Why do individuals in Central and Eastern Europe support parties and candidates that hold restrictive positions on migration? I argue that the mobilization of public opinion against the European integration of external migration management is a cause. To test, I employ an experiment in Slovakia that combines a between-subjects experiment with a candidate-choice conjoint. Results indicate strong support for restrictive migration policies generally and that ideology moderates reactions to messages about European Union influence. In response to these messages, liberals shift toward restrictive policy preferences; conservatives do not. These differential effects suggest that messages about European Union influence run up against ceiling effects, where entrenched anti-migration preferences prevent attitudinal change. This paper identifies the limited set of conditions under which the mobilization of public opinion against European integration influences attitudes and electoral preferences.
Abou-ChadiTKrauseW (2020) The causal effect of radical right success on mainstream parties’ policy positions: A regression discontinuity approach. British Journal of Political Science50(3): 829–847.
2.
AbramsonSFKoçakKMagazinnikA (2022) What do we learn about voter preferences from conjoint experiments?American Journal of Political Science66(4): 1008–1020.
3.
AdidaCL (2021) Migration and Public Opinion. In: Money J and Lockhart S (eds) Introduction to International Migration. Routledge, pp. 151–174.
4.
BörzelTARisseT (2018) From the euro to the Schengen crises: European integration theories, politicization, and identity politics. Journal of European Public Policy25(1): 83–108.
5.
BuštíkováL (2020) Extreme Reactions: Radical Right Mobilization in Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
De VriesCEEdwardsEE (2009) Taking Europe to its extremes: Extremist parties and public Euroscepticism. Party Politics15(1): 5–28.
7.
De VriesCE (2018) The cosmopolitan-parochial divide: Changing patterns of party and electoral competition in the Netherlands and beyond. Journal of European Public Policy25(11): 1541–1565.
8.
De VriesCEHoboltSWalterS (2021) Politicizing international cooperation: The mass public, political entrepreneurs and political opportunity structures. International Organization75(2): 306–332.
9.
De WildeP (2011) No polity for old politics? A framework for analyzing the politicization of European integration. Journal of European Integration33(5): 559–575.
10.
De WildePLeupoldASchmidtkeH (2016) Introduction: The differentiated politicisation of European governance. West European Politics39(1): 3–22.
11.
FindorAHruškaMJankovskáPet al. (2021) Who should be given an opportunity to live in Slovakia? A conjoint experiment on immigration preferences. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies20(1): 1–15.
12.
FlynnDJNyhanBReiflerJ (2017) The nature and origins of misperceptions: Understanding false and unsupported beliefs about politics. Political Psychology38: 127–150.
13.
GenschelPJachtenfuchsM (2018) From market integration to core state powers: The Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis and integration theory. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies56(1): 178–196.
14.
HainmuellerJHopkinsDJYamamotoT (2014) Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments. Political Analysis22(1): 1–30.
15.
HarellASorokaSIyengarS (2017) Locus of control and anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Political Psychology38(2): 245–260.
16.
HoogheLMarksG (2009) A postfunctionalist theory of European integration: From permissive consensus to constraining. British Journal of Political Science39(1): 1–23.
17.
HoogheLMarksG (2018) Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage. Journal of European Public Policy25(1): 109–135.
18.
HutterSKriesiH (2022) Politicising immigration in times of crisis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies48(2): 341–365.
19.
JacksonDJollyS (2021) A new divide? assessing the transnational-nationalist dimension among political parties and the public across the EU. European Union Politics22(2): 316–339.
20.
JenneEK (2018) Is nationalism or ethnopopulism on the rise today?Ethnopolitics17(5): 546–552.
21.
KazharskiA (2018) The end of ‘central Europe’? The rise of the radical right and the contestation of identities in Slovakia and the Visegrad Four. Geopolitics23(4): 754–780.
22.
KleiderHStoeckelF (2019) The politics of international redistribution: Explaining public support for fiscal transfers in the EU. European Journal of Political Research58(1): 4–29.
23.
KovářJ (2022) Politicisation of Immigration in Central and Eastern Europe: Evidence from Plenary Debates in Two Countries. Problems of Post-Communism. Epub ahead of print 05 July 2022. DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2022.2085579.
24.
KriesiH (2021) Backlash politics against European integration. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations22(4): 692–701.
25.
KriesiHAltiparmakisABojarAet al. (2021) Debordering and re-bordering in the refugee crisis: A case of ‘defensive integration’. Journal of European Public Policy28(3): 331–349.
26.
KuhnTNicoliF (2020) Collective identities and the integration of core state powers: Introduction to the special issue. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies58(1): 3–20.
27.
KustovA (2022) Do anti-immigration voters care more? documenting the issue importance asymmetry of immigration attitudes. British Journal of Political Science53(1): 796–805.
28.
LancasterCM (2022) Immigration and the sociocultural divide in central and Eastern Europe: Stasis or evolution?European Journal of Political Research61(2): 544–565.
29.
LeeperTJHoboltSBTilleyJ (2020) Measuring subgroup preferences in conjoint experiments. Political Analysis28(2): 207–221.
30.
LutzPKarstensF (2021) External borders and internal freedoms: How the refugee crisis shaped the bordering preferences of European citizens. Journal of European Public Policy28(3): 370–388.
31.
MeijersMJ (2017) Contagious euroscepticism: The impact of Eurosceptic support on mainstream party positions on European integration. Party Politics23(4): 413–423.
32.
MuddeC (2007) Populist Right Radical Parties in Europe. Cambridge University Press.
33.
Pardos-PradoSXenaC (2019) Skill specificity and attitudes toward immigration. American Journal of Political Science63(2): 286–304.
34.
PytlasB (2015) Radical Right Parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Mainstream Party Competition and Electoral Fortune. Milton Park, New York: Routledge.
35.
RaoVR (2014) Applied Conjoint Analysis. New York: Springer.
36.
RobinsonTSDuchRM (2023) How to detect heterogeneity in conjoint experiments. Working Paper.
37.
RooduijnMBonikowskiBParlevlietJ (2021) Populist and nativist attitudes: Does ingroup-outgroup thinking spill over across domains?European Union Politics22(2): 248–265.
38.
Schmidt-CatranAWCzymaraCS (2022) Political elite discourses polarize attitudes toward immigration along ideological lines. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies49(1): 85–109.
39.
SidesJCitrinJ (2007) European opinion about immigration: The role of identities, interests and information. British Journal of Political Science37(3): 477–504.
40.
SnidermanPMHagendoornLPriorM (2004) Predisposing factors and situational triggers: Exclusionary reactions to immigrant minorities. American Political Science Review98(1): 35–49.
41.
ŠtefančíkRNémethováISeresováT (2021) Securitisation of migration in the language of Slovak far-right populism. Migration Letters18(6): 731–744.
42.
Van der BrugWHarteveldE (2021) The conditional effects of the refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and nationalism. European Union Politics22(2): 227–247.
43.
VolkensAKrauseWLehmannPet al. (2019) The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR). Berlin:Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. https://doi.org/10.25522/manifesto.mpds.2019b.
44.
WagnerMMeyerTM (2017) The radical right as niche parties? The ideological landscape of party systems in Western Europe, 1980–2014. Political Studies65(1): 84–107.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
