<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Little is known about the political consequences of immigration in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we estimate the effect of exposure to immigration on election outcomes in South Africa. Our analysis is based on municipality panel data and an instrumental variable (IV) strategy exploiting historical migrant settlement patterns. We find that local immigration concentration has a negative impact on the performance of the incumbent African National Congress, whereas support for the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, is found to increase in municipalities with a larger immigrant presence. These effects hold regardless of the skill levels of immigrants in a municipality. In terms of mechanisms, competition over jobs and local public services as well as ethnic diversity and cultural factors influence how immigration affects election outcomes. These findings are robust to a broad range of sensitivity checks. They provide evidence that immigration can be a politically salient issue in migrant-destination Sub-Saharan African countries. They also show that immigration can affect election results even in contexts where there is no single issue anti-migrant party.</p></abstract>

Little is known about the political consequences of immigration in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we estimate the effect of exposure to immigration on election outcomes in South Africa. Our analysis is based on municipality panel data and an instrumental variable (IV) strategy exploiting historical migrant settlement patterns. We find that local immigration concentration has a negative impact on the performance of the incumbent African National Congress, whereas support for the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, is found to increase in municipalities with a larger immigrant presence. These effects hold regardless of the skill levels of immigrants in a municipality. In terms of mechanisms, competition over jobs and local public services as well as ethnic diversity and cultural factors influence how immigration affects election outcomes. These findings are robust to a broad range of sensitivity checks. They provide evidence that immigration can be a politically salient issue in migrant-destination Sub-Saharan African countries. They also show that immigration can affect election results even in contexts where there is no single issue anti-migrant party.

South-South migration and elections: evidence from post-apartheid South Africa

IZA Journal of Development and Migration

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"South-South migration and elections: evidence from post-apartheid South Africa"}

Little is known about the political consequences of immigration in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we estimate the effect of exposure to immigration on...

South-South migration and elections: evidence from post-apartheid South Africa

Published Online: Sep 02, 2020

Page range: -

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/izajodm-2020-0015

Keywords
immigration, elections, South Africa, South-South migration

© 2020 Biniam E. Bedasso, Pascal Jaupart, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

South-South migration and elections: evidence from post-apartheid South Africa

Published Online: Sep 02, 2020

Page range: -

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/izajodm-2020-0015

Keywordsimmigration, elections, South Africa, South-South migration

© 2020 Biniam E. Bedasso, Pascal Jaupart, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords
immigration, elections, South Africa, South-South migration