oa Lokale concentratie van allochtonen en steun aan de PVV - Het effect van het percentage niet-westerse allochtonen op het percentage PVV-stemmen, in 246 gemeenten in 2006

Local concentration of immigrants and support for the PVV: The effect of the percentage non-western immigrants on the percentage PVV votes, across 246 Dutch municipalities in 2006.

In this article we study the effect of the percentage non-western immigrants in a municipality on the percentage PVV votes at the municipality level, for 246 Dutch municipalities in 2006. Two contradictory hypotheses are tested. Ethnic group competition theory and integrated group threat theory suggest that a higher percentage non-western immigrants is associated with more PVV voting, whereas from the perspective of intergroup contact theory we derive the expectation of a negative association. We control in the analysis for aggregate characteristics of a municipality, such as characteristics of the age distribution, distribution of educational levels, socio-economic status, income distribution, number of residents, distribution of religious groups and average perceptions of unsafety. Multivariate regression analyses indicate that a higher percentage non-western immigrants is related to more PVV voting. Moreover, ethnic residential segregation in the municipality is negatively associated with PVV support, suggesting that it is not a lack of exposure to the ethnic minorities that explains why there is more PVV support in municipalities with more non-western immigrants.