In a recent article, I wrote about research showing that support for populists rose in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Such crises tend to create clear divisions between an in-group and out-groups, with defenders of the in-group tending to be vocal defenders of resources that they suggest are being taken by the out-group.

This was reaffirmed in a second study from the University of Michigan, which found that the competition for resources was key to determining support for populists. The research showed that when people feel that their access to social benefits is threatened by immigrants, they’re more likely to support far-right politicians.

Access to welfare

The researchers conducted their work via the EU’s directive that forced regions in Austria to open up public housing that was previously excluded to immigrants. They monitored the response to this change around the election of 2006, which was also when the policy was introduced.

They find that while the presence of public housing was not enough to predict support for far-right parties in previous elections, this appeared to be more so in the 2006 election. This was especially so in areas that had a larger immigrant population.

The researchers believe this highlights the role of competing, or perceiving there to be a competition, for resources in raising support for parties that clearly oppose the out-group that is perceived to be getting what they don’t deserve. The results highlight how zero-sum reasoning can bolster support for the far right.

Population movements

The results provide a reminder of the danger inherent when globalization results in large population movements as this can become a source of distributional conflict and raise support for populist parties that have nationalist welfare policies.

“Interpreting these electoral shifts exclusively through the lens of cultural backlash potentially disregards voters’ underlying concerns about access to social benefits in a context where fiscal adjustment has become a credible threat,” the researchers explain.

They also distinguish between benefits that are “in-cash”, such as tax credits, and those that are “in-kind”, such as access to housing or health care. They found that these in-kind benefits are more likely to generate hostilities, perhaps because those benefits are more likely to be fixed and geographically bound.

As a result, the researchers believe that placing refugees in areas where resource competition is not such an issue might be a good idea if one wishes to avoid the hostilities that might result.