Attitudes towards Globalization and Right-wing Eurosceptic Voting in Context

According to the literature, there is a connection between voting for right-wing Eurosceptic parties and negative attitudes towards both immigration (cultural globalization) and neoliberal policies (economic globalization). In this paper, we assess the extent to which regional levels of unemployment and immigration flows, first, affect the propensity to vote for right-wing Eurosceptic parties and, second, condition the relationship between these attitudes and the vote for these parties. We use rounds 4–8 of the European Social Survey together with regional contextual data from Eurostat, and we estimate different multilevel models in which individuals are nested in region-years. Our findings suggest, first, that right-wing Eurosceptic voting is positively associated with immigration flows within regions (but not with unemployment rates). Second, the relationship between anti-immigration attitudes and right-wing Eurosceptic voting is stronger in contexts with high immigration flows and low unemployment rates, while the effect of anti-neoliberal attitudes on the individual preference for this type of parties seems to be reinforced in contexts with high levels of unemployment and low flows of immigration.