Policy Effects of Anti-Immigrant Party Representation on Aid to Vulnerable European Union/European Economic Area Citizens
| Author | Maria Tyrberg,Carl Dahlström |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717722361 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717722361
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(1) 3 –22
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321717722361
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Policy Effects of Anti-Immigrant
Party Representation on Aid
to Vulnerable European Union/
European Economic Area
Citizens
Maria Tyrberg and Carl Dahlström
Abstract
While anti-immigrant parties have been electorally successful in European parliaments, it is still
unclear whether they have influenced policies. This article contributes by investigating the anti-
immigrant party policy impact on a previously unexplored welfare policy area, that concerning
the mobility of vulnerable European Union/European Economic Area citizens. In Sweden, the aid
offered to these citizens varies a great deal in different municipalities. Furthermore, the largest
anti-immigrant party (Sweden Democrats) has, unlike the mainstream political parties, preferences
for a strict policy in line with so-called welfare chauvinism. Taking advantage of this subnational
variation, our data give us a unique opportunity to investigate whether anti-immigrant party
representation impacts welfare policy outcomes. The empirical findings show a negative correlation
between Sweden Democrats’ representation and the aid offered and indicates that municipalities
where Sweden Democrats holds a pivotal position offer less aid to vulnerable European Union/
European Economic Area citizens. The hypothesis that these effects are conditional upon the
ideology of the ruling coalition is, however, not supported.
Keywords
policy impact, welfare policy, welfare chauvinism, anti-immigrant parties, niche parties, Sweden
Democrats, vulnerable EU/EEA citizens, party politics
Accepted: 20 June 2017
Introduction
Support for anti-immigrant parties (AIPs) has increased in Europe during the last decades
and is now a feature of most European party systems. They have also entered governing
coalitions in several European countries, starting at the end of the 1990s (Goodwin, 2011;
Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Corresponding author:
Carl Dahlström, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 711, 405 30 Gothenburg,
Sweden.
Email: Carl.Dahlstrom@pol.gu.se
722361PSX0010.1177/0032321717722361Political StudiesTyrberg and Dahlström
research-article2017
Article
4 Political Studies 66(1)
Hale Williams, 2006). While the presence of these parties is clear, it is still uncertain
whether they have had an effect on policies. Comparative research has mainly focused on
immigration and integration policies when exploring anti-immigrant party impact, with
inconsistent empirical findings, indicating that there might be context-specific factors or
conditional effects. Some argue that AIPs’ policy preferences have influenced mainstream
parties (De Lange, 2012; Van Spanje, 2010), while others claim that the impact is over-
stated (Akkerman, 2012b; Mudde, 2013). Policies related to immigration are, however,
not the only focus of AIPs; they often also take on a so-called welfare chauvinist approach,
arguing for exclusive redistributive solidarity for the nations’ ‘own people’ (i.e. the
natives), thus linking immigration and integration issues with redistributive politics (Betz
and Johnson, 2004; Lefkofridi and Michel, 2014; Rydgren, 2003). Scholars have there-
fore recently extended the discussion to include welfare policies as well (Afonso, 2015),
with findings showing some support for anti-immigrant party policy impact on welfare
politics (Careja et al., 2016; Schumacher and Van Kersbergen, 2016)
This article adds to this literature, exploring the potential welfare policy impact of
AIPs further by focusing on a previously uncharted area: the issue of vulnerable European
Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA)1 citizens. The study is conducted on the sub-
national level in Sweden, where local governments have capabilities similar to those of
national governments (Dahlström and Sundell, 2012). Hence, we manage to keep institu-
tional settings constant while including a larger number of units of analysis than what is
possible in a cross-country study. Beyond these methodological advantages, Sweden is a
useful case for several reasons. The country is known for its general welfare system and
was long an exception to the anti-immigrant attitudes and success of AIPs present in other
European countries (Brochman and Hagelund, 2011; Erlingsson et al., 2014; Lefkofridi
and Horvath, 2012). Support for the Sweden Democrats (SD) – the largest anti-immigrant
party in Sweden – has increased since 2010, and the party is now represented in both
national and local parliaments. The mainstream parties still officially distance themselves
from SD (Aylott and Bolin, 2015), which indicates that there is a potential difficulty for
SD to influence policies. This makes Sweden a hard case on which to test the theory of
AIP policy impact.
Regarding the chosen area of policy, there has been an increase in vulnerable European
citizens travelling abroad to make an income in recent years. A large proportion is Roma
people, who are poor and often discriminated against in their countries of origin (SALAR,
2014b). The citizens’ exposed position and often vague legislation have caused debates
across Europe concerning the responsibilities of the state for temporary migrants, and the
practical problems are often pushed down to the local level. In Sweden, there is a large
variation between municipalities, where some provide much assistance to vulnerable EU/
EEA citizens, while others do nothing at all (Delling, 2014; Johansson and Hans-Ers,
2015; SALAR, 2014a). The reason behind these different approaches is as yet unclear.
Given the relative independence of Swedish municipalities, the variation could be
caused by the political composition at the local level. SD has preferences unlike those of
the other political parties in this policy area. While the issue of vulnerable EU/EEA citi-
zens is currently debated among most political parties, SD has held a stricter stance. Up
to the 2014 election, SD was in sole opposition to begging among all the political parties,
which is an important source of income in the group of vulnerable EU/EEA citizens
(SALAR, 2014a). Moreover, the policy area highly relates to a chauvinistic welfare
approach, framing immigrants as a problem in terms of abusing the generosity of the
welfare state (Rydgren, 2003).
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