The Effects of Migrant Settlement Patterns on Anti-Migrant Party Native Voteshare in the Welfare State: The Cases of Finland and Sweden Studied at the Sub-National Level

Attitudes towards migrants throughout Finland have been more negative than in Sweden over the past several years. Voteshare for anti-migrant parties, however, has been much greater in Sweden than in Finland. Attitudes have not been proportionally translated into political action within these two similar welfare states. Drawing on the “halo effect” of group conflict theory, I posit that, where migrant settlement is more evenly dispersed across communities, anti-migrant attitudes may be higher, but anti-migrant political action will be less likely to occur. Conversely, where migrants are more concentrated and thereby segregated from the native population, such action will be more likely to occur. Settlement patterns of migrants seemingly play a key role in driving native actions against migrants, and to examine this effect, I employ a mixed-method analysis, comprising a dataset I construct of anti-migrant party voteshare over time at the county level and elite interviews in Finland and Sweden.