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Show 53 more attractive to voters in Western European states. Interaction Terms and Lagged Effects While I have addressed the socioeconomic factors individually and have assumed that their impact would be instantaneous, it is important to also note that there are many discussions in the literature on the importance of combining factors (i.e., interaction terms) and considering the lagged effects of factors (Golder 2003; Lewis-Beck and Mitchell 1993; Meguid 2005). In looking first at interaction terms, researchers frequently combine migration/minority levels and economic factors. This combination is inspired by the rhetoric of many MCCP niche parties who blame migrants for high rates of unemployment. For example, during one election, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former leader of the French National Front (FN), was quoted as saying "Two million immigrants are the cause of two million French people out of work" (Golder 2003, 438). More specifically, the rationale behind statements such as this is: In regions where the rate of unemployment rises and the number of immigrants increase, more (latent) conflicts are likely to flare up over the scarce resources. Hence more people will perceive immigrants as a threat and they will consequently opt for the party that claims to protect the members of the ingroup and to exclude outgroups from these scarce resources by restricting immigration policies. (Lubbers and Scheepers 2000, 83) Based on Golder's work, there is some evidence that unemployment can only help explain the electoral success of MCCP niche parties during periods when migration levels are high. In other words, if the unemployment and migration variables were only included in a model individually, the researcher might conclude that unemployment does not matter, when in fact it matters but only in the presence of other factors. Essentially, |
