Does Associational Membership Affect Extreme Right Voting and Anti-Immigrant Attitudes? An Individual and Contextual Analysis in Belgium

This paper investigates the impact of associational membership on anti-immigrant attitudes and extreme right voting. It provides a unique test of this relationship by considering jointly direct individual membership to various types of association as well as the density of these social networks in the individuals’ environment. In contrast with previous research, the results show that the role of social capital is weaker than hypothesized. Using the PIOP-ISPO post electoral surveys of 1999 and 2003, we show that the intensity of public social life in the environment has no significant effect on... Mehr ...

Verfasser: David, Quentin
Pilet, Jean-Benoit
Hamme, Gilles Van
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
Verlag/Hrsg.: Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
Schlagwörter: extrême droite / attitude anti-immigration / capital social / contexte / pilier / Belgique / extreme right / anti immigrant attitude / social capital / context / pillar / Belgium
Sprache: unknown
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26549576
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://espacepolitique.revues.org/3069

This paper investigates the impact of associational membership on anti-immigrant attitudes and extreme right voting. It provides a unique test of this relationship by considering jointly direct individual membership to various types of association as well as the density of these social networks in the individuals’ environment. In contrast with previous research, the results show that the role of social capital is weaker than hypothesized. Using the PIOP-ISPO post electoral surveys of 1999 and 2003, we show that the intensity of public social life in the environment has no significant effect on attitudes and behaviour, and individual social capital has a differentiated effect depending on the nature of the association individuals belong to. Membership to political associations has an effect on both extreme right voting and on negative attitudes toward migrants. Membership to non-political organizations has no impact on voting behaviour but is negatively correlated with anti-immigrant attitudes. In sum, the study emphasizes that the influence of social capital is much less straightforward than assumed in most of the literature. ; L’article explore le rôle de l’appartenance directe à des associations et de leur présence dans le contexte de l’individu sur ses attitudes vis-à-vis des immigrés et de l’immigration ainsi que sur le vote d’extrême droite. Par rapport à la littérature existante sur le sujet, nos analyses montrent le poids très limité du capital social pour expliquer ces comportements. A partir des enquêtes post-électorales PIOP-ISPO de 1999 et 2003, nos résultats indiquent que, dans le contexte belge contemporain, l’intensité de la vie associative dans l’environnement n’a pas d’influence significative sur les attitudes et le comportement électoral, et que le capital social attaché à l’individu dépend essentiellement de la nature des associations : en particulier, l’appartenance à des associations politiques diminue les attitudes négatives vis-à-vis de l’immigration (et des immigrés) ainsi que le vote ...