Catherine De Vries is Dean of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at Bocconi University.
After years of relatively broad-based policies toward embracing migrants and refugees, growing anti-immigration sentiment across Europe is pushing governments and legislation to the right.
The European Union has supported strict new immigration rules. The Migration Charter, recently adopted by the European Union, is a set of laws that expand the criminalization and digital surveillance of migrants. It proposes detaining unaccompanied minors who are considered a potential security risk and could result in immigration detention for up to six months.
Independently of the European Union, Emmanuel Macron's administration in France issued tough legislation that even far-right leader Marine Le Pen celebrated. In the United Kingdom, there are calls for the Conservative Party during the upcoming elections to adopt the staunchly anti-immigration policies of Nigel Farage, who led the right-wing Reform Party. These hostile policies and attitudes aim to deter future migrants, thus resolving a large number of issues in host countries.
the European elections It showed an increase in voting for anti-immigration parties. The strong results achieved by the far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen prompted President Macron in France to call for early parliamentary elections. The Alternative for Germany party has made progress in Germany. These results could push the mainstream center-right parties further to the right, as they attempt to win back votes from more clearly anti-immigration parties.
However, research does not agree that a party shifting to the right on immigration leads to better performance in the polls. While concerns about immigration may motivate a core group of right-wing voters, it is not the main issue for many moderate voters. European voters tend to cast their votes based on a wide range of issues, not just or even primarily immigration.
Economists Julia Keage and Thomas Piketty Extensive study It found that low-income individuals in rural areas in France now vote right, while low-income individuals in urban areas vote left. Keiji and Piketty also found that socio-economic factors determined the xenophobic shift of rural voters to the right: a feeling of being left behind by the traditional right and left pushed them into the arms of more extreme and anti-establishment parties.
Research shows that European voters, in general, care about the tougher issues that affect their daily lives, their sense of well-being and security, and their belief in the future and their place in it.
research, Including my ownIt shows that ongoing cuts in public services and the accompanying decline in the quality of life in a country play an important role in explaining the rise of the far right. Concerns about the quality of public services and negative experiences in their provision, such as medical care and education, give rise to anti-establishment politics among a large group of voters, not necessarily explicit xenophobia. Even classic left positions, such as opposition to austerity measures, backed by broad plans on how to deliver on promises once in office, may be more attractive to these voters than anti-immigration rhetoric and action.
These issues were frequent it causes Due to budget cuts made by centrist parties, or at best the failure of public investment to keep pace with the aging of society and the cessation of economic growth. Successive neoliberal governments, comprising parties from the center left and right, have hollowed out key services through sweeping, brutal and persistent cuts.
Until the mainstream parties show they can protect the public services they themselves helped destroy, anti-establishment parties will continue to collect the votes of the disaffected and the ignored.
The ruling parties want to shift attention away from their historical and recent failures in governance. By scapegoating migrants, politicians are trying to divert public attention away from their failures in governance, public acrimony against the ruling elites, and the destruction of public services for which they are responsible. But this is likely to strengthen far-right parties.
If the major parties enjoy the trust of the general public and promise to rebuild what they have destroyed, there may be no need for them to lean toward the right. Left and center-left parties, many of which are currently moving closer to the mainstream right on many issues, have a better chance of gaining confidence to rebuild if they can address decades of distrust, a rightward shift, and a failure to halt the decline.
Whoever leads Europe in the future should focus on addressing the instability of public services, rather than blaming migrants.
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