Immigration, Voting Rights, And Redistribution: Evidence From Local Governments In Europe

How does immigration influence local redistributive spending? This is a salient question in Europe, where local governments exercise discretion over social policy. Although prevailing accounts predict that anti-immigrant sentiment will fuel cuts in social spending, this perspective overlooks institutional variation in foreign voting rights. Building on the literature on democracy and redistribution, this article argues that an immigration-induced "race to the bottom" in local social expenditure will be conditional on the political status granted to foreign residents. Where foreign residents possess voting rights, incumbents gain incentives to leverage redistributive transfers to mobilize immigrant votes, offsetting downward pressure on social spending. To test the argument, the analysis draws on municipal-level panel data from nine European countries and implements a difference-in-differences design within two recent cases of franchise extension. The results indicate that the extension of local voting rights is sufficient to reverse downward bias in social spending within diversifying localities.