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Out-group Threat and Xenophobic Hate Crimes — Evidence of Local Intergroup Conflict Dynamics between Immigrants and Natives (with Daniel Bischof and Markus Wagner). R&R, American Journal of Political Science. [Abstract]
This study examines the relationship between crimes attributed to immigrants and hate crimes against refugees at the local level. We argue that localized crime events attributed to immigrants can lead to xenophobic responses whereby natives exact retribution against uninvolved out-group members. We investigate such intergroup conflict dynamics between immigrants and natives in Germany, a country that has experienced a sharp increase in both the foreign-born population and hate crimes in recent years. Our empirical analysis leverages fine-grained geocoded data on more than 9,400 hate crimes and 60,000 immigrant-attributed crime events between 2015 and 2019. Using a regression discontinuity in time design (RDiT), we show that the daily probability of hate crimes doubles in the immediate aftermath of an immigrant crime event in a local community. Our results speak to growing concerns about xenophobic violence in Western democracies.
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Freedom of Movement Restrictions Inhibit the Psychological Integration of Refugees (with Hanno Hilbig). R&R, Journal of Politics. [Abstract]
How do freedom of movement restrictions affect refugee integration? While a growing body of research studies the initial allocation of refugees, there is little causal evidence on subsequent policies that restrict residential mobility. We study a contentious law in Germany, which barred newly arrived refugees from relocating to a location different from the one they were assigned to. To identify the causal effect of the movement restriction on integration, we utilize a sharp date cutoff that governs whether refugees are affected by the policy. We demonstrate that restricting freedom of movement had pronounced negative effects on refugees’ sense of belonging in Germany, while increasing identification with their home countries. In addition, the policy decreased social engagement, but had no detectable effects on contact with natives or co-ethnics. We argue that detrimental effects stem from the fact that discriminatory policies send a negative signal about the inclusiveness of the host society.
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Media Monopolies Increase Misperceptions about Immigration: Evidence from German Local Newspapers (with Hanno Hilbig). [Abstract]
We examine how local news monopolies affect misperceptions about the size of the immigrant population in Germany. We propose a theoretical framework in which heterogeneous information from different local news outlets diffuses through social interactions. We posit that indirect exposure to information from multiple sources leads to more accurate beliefs in competitive markets. To causally identify the effect of local news monopolies on misperceptions, we exploit overlapping newspaper coverage areas as a source of exogenous variation in the number of available outlets. We estimate that local news monopolies increase misperceptions by 38%. We empirically demonstrate that the effect of media monopolies hinges on social interactions. For individuals with fewer close social contacts, misperceptions remain unaffected by local news monopolies. Our results suggest that consolidation in the market for news decreases constituents' knowledge about critical policy issues.
- Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization (with Fabio Ellger, Hanno Hilbig, and Philipp Tillmann) [Abstract]
Shifting media diets are increasingly viewed as a key driver of political polarization. In particular, prior research has focused on greater choice between partisan outlets and the rise of online news. This paper sheds light on a heretofore understudied yet equally salient development: the decline of local news. We argue that local news exits can induce polarization by increasing exposure to news about national politics, where partisan and ideological differences are more salient than at the local level. To test our argument, we draw on a novel panel data set of the coverage areas of all German news- papers between 1980 and 2009. Using a difference-in-differences design, we demonstrate that local news exits increase electoral polarization. Consistent with our theoretical argument, we also find that local news exits lead to increased consumption of national news, higher degrees of partisan identification, and increased political engagement at the individual level.
- World War I, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Nazi Party (with Felix Haass, Alexander De Juan, Carlo Koos, and Thomas Tichelbaecker). [Abstract]
Did World War I facilitate the rise of the Nazi party in Weimar Germany? We revisit this question by shifting the focus on the localized effects of war casualties on nationalist attitudes. We argue that mass warfare can promote nationalist attitudes by amplifying in-group preferences. Our empirical analysis leverages a unique individual-level dataset of all 8.6 million German soldiers who died or were wounded during World War I. To causally identify the effect of community level exposure to WW1, we leverage plausibly exogenous variation in the death rate of soldiers across small geographic localities. We find that throughout the interwar period, electoral support for nationalist parties including the NSDAP was about 2 percentage points higher in regions highly affected by the war. Additional analyses drawing on data on NSDAP party entries, WW1 memorials, and Nazi autobiographies indicate that our results reflect a broad, community-level impact of the war driven by war losses and public memory rather than returning veterans. Our findings advance our understanding of the local impact of WW1 on the rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the longer-term legacies of indirect exposure to violence on preferences for nationalist ideologies.
