Matthew J. Goodwin’s research while affiliated with University of Kent and other places

The second decade of the twenty-first century witnessed a significant ‘rightward drift’ as populists in the West scored striking electoral gains. We argue that this reflects a shift in the power of electoral cleavages that is asymmetric in nature. Specifically, voters for whom immigration is salient are more likely to switch to conservative and national populist parties than to liberal or left-wing parties. We leverage data from three prominent cases, the United States, Britain and Germany, to demonstrate that immigration-specific asymmetric realignment occurred in the three countries. These findings have implications for our understanding of electoral politics, populism and the emerging ‘culture divide’ in party systems.

Objective A key issue in Britain's referendum on European Union membership was the free movement of labor into Britain, with Brexit “Leavers” having more negative attitudes toward immigrants than “Remainers.” Such anti-immigrant attitudes are driven by feelings of threat. The coronavirus pandemic presented a new threat in the context of ongoing Brexit negotiations. This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected anti-immigrant attitudes and how these effects differ between Leavers and Remainers. Methods Using an online survey in Spring 2020 of 3,708 individuals residing in the UK, we experimentally test the effect of priming COVID-19 thoughts on anti-immigrant attitudes, and examine whether this effect varies by Brexit identity. Results We show that COVID-19 may exacerbate anti-immigrant attitudes among Leavers while having little effect on Remainers. Conclusion These findings support the idea that the coronavirus pandemic might have presented a new, viral, threat that heightened anti-immigrant attitudes among certain political identities.

A key issue in Britain’s referendum on European Union membership was the free movement of labour into Britain, with Brexit ‘Leavers’ having more negative attitudes towards immigrants compared to ‘Remainers’. Such anti-immigrant attitudes are driven by feelings of threat. As Brexit negotiations continued, the coronavirus pandemic presented a new threat, potentially heightening anti-immigrant attitudes. However, the prominent sacrifices of migrant workers in the fight against coronavirus suggests a potential for softening public attitudes. We ask: how did the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of ongoing Brexit negotiations, affected anti-immigrant attitudes and how did these effects differ between Leavers and Remainers? Through a survey experiment, we test the effects of priming COVID-19 thoughts, showing that COVID-19 may exacerbate anti-immigrant attitudes among Leavers while having little effect on Remainers. In doing so, we explore the effect of a viral threat on immigration attitudes and heterogeneity in that effect, based on political identities.

The outcome of the 2019 general election—a resounding Conservative majority and an unprecedented defeat for Labour—delivered a decisive electoral verdict for the first time in recent years following a period where British politics has been characterised by instability and indecision. In this article, we draw on aggregate‐level data to conduct an initial exploration of the vote. What was the impact of Brexit on the 2019 general election result? How far has Brexit reshaped electoral politics? Was 2019 a ‘realignment election’? And, if so, what are the implications? With a focus on England and Wales we show that, although the Conservatives made gains deep into Labour’s working class heartlands, these gains have been a long time coming, reflected in Labour’s weakening relationship with working class Britain. As such, 2019 is not a critical election but a continuation of longer‐term trends of dealignment and realignment in British politics.

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) election took place against the backdrop of the vote for Brexit and the failure of Parliament to agree on a withdrawal agreement. Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party topped the poll and the pro‐Remain Liberal Democrats, which called for a second referendum on EU membership, returned from electoral obscurity to take second place, while other pro‐Remain parties similarly performed well. In sharp contrast, the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, recorded their lowest combined vote share since they became the main representatives of the two‐party system. In this article, we draw on aggregate‐level data to explore what happened at the 2019 EP election in Great Britain. Our evidence suggests Labour suffered from a ‘pincer movement’, losing support in its mainly white, working class ‘left behind’ heartlands but also in younger cosmopolitan areas where Labour had polled strongly at the 2017 general election. Support for the new Brexit Party increased more significantly in ‘left behind’ communities, which had given strong support to Leave at the 2016 referendum, suggesting that national populists capitalised on Labour’s woes. The Conservatives haemorrhaged support in affluent, older retirement areas but largely at the expense of the resurgent Liberal Democrats, with the latter surging in Remain areas and where the Conservatives are traditionally strong, though not in areas with younger electorates where the party made so much ground prior to the 2010–2015 coalition government. Lastly, turnout increased overall compared with 2014, but individuals living in Leave areas were less motivated to vote. Overall, our findings suggest that those living in Remain areas were more driven to express their discontent with the Brexit process and more inclined to support parties that offer a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

