However, the details of the agreement contain provisions authorizing payments to third countries to block the entry of asylum seekers into Europe and, more worryingly, preliminary plans for mass deportations.
It is clear that the EU’s mainstream parties are hearing the footsteps of populist, anti-immigrant right-wing parties, which made significant inroads in the June 2024 European Parliament elections, and are seeking to reduce their appeal by more strictly limiting the number of people authorized to settle in Europe.
The idea of winning back voters by appearing tough on immigration is attractive to established parties, but, as specialists in comparative politics and political behavior, we think this strategy will not bring in many votes.
Young voters are leaving the campaign
While it is commonly accepted that the electoral success of far-right parties is due to a rejection of newcomers, all this attention to immigration obscures another powerful force behind this trend: emigration, that is, the movement of people leaving a region or country.
In a recently published study, our research team linked out-migration from countries to increased votes for radical-right populist parties in 28 European countries in the mid-2010s.
Emigration follows a well-known trend around the world. As countries transform into post-industrial economies, younger generations are leaving rural areas and small towns for large metropolises, seeking better education and career opportunities. This phenomenon is particularly widespread in Spain, which has lost 28% of its rural population over the past 50 years. Facing a similar decline, Italy recently decided to pay people to settle in its emptying villages.
Counties across the United States are also witnessing precipitous population loss due to the combination of low fertility and out-migration.
But while many people are aware of the economic ramifications that this population flight creates, its impact on voters has been much less explored.
The rise of the radical right in Sweden
The case of Sweden illustrates how emigration can benefit radical right populists. Between 2000 and 2020, the country’s immigrant population increased from 11% to almost 20%. During this period, more than half of Sweden’s municipalities saw their populations decline, with residents moving to the country’s major cities of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg.
Long dominated by centrist and center-left politics, Sweden is also witnessing a remarkable partisan shift.
The country’s oldest and largest party, the Social Democratic Party, has seen its popularity gradually decline. At the same time, the populist, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, once seen as a fringe group with a fascist past, have made significant progress and now hold a fifth of the seats in the national parliament.
As a result, the country is now governed by a center-right minority coalition that depends on the support of radical right populists.
While immigration is a key policy issue for the Sweden Democrats, our research found growing support for the party in regions relatively unaffected by immigration. In fact, looking at elections over two decades, we found that it was in municipalities that lost population that the radical right was able to make significant gains.
Furthermore, local immigration played a much less important role in this success than local emigration. Tracking five election cycles, we saw a persistent gain of half a percentage point in vote share for the Sweden Democrats for every 1% loss of the local population – a significant rate over the long term.
Political trends in depopulating regions
Two key factors explain this dynamic. First, as many studies have shown, people who move from the periphery to urban areas are more likely to lean left. With their departure, the remaining pool of voters naturally contains a greater proportion of conservatives than before. But the composition of the electorate is only part of the story.
The political leanings of voters in depopulating regions have also shifted, from the center-left to the populist right. Emigration played a key role in this. When communities lose more and more working-age people, they experience a decline in public services, due to both the decline in population and the reduction in the tax base. As a result, schools and hospitals are closed, public transportation is cut, and local businesses close.
In addition to lowering the quality of life, living in a place that so many people choose to leave creates a sense of loss of status among those who remain. Our interviews with Social Democratic party leaders revealed that local mayors felt they were facing “collective depression.”
One mayor remarked: “We like it here. But someone comes from outside and says you’re a failure if you live here… So we’re fighting the public’s perception of what is a successful individual. We must constantly work on the psychology of the residents of the municipality.
Meanwhile, disillusionment with established parties provides fertile ground for radical right parties to exploit.
Reduced quality of life
While centrist politicians may feel compelled to adopt anti-immigrant stances in response, copying the rhetoric of radical right parties risks alienating their base.
Furthermore, we believe that cracking down on immigration will likely prove to be an ineffective political strategy in the long term. The Sweden Democrats’ success in depopulating the regions is partly a protest against the political establishment.
But once in power, and in the absence of clear solutions to the decline in the local economy and quality of life that emigration has triggered, party officials will likely face the same voter discontent that fuels their current success.
Ironically, the forces that have increased the appeal of far-right anti-immigration ideologies—falling birth rates, labor shortages, and a lack of new businesses and services—are more easily addressed by a increased immigration.
By following the example of the right and tightening borders, parties closer to the center risk condemning industrialized countries to a vicious political cycle.
Instead, centrist parties may find that it is more cost-effective to address the root causes of population decline and restore public services in peripheral areas.
There are already some examples of this type of action. In recent years, Swedish governments have established and gradually expanded a national system of support for local business services, such as grocery stores, in vulnerable and isolated areas. In 2021, Spain announced an $11.9 billion plan to address the lack of 5G phone connectivity and technologically smart cities in rural areas.
Separately, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development is dedicating more than $100 billion to efforts to support rural areas in its 2021-2027 budget.
These measures could counter a somewhat paradoxical trend that sees fiercely anti-immigration parties gaining ground in regions least affected by immigration.
Regardless, as European and American parties prepare for crucial elections this year, it is essential to understand the complex interplay between demographic changes and political dynamics. It is equally important to recognize that emigration, often obscured by immigration rhetoric, is a key factor in the rise of the radical right.
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.
