Nativism and Anti-Democratic Sentiment: An Inevitable Relationship?

There is burgeoning evidence of a negative relationship between anti-immigrant sentiment and support for democracy. Due to its definitional anti-pluralism and association with other anti-democratic values, one could treat this association as constant. In this paper, however, I test an alternate account: that nativist backlash to democracy occurs (more) when they lose. I test two independent mechanisms. The first is in the form of amenable policy – that is, whether more restrictive immigration policies reduce nativists’ perceptions of policy loss, and thus reduce democratic backlash. The second is in the form of representation – whether presence in the legislature or inclusion in government leads nativists to feel represented, and thus more content with democracy. These mechanisms are tested within-person, over-time using the British Election Study Internet Panel, and cross-nationally European Social Survey, World Values Survey data.