Do Far-Right Mayors Increase the Probability of Hate Crimes? Evidence From Italy

Does the Scale or Speed of Immigration Generate Nativism? Evidence from a Comparison of New Zealand Regions

Journal on Migration and Human Security ◽

10.1177/23315024211057840 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 233150242110578

Author(s):

Chris Wilson ◽

Sanjal Shastri ◽

Henry Frear

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Total Population ◽

Local Population ◽

Population Data ◽

Hate Crimes ◽

Rate Of Change ◽

Immigrant Population ◽

Far Right ◽

Immigrant Populations ◽

Low Levels

Nativism, the belief that the rights of those who came first should be prioritized over immigrants, is an increasingly important driver of the rise of far-right populism. It is also leading to hate crimes and even terrorist attacks against immigrants. However, it remains unclear when and why local communities come to oppose immigration. One important set of questions concerns whether nativism is most likely to emerge in societies in which immigrants constitute a higher proportion of the total population or those where there is rapid growth in the immigrant population, even if absolute numbers or their proportion of society remain low. This paper employs multivariate analysis to test these two hypotheses. We use data from a survey of nativist (and populist) sentiment in New Zealand conducted in 2020 along with population data from the national censuses of 2013 and 2018. We compare the results from all New Zealand regions. Our findings strongly support the second hypothesis regarding the importance of the rate of growth in the immigrant population. Those regions that have the highest rate of change in immigrant populations present the highest levels of nativist sentiment, despite their immigrant populations being both small in size and as a proportion of the local population. Conversely, those regions where immigrant numbers are high or they constitute a large proportion of the local population return low levels of nativist sentiment.

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Mutual radicalisation of opposing extremist groups via the Internet

10.31234/osf.io/dtfc5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

John D Gallacher ◽

Marc Heerdink

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Hate Speech ◽

Hate Crimes ◽

The Internet ◽

Far Right ◽

Temporal Relationships ◽

Media Platform ◽

Cyclical Process ◽

Extremist Groups ◽

Relationship Of

Social media has become a common arena for both far-right and Islamic extremist groups to stoke division through the spreading of propaganda and hate speech. This online hate is suggested to drive extremism online, and in some cases lead to offline hate crimes and violence. Whether this online radicalisation happens in isolation within a group, or whether there is an interdependent relationship of mutual radicalisation, is unclear. A possible process by which mutual radicalisation could occur would be if social media incite users to commit offline violence, and if this offline violence in return triggers online reactions from both the target and perpetrator groups. This however has not been tested. This study addresses these questions by investigating the nature of the online-offline relationship of extremist hate. We combine data from the social media platform Gab, variations in Internet search trends, and offline hate crimes in three countries, and test for temporal relationships between opposing extremist groups. Our findings show that online hate from far-right groups both precedes offline violence from these same groups, and spikes following offline violence from opposing Islamic extremist groups. Additionally, far-right Islamophobic violence offline is also followed by increased online interest in Islamic extremist topics. Together, these findings show that the Internet, and specifically hate speech, plays a potential key role in a cyclical process that increases mutual radicalisation.

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