Reception there is the “inhospitality effect” in territories governed by anti-immigration coalitions: the role of propaganda

ROME – A “inhospitality effect“, Which influences the choice of foreign citizens to live in those territories. In a nutshell, this is one of the most relevant results of the study – taken from Openpolis – “Acts or words? The local influence of anti-immigrant parties on the flow of foreigners”, Conducted by researchers Augusto Cerqua and Federico Zampollo and published in the journal European Journal of Political Economyquarterly academic journal peer-reviewed (i.e. when a text or research prior to publication is submitted for review by industry experts) covering research on economic phenomena, including collective decision-making, political behavior and the role of institutions.

Propaganda is enough. The research takes into consideration over 2 thousand administrative elections that took place in Italy from 2000 to 2018 in 1,652 municipalities, equal to about 21% of the country’s total.

– 2,669 municipal elections considered in the study, which took place from 2000 to 2018.

– On these electoral rounds, the anti-immigration political parties were identified on the basis of the assessments of the chapel hill expert survey (Ches), an international organization of experts that estimates the positioning of parties on ideologies and political issues around the world. Subsequently Cerqua and Zampollo analyzed the municipal elections in which these parties – which in recent years were mainly represented by Lega and Fratelli d’Italia – contributed to the election of the mayor.

The “coldness” of some territories. In this way it was found that the presence of a municipal administration led by anti-immigration parties has a real impact on the decision of foreign citizens to live or leave that territory. This, however, only happens in the most recent years, from 2014 to 2018, that is, starting with the so-called “European migrant crisis”. The period when anti-immigration propaganda exploded and the issue became one of the most discussed and divisive in political agendas and public debate. However, the “coldness” of some territories towards the foreign population is not due to administrative acts or discriminatory local policies, but to the perception of foreigners of an environment made less hospitable by anti-immigration propaganda.

The strength of the perception of foreigners. This result does not seem to be due to the implementation of local policies that directly favor the indigenous population, but rather to the perception by foreigners of a less hospitable environment, generated by a more marked political exploitation of the issue, which leads to the development of a climate generally inhospitable in municipalities led by an anti-immigrant coalition.

– 31% the share of foreigners on the total population in the perception of Italians, according to a study by Ipsos of 2019. In reality, foreigners represent less than 9% of the population. In short, anti-immigration propaganda contributes to building a distorted perception of reality. In recent years this has also happened in the individual territories of the country, as is also stated in the aforementioned study.

The spread of reception centers. The construction of this climate of hatred can also be seen when we speak of asylum seekers and refugees, who represent an ultra-minority part of foreigners in Italy. In fact, despite the fact that the media and citizens often tend to confuse the foreign citizen with the asylum seeker, in 2021 asylum requests were just over 56 thousand, compared to 5.2 million foreigners residing in the country.

– 56,388 asylum applications submitted in 2021 in Italy. For years we have been monitoring the reception system of asylum seekers and refugees in Italy, also through the interactive platform Centers of Italylaunched with ActionAid Italy last February. Through this monitoring we can analyze the municipalities within which reception centers are located, noting that if in 2018 in Italy the municipalities affected by the centers were 38.5% of the total, this percentage dropped to 25% at the end of 2020.

Reception centers in Italy between 2018 and 2020. The presence of asylum seekers and refugees hosted by reception centers in Italian municipalities. The decline in municipalities involved in reception is certainly due to a general reduction in the number of asylum seekers and refugees, but also probably to the climate of hostility that is sometimes generated in communities when supra-municipal institutions (such as the prefecture, in cases of reception centers extraordinary) propose the opening of a new center. Yet the municipalities, through the reception and integration system (You know), they could host reception centers oriented towards social inclusion and work orientation, with obvious advantages both on the better living conditions of migrants in the area and on the perception of the migratory phenomenon by the host communities. On the contrary, as was also highlighted by the research of Cerqua and Zampollo, propaganda is often preferred to public policies, with the effect of generating a distorted perception of reality and therefore a generalized context of inhospitality.