Attitudes to immigration and electoral behaviour in Spain

Abstract

This paper uses primary and secondary data to examine the extent to which the electoral success of VOX in the 2018–2019 Spanish elections may have been fuelled by negative attitudes towards immigration. The data show that VOX voters view this issue less favourably than the voters of other right-wing parties, yet it is unclear how decisively it affected their vote. Perceived grievances about access to public resources and unease about deteriorating working conditions exist, but they scarcely tend to cause anti-immigrant hostility: the political and business classes are blamed. Hence the importance of nuanced approaches that avoid equating qualms about immigration and its impact with scornful rejection.

Keywords

• spain
• attitudes towards immigration and immigrants
• political ideology
• politicisation
• electoral behaviour