- Refugee Labor Market Access Increases Support for Migration (with Anselm Hager and Hanno Hilbig). [Abstract]
Does the economic integration of refugees affect public attitudes toward migration? We assess this pertinent question by making use of a recent policy change in Germany, where the government significantly eased labor market access for refugees in 85% of its
employment districts. Using administrative employment data spanning ten years, we show that the policy increased refugee employment by 50%. The policy also had a positive effect on natives’ attitudes toward migration. Voters exposed to more refugees in the labor market were two percentage points more likely to vote for pro-migration par-
ties across both state and federal elections. Using panel evidence, we corroborate that the policy led to more favorable attitudes toward migration among natives. Turning to mechanisms, we find that increasing refugee labor market access had no effect on na-
tives’ economic situation, but arguably facilitated positive native-refugee interactions in the workplace.
- After the Genocide: Proximity to Victims and Support for Transitional Justice (with Volha Charnysh). [Abstract]
Does spatial proximity to the victims of genocide affect support for transitional justice among members of the perpetrator group? We analyze how exposure to the Jewish community prior to WWII shaped public and elite reactions to dealing with the Nazi past in West Germany. In the 1960s, the Auschwitz trial made public gruesome details about the Nazi annihilation of Jews in occupied Poland and added urgency to extending the statute of limitations on murder, which enabled the persecution of Nazi crimes under German law. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we show that the vote share of the SPD - the party that resisted Nazism in the 1930s and was most supportive of the Auschwitz trials in the 1960s - increased by 1-2% in localities with prewar Jewish communities after the Auschwitz trial. At the same time, parties that opposed legal accountability for ingroup perpetrators lost electoral support. We further demonstrate that deputies born in localities with a prewar Jewish community were 9% more likely to vote for the extension of the statute of limitations. Our findings suggest that divergent local experiences with the victimized outrgroup affect support for transitional justice in post-conflict societies.
- Measuring Electoral Bias against Candidate Traits (with Jorge M. Fernandes and Georgina Evans). [Abstract]
Are voters biased against certain types of candidate, such as women? This question is a subject of immense scholarly and political interest, since parties are disinclined to nominate candidates whom they expect to incur an electoral penalty. Yet, despite widespread interest in the subject, we identify a set of shared methodological shortcomings in prominent studies that limit the reliability of existing inferences. Most significantly, few studies provide a precise definition of the notion of voter bias being estimated. In response to this, we provide a unified framework for defining types of bias against candidates and propose an estimation strategy to identify the electoral penalty parties have incurred in the past for nominating certain candidates, under clearly specified assumptions. We apply our estimator in two settings: First, we study the effect of gender in the United Kingdom and Germany, where find precisely estimated null effects for voter bias against women. Second, we examine the effect of education in Germany, where we find an electoral premium of about 0.5 percentage points for candidates with doctoral degrees.
- Natural Disasters and Electoral Support for Green Parties - Evidence from the 2021 Flood in Germany (with Hanno Hilbig). [Abstract]
A growing literature studies how natural disasters affect political attitudes towards climate change. In this paper, we examine the electoral effects of major flood that occurred just two months prior to the 2021 German federal election. Using a difference-in-differences design in conjunction with municipal-level voting data, we analyze how local exposure to the flood affected support for the Green Party - the party most closely associated with policies that address climate change. Our results reveal pronounced differences between the two most affected states. In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, we find no evidence that the flood affected Green Party support. In the neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate, we show that the flood increased the Green Party vote share by more than two percentage points. We then provide additional support for these results through synthetic control analyses of the most heavily affected localities in each state. Our results suggest that incumbency moderates the relationship between extreme weather events and Green Party support.
