-0,037
***
Gender (Women=1)
(0,004)
_______________________________________________________________
Respondents' age (log)
15210
11474
(N)
_______________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
Respondent
X
Election
year
X
X
_______________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
Ref.: Reference category.
The response variable is voting in favor of the Progress Party (=1). NWI denotes the
percentage of non-Western immigrants in the municipality, and WI denotes the
percentage of Western immigrants. The standard errors are robust standard errors
clustred at the municipality level. In addition to the estimates displayed, the regression
models include the same municipality levels controls as in Tables 2 and 3.
The model with respondent fixed-effects (B) has been estimated on a sample with
pairwise mathcing of surveys. Starting in 1977, the analyses exploit that about 50% of the
respondents where interviewed again after four years.
Table 5. Instrument variable (IV) estimates of Progress Party support
Local and national elections. 1999-2011.
_____________________________________________________________________
Local elections
National elections
First stage
Second stage
First stage
Second stage
_____________________________________________________________________
log(Requests)
0.125 ***
(0.023)
0.170 ***
(0.017)
5.341 **
1.499
(2.030)
(2.490)
0.013
0.978 *
0.013
1.478 *
log(WI+1)
(0.029)
(0.381)
(0.023)
(0.575)
0.752 ***
-2.604
0.503 ***
5.072 *
log(NativePop)
(0.104)
(1.959)
(0.077)
(2.202)
2.362
-24.718
1.134
-43.278 *
Share children
(0.979)
(13.756)
(0.745)
(18.762)
-0.131
-8.650
-0.189
-47.217 **
Share young
(0.644)
(9.814)
(0.599)
(14.748)
-0.134 *
27.970 **
-1.134 **
5.163
Share elderly
(0.644)
(9.354)
(0.487)
(13.399)
Unemployment
-1.374
-18.669
-1.831 *
-14.327
rate
(0.899)
(11.917)
(0.747)
(18.789)
-2.218
27.786
-2.117 *
16.147
Share women
(1.167)
(15.912)
(0.999)
(25.433)
_____________________________________________________________________
log(NWI+1)
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
Election
year
X
X
X
X
_____________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the Progress Party in
local and national elections. Requests is the accumulated number of refugees that central
government has aked the municipality to settle. The standard errors are robust standard
errors clustred at the municipality level. For documentation of control variables, see Table 2.
Appendix 1. Voter support for the Progress Party. 1981-2011.
Stepwise linear effects. Local and national elections. OLS-estimates.
Source:
Election statistics
____________________________________________________________________________
A
B
C
D
____________________________________________________________________________
1,126 *
-0,035
1,064 ***
0,509 *
0-1%
(0,477)
(0,400)
(0,287)
(0,227)
1,940 ***
0,703 **
1,123 ***
0,678 ***
1-2%
(0,317)
(0,270)
(0,205)
(0,149)
0,900 ***
0,231
0,912 ***
0,511 ***
NWI
2-3%
(0,241)
(0,230)
(0,168)
(0,135)
0,617 *
-0,118
0,505 ***
0,238
3-4%
(0,241)
(0,222)
(0,143)
(0,136)
0,009
-0,453 *
0,242 *
0,145
4% (0,168)
(0,225)
(0,122)
(0,143)
____________________________________________________________________________
-0,397
0,282
-0,728
-0,780 *
(0,612)
(0,567)
(0,399)
(0,329)
0,480
0,035
-0.182
0,013
1-2%
(0,333)
(0,332)
(0,234)
(0,188)
0,494 *
0,342
-0,021
0,100
WI
2-3%
(0,250)
(0,241)
(0,174)
(0,135)
0,297
0,235
0,034
0,066
3-4%
(0,200)
(0,196)
(0,135)
(0,107)
0,075
-0,081
-0,003
0,020
4% (0,133)
(0,152)
(0,101)
(0,085)
____________________________________________________________________________
0-1%
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
Election year
X
X
X
X
Trend
X
X
Elections
Local
Local
National
National
____________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
National:National elections; Local=Local Elections.
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the Progress Party in local and national
elections. NWI denotes the percentage of non-Western immigrants in the municipality, and WI denotes the
percentage of Western immigrants.Trend is a linear municipality-specific trend. The standard errors are robust
standard errors clustred at the municipality level. The model includes the following controls: children (share of
population aged 0 to 6 before 1996, 0 to 5 later), young (share of population aged 7 to 15 before 1996, 6 to 15
years after), elderly (share of population aged 66 years and more), women (number of women relative to totoal
population), unemployment (share of registered unemployed persons relative to number of inhabitants aged 16-66
years). Source of demographic Indicators: Fiva, Halse & Natik (2012), http://www.jon.fiva.no/data.htm
Appendix 2. Voter support for the Progress Party. 1981-2011.
Local and national elections. The estimates are based on first differences.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
a
b
A
B
C
D
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
∆log(NWI)t,t-4
1,466 **
(0,355)
0,564 *
(0,267)
0.537
-0.132
∆log(WI)t,t-4
(0.460)
(0.307)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
0,084
0,737 **
0,118
0,287 *
∆NWIt,t-4
(0,185)
(0,254)
(0,116)
(0,127)
∆WIt,t-4
∆NWIt,t-4*NWIt-4
-0,169
(0,143)
0,083
(0,217)
-0,296 ***
(0,067)
0,012
(0,083)
-0,033
(0,116)
-0,079 *
(0,035)
-0,073
0,010
∆WIt,t-4*WIt-4
(0,046)
(0,025)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Election year
X
X
X
X
X
X
Elections
Local
National
Local
Local
National
National
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
National:National elections; Local=Local Elections.