Over recent years, Europe has experienced a series of Islamic terrorist attacks. In this article, conflicting theoretical expectations are derived on whether such attacks increase populist Euroscepticism in the form of anti‐immigration, anti‐refugee and anti‐European Union sentiment. Empirically, plausible exogenous variation in the exposure to the 2016 Berlin attack is exploited in two nationally representative surveys covering multiple European countries. No evidence is found for a populist response to the terrorist attack in any of the surveyed countries. On the contrary, people in Germany became more positive towards the EU in the wake of the Berlin attack. Moreover, little evidence is found that ideology shaped the response to the attack. The findings suggest that terrorist attacks are not met by an immediate public populist response.

Between 2013 and the referendum on Britain's EU membership in 2016, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) emerged as the most significant new party in English politics for a generation. Yet, despite rising to become the third most popular party, temporarily replacing the Liberal Democrats in the polls, UKIP failed to translate support into a large presence in Westminster. At the 2015 general election, the party won only one seat and in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum suffered a major loss of support. In this article, we investigate UKIP's rise and show why the party's evolution at local level is an important but neglected factor in its failure to engineer a substantial breakthrough. By analysing aggregate-level data on local elections and surveys of UKIP's largely inexperienced but enthusiastic candidates, we show how the party's initial advance came largely at the expense of the Conservative Party but then opened a second front against Labour, in more urban areas. Unlike the Liberal Democrats, UKIP was unable to sustain this momentum and failed to use a local government base as a foundation for strong representation in parliament.

Does ethnic diversity increase or reduce white threat perceptions? Meta-analyses help orient a field and communicate findings to policymakers. We report the results of a meta-analysis of studies measuring the relationship between ethnic context and both opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigration parties. Our analysis attempts to be exhaustive, and is based on 171 post-1995 studies averaging 25,000 observations each, a knowledge base of over 4 million data points. We find a linear association between ethnic change and elevated threat. However, for diversity levels, the relationship between ethnic context and threat is nonlinear. This takes the form of a 'wave', with higher diversity predicting threat responses at the smallest and largest scales, whereas in units of 5000–10,000 people (such as tracts or neighbourhoods), diversity is associated with reduced threat.

What can the case of the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union (EU) teach us about message framing effects and arguments that persuade citizens whether or not to support the EU? In this article, we report findings from an innovative online survey experiment based on a two-wave panel design. Our findings show that despite the expectation that campaign effects are small for high salience issues – such as Brexit – the potential for campaign effects were high for the pro-EU frames. This suggests that within an asymmetrical information environment – where the arguments for one side of an issue (anti-EU) are “priced in”, while arguments for the other side (pro-EU) have been understated – the potential for campaign effects in a single direction are substantial. To the extent that this environment is reflected in other referendum campaigns, the potential effect of pro-EU frames may be substantial.

In this research note we replicate, update and expand innovative research by Sniderman et al. conducted in the Netherlands in the late 1990s, and ask whether the relative primacy of cultural compared with economic and safety threats in explaining ethnic prejudice remains true under markedly different national, economic and political contexts. Using two national British surveys conducted in 2011 and 2016, we examine the impact of threat on hostility toward three minority groups. Our results confirm the primacy of cultural threat as the strongest and most consistent predictor of hostility, while demonstrating the more context-specific effects of safety and economic concerns, with safety threats playing an overall more prominent role and increased economic concerns being related to less hostility post-Brexit.