Working class fear and anti-immigrant attitudes in Norway

The manual working class is under pressure from digitalization and technical innovation that threatens to make their competence superfluous. At the same time, open borders and cultural integration lay the foundations for a tougher and more competitive work market for citizens lacking specialized skills or higher education. Thus, growing societal discontent has to a large degree been attributed to the native working class and their fight for a “nostalgic” version of the “old” and traditional society. Anti-immigrant attitudes are considered a constitutive part of this fight. To which degree exclusionist positions are caused by economic self-interest, sociotropic concerns or socio-cultural value characteristics, however, remains elusive. Existing research on working class discontent and anti-immigration attitudes investigate cultural and economic threats in detailed and systematic manners, primarily through cognitive evaluations of the economic or societal situation. It is thus difficult to know if respondents actually feel threatened and the potential connection between negative emotions and anti- immigrant attitudes. In the present study we utilize data from the Norwegian Election survey 2017 to investigate if negative emotions toward the general societal development generate anti-immigration attitudes among manual workers. The major aims are to examine; (1) if societal fear and anger breed anti-immigration attitudes, (2) if the manual working class obtains more negative emotions than other social classes, and (3) if the connection between negative societal emotions and anti-immigrant attitudes is stronger in this class than other classes.