The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the Progress Party in year t in the local and national elections. All
variables have been measured as four-year first differences, with the exception of the two level variables, NWIt-4 and WIt-4. The models
include the same controls (measured as first differences) as in Table 2. The standard errors are robust standard errors clustred at the
municipality level.
Appendix 3. Robustness tests for immigration impact on the political parties. 1981-2011.
Local and national elections. OLS-estimates.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5,797 **
1,026 *
1,037 *
1,427 *
1,466 **
2,387 ***
(0,574)
(1,842)
(0,466)
(0,481)
(0,572)
(0,355)
-1,822 *
0,350
0,864
0,974
-0,806
0,288
Conservative Party
(0,771)
(1,199)
(0,971)
(0,979)
(0,683)
(0,909)
-2,389 *
-1,425
-1,296
-0,106
-1,497
-2,034 *
The center parties
(0,924)
(1,063)
(0,995)
(1,005)
(0,970)
(0,881)
Local elections
0,081
-0,553
-0,459
-1,424
-1,003
-0,392
The Labour Party
(0,893)
(1,057)
(0,898)
(0,947)
(0,856)
(0,856)
0,045
0,106
0,157
0,119
0,066
-0,302
The Socialist Left Party
(0,357)
(0,731)
(0,384)
(0,397)
(0,412)
(0,397)
1,815
-3,945
-0,051
-0,375
0,842
1,046
Other parties
(1,718)
(1,400)
(1,382)
(2,436)
(1,644)
(1,329)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Progress Party
2,815 ***
0,889 ***
0,958 ***
0,933 ***
0,564 *
1,722 ***
(0,3239
(0,831)
(0,236)
(0,243)
(0,245)
(0,267)
-1,455 *
-0,418
-0,504
-0,593 *
-0,675 **
-1,271 ***
Conservative Party
(0,326)
(0,592)
(0,285)
(0,284)
(0,276)
(0,243)
-3,373 *
0,215
0,078
-0,842 *
-0,055
-1,353 *
The center parties
(0,332)
(0,564)
(1,449)
(0,498)
(0,507)
(0,407)
National elections
0,905
-0,147
0,121
0,101
0,243
0,674
The Labour Party
(0,528)
(0,609)
(0,552)
(0,541)
(0,324)
(0,343)
0,306
-0,396
0,202
0,065
0,136
-0,027
The Socialist Left Party
(0,253)
(0,236)
(0,336)
(0,303)
(0,171)
(0,227)
-0,131
1,504 *
-0,741
-0,717
0,264
-0,051
Other parties
(0,573)
(0,477)
(0,493)
(0,242)
(0,359)
(0,504)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Progress Party
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
X
X
X
X
Election year
X
X
X
X
X
X
Region*Year
X
Trend
X
X
Covariates
X
X
X
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
Columns (1)-(5): The response variable is the percentage of the electorate that voted for the various political parties local and national elections. The table displays effects of nonWestern immigrants in the municipality (log (NWI). Region is a Statistics Norway classification of the municipalities into 90 economic regions. Trend is a linear municipality-specific
trend. The standard errors are robust standard errors clustred at the municipality level. The model includes the following controls: share of immigrants from Western countries,
children (share of population aged 0 to 6 before 1996, 0 to 5 later), young (share of population aged 7 to 15 before 1996, 6 to 15 years after), elderly (share of population aged 66
years and more), women (number of women relative to totoal population), unemployment (share of registered unemployed persons relative to number of inhabitants aged 16-66
years). Column (2): The estimates are based on the same model specification as in column (1), but employs municipal population size as weight. Column (6): The models are
estimated by first differences, i.e. the difference between the variable in the current election and the election four years earlier. The standard errors are robust standard errors
clustred at the municipality level.
Appendix 4. The probability of Progress Party lists in municipal elections.
1983-2011. Linear probability model. Stepwise linear effects.
Source:
Election statistics
____________________________________________________________________________
A
____________________________________________________________________________
0,099 *
0-1%
(0,037)
0,066 *
1-2%
(0,024)
0,020
NWI
2-3%
(0,018)
-0,003
3-4%
(0,016)
-0,012
4% (0,013)
____________________________________________________________________________
0,022
(0,048)
0,047
1-2%
(0,025)
0,028
WI
2-3%
(0,017)
0,022
3-4%
(0,013)
0,008
4% (0,009)
____________________________________________________________________________
0-1%
Fixed effects:
Municipality
X
Election
year
X
____________________________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable has been coded 0 if the Progress Party did not offer list, and 1 if it did present a party list in the election to
the municipal council. The model includes the same controls as in Appendix 1. The standard errors are robust standard errors
clustred at the municipality level.
Appendix 5. Instrument variable test.
Local elections.
______________________________________________________________
A
B
C
______________________________________________________________
OneSeatMajority *
SeatShareLeft
0,129
(0,932)
0,900
(0,690)
1,082
(0,685)
OneSeatMajority
-0,034
(0,470)
-0,458
(0,346)
-0,547
(0,342)
-0,048
0,034
0,016
SeatShareLeft
(0,067)
(0,089)
(0,092)
______________________________________________________________
Fixed effects:
Election year
X
X
X
Municipality
X
X
Covariates
X
______________________________________________________________
*:p <0,05; **:p<0,01; ***:p<0,001
The response variable is the number of people that IMDi has requested the municipality
to settle, measured as percent of the native population. The data is annual data for the
1995-2011 period. OneSeatMajority is a dummy variable that indicates wheter one of the
party blocs (socialist/non-socialist) won a seat majority by one seat only. SeatShareLeft is
the share of municipal council seats for the socialist political parties. The covariates are
the size of the native population, shares of children, young and elderly, and the
unemployment rate (cf. Table 1). The standard errors are robust standard errors clustred
at the municipality level.