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Asymmetric Realignment: Immigration and Right Party Voting

Goodwin, Matthew J., Kaufmann, Eric, Larsen, Erik Gahner (2022) Asymmetric Realignment: Immigration and Right Party Voting. Electoral Studies, 80 . Article Number 102551. ISSN 0261-3794. (doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2022.102551) (KAR id:97895)

Abstract

The second decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a significant ‘rightward drift’ as populists in the West scored striking electoral gains. We argue that this reflects a shift in the power of electoral cleavages that is asymmetric in nature. Specifically, voters for whom immigration is salient are more likely to switch to conservative and national populist parties than to liberal or left-wing parties. We leverage data from three prominent cases, the United States, Britain and Germany, to demonstrate that immigration-specific asymmetric realignment occurred in the three countries. These findings have implications for our understanding of electoral politics, populism and the emerging ‘culture divide’ in party systems.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.electstud.2022.102551
Additional information: AAM requested ES 10/11/2022
Subjects: J Political Science
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Politics and International Relations
Funders: University of Kent (https://ror.org/00xkeyj56)
Depositing User: Matthew Goodwin
Date Deposited: 09 Nov 2022 18:42 UTC
Last Modified: 08 Mar 2023 16:00 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/97895 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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