It’s Not About Success. It’s About the Message. Elite Messaging and Xenophobic Hate Crimes in the EU

Abstract

Through the past decade, far-right political parties have skyrocketed in popularity and electoral success across the globe, with an especially pronounced effect seen in Europe. One critical component of far-right political movements is nationalist sentiment, often expressed via racist or xenophobic policies and rhetoric. This paper seeks to investigate how electoral success of far-right political parties and elite messaging via policy stances of these parties impacts rates of xenophobic violence in a country. Using data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) and hate crime statistics from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), it is shown that electoral success of a far-right political party does not impact rates of ethnically motivated violence, but elite messaging from far-right political parties on immigration policy is associated with an increase in xenophobic hate crimes.