Host(ile) Country: Immigrants and the Populist Right Surge

Abstract

The rise of populist right parties represents one of the most significant political transformations in contemporary Western European politics. Following the refugee crisis, these formerly marginalised parties entered the political mainstream, positioning themselves as defenders of national values and issue-owners on immigration. While extensive research has documented the sources of populist right support and its effects on party systems, public opinion, and policy-making, less attention has been paid to how this political shift impacts immigrants. This dissertation addresses this gap by examining the relationship between electoral support for populist right parties and three outcomes related to immigrant integration: political trust, generalised social trust, and mental health. The theoretical framework argues that all three outcomes depend on whether immigrants perceive the host-country context as benevolent, open, and accepting. The central argument is that populist right electoral support and legitimisation signal increasing hostility toward immigrants, which is negatively associated with all three outcomes. Chapter 1 investigates the relationship between populist right electoral support and immigrants' political trust. The argument is that electoral support signals the credibility of the populist right to undermine the procedural fairness principles that support immigrants' political trust. Using two-way fixed effects and heterogeneous event studies with European Social Survey data, the analysis demonstrates that overall political trust remains unrelated to higher electoral support for populist right parties. However, a robust negative relationship is found for trust in law and order institutions -particularly the legal system- especially among first-generation immigrants. This suggests that the credibility of the populist right threat depends on the type of institutions that immigrants evaluate. Chapter 2 examines how populist right support relates to generalised social trust. The argument is that higher electoral support signals increasing hostility toward immigrants and is associated with eroding institutional quality, contributing to their sense of exclusion. Using two-way fixed effects and heterogeneous event studies, the findings reveal that negative relationships emerge primarily during periods of heightened populist right salience following the refugee crisis after 2015, rather than uniformly across the observation period. Perceived discrimination and Muslim identity moderate this relationship among first-generation immigrants. Higher levels of populist right support are also related to lower levels of generalised social trust among second-generation immigrants in the post-2015 period, though this relationship is not moderated by perceived discrimination. Chapter 3 explores the association between mental health and legitimisation of the populist right. The argument is that legitimisation lowers the costs of expressing anti-immigrant prejudice and shifts immigrants' appraisal of discrimination toward more pervasive, stable, and internal attributions---heightening stress and worsening mental health among immigrants. Using United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study data for 2010 and 2015, the study examines the association between immigrant self-reported mental health and the first entry of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) into the House of Commons. Before-after event studies comparing 2010 (when UKIP held no seats) with 2015 (when UKIP first won seats) reveal no statistically significant relationship, a null result attributed to the distinctive circumstances of UKIP's entry into the House of Commons in 2015.