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Far-right Electoral Success

Exacerbates Administrative Discrimination

Against Minorities

Evidence from a Field Experiment in Italy

Krzysztof Krakowski, Dina Rosenberg, Alessio Romarri, and Merlin Schaeffer

2024-05-29

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Far-right Electoral Wins Increase Racism

Source: Bursztyn, Egorov, and Fiorin (2020)

2 / 21

Far-right Electoral Wins Increase Racism

3 / 21

Far-right Electoral Wins Increase Racism

Source: Romarri (2020)

4 / 21

Public Administrators Entrusted with Impartiality, but ...

Source: Olsen, Kyhse-Andersen, and Moynihan (2022)

Source: Hemker and Rink (2017)

5 / 21

Are Public Administrators
also Susceptibile to the Influence of
Far-Right Electoral Successes?

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Three Mechanisms (beyond scope the of this study)

  1. Recruitment: Appointment of like-minded individuals to the administration,

  2. Cream Skimming: Strategically allocate resources to force administrators to prioritize which citizens to serve (Guul, 2023; Bell and Jilke, 2024),

  3. Erosion of Norms: Electoral success emboldens administrators to exercise discretion in ways that disadvantage minorities (Bursztyn, Egorov, and Fiorin, 2020).

7 / 21

A Field Experiment

8 / 21

A Field Experiment

Research assistants call 200
Italian "Azienda Sanitaria Locale"
to ask for a general medical practitioner.

Two students with
West-African accent

Two students with
native Italian accent

8 / 21

Interview Guideline

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Discrimination in Access to Basic Healthcare

Note: Panel A and B report raw data and associated densities. Panel C displays OLS estimates with 90 and 95% CI adjusted for municipality fixed effects.
n = 863 telephone calls (resp. 417 & 446) to 262 municipalities.

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Electoral Wins of Far-Right Mayors

Source: Romarri (2020)

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Far-Right Electoral Success and Access to Basic Healthcare

Note: n = 359 municipalities that lie within a "bandwidth" of ±5% of the electoral threshold of a far-right victory

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Balanced Confounders at the Threshold

% Foreign born Population Altitude Economy Educational distribution
RD-Robust 0.002 −0.155 0.304 −0.710 −0.809
(0.568) (0.422) (0.435) (0.407) (0.475)
Bandwidth 4.057 3.806 6.374 2.846 5.442
Effective.cases 28 vs 66 28 vs 63 43 vs 100 19 vs 54 38 vs 94
Overall.cases 80 vs 186 80 vs 186 80 vs 186 80 vs 186 80 vs 186
* p

Note: Results are based on non-linear sharp RD estimates with triangular kernel, bandwidth selected by mserd, cluster-robust bias-corrected inference asu suggested by Calonico, Cattaneo, and Farrell (2020).

13 / 21

A Diff-in-RD Design

Note: Results are based on non-linear sharp RD estimates with triangular kernel, bandwidth selected by mserd, cluster-robust bias-corrected inference asu suggested by Calonico, Cattaneo, and Farrell (2020). Adjusted for municipality-level socio-economic deprivation, age structure, educational structure, population density, and altitude. BCa confidence intervals are based on 2,000 bootstraps.

14 / 21

Conclusion


Far-right electoral success threatens equal access to essential public services and thus potentially undermines public trust in government institutions.

Further research:

  • Test mechanisms through which far-right politics influence discriminatory practices.

  • Explore the generalizability of these findings to other sectors and countries.

  • Develop and evaluate interventions to mitigate discrimination in public services under far-right leadership.

Bell, E. and S. Jilke (2024). "Racial Discrimination and Administrative Burden in Access to Public Services". In: Scientific Reports, p. 1071.

Bursztyn, L., G. Egorov, and S. Fiorin (2020). "From Extreme to Mainstream: The Erosion of Social Norms". In: American Economic Review, pp. 3522-3548.

Calonico, S., M. D. Cattaneo, and M. H. Farrell (2020). "Optimal bandwidth choice for robust bias-corrected inference in regression discontinuity designs". In: The Econometrics Journal, pp. 192-210.

Guul, T. S. (2023). "Political Solutions to Discriminatory Behavior". In: American Political Science Review, pp. 719-733.

Hemker, J. and A. Rink (2017). "Multiple Dimensions of Bureaucratic Discrimination: Evidence from German Welfare Offices". In: American Journal of Political Science, pp. 786-803.

Olsen, A. L., J. H. Kyhse-Andersen, and D. Moynihan (2022). "The Unequal Distribution of Opportunity: A National Audit Study of Bureaucratic Discrimination in Primary School Access". In: American Journal of Political Science, pp. 587-603.

Romarri, A. (2020). Do Far-Right Mayors Increase the Probability of Hate Crimes? Evidence From Italy. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3506811. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.

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Appendix

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Second round Elections

Decline
Questions
Diff-in-RD:
2.374
-0.001
 Ital. W. African  Ital. W. African
RD-Robust 0.693+ 3.067+ 0.132 0.132
(0.356) (1.590) (0.413) (0.544)
Bandwidth 3.267 2.996 3.552 4.709
Effective.cases 32 vs 40 28 vs 45 34 vs 45 51 vs 61
Overall.cases 95 vs 118 111 vs 122 101 vs 123 121 vs 128
+ p
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Binary decline outcome

Binary version 1, "(Probably) Yes"={1,1 or 203 to 5

(Probably) Yes  Native Italian accent West-African accent
0 N 1 50
% col 0.3 12.3
1 N 391 356
% col 99.7 87.7

Binary version 2, "(Probably) No"={1,5 or 401 to 3

(Probably) No  Native Italian accent West-African accent
0 N 392 394
% col 100.0 97.0
1 N 0 12
% col 0.0 3.0
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Binary decline outcome Discrimination

(Probably) Yes (Probably) No
West-African Accent −0.112*** 0.027**
(0.019) (0.009)
Gender: Male 0.053** 0.000
(0.018) (0.008)
Num.Obs. 798 798
R2 0.375 0.398
BIC −337.4 −1481.8
+ p
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Binary decline outcome ΔRD

(Probably) Yes
(Probably) No
Diff-in-RD:
-0.134
 Ital. W. African W. African
RD-Robust 0.001 −0.133+ 0.086*
(0.001) (0.076) (0.044)
Bandwidth 5.384 3.568 3.031
Effective.cases 55 vs 138 35 vs 95 31 vs 87
Overall.cases 117 vs 275 133 vs 273 133 vs 273
+ p
20 / 21

The Controls

# PCA to reduce dimensions of covariates and prohibit multicollinearity
#######################################################################
## Economy
(pca_econ <- cntrls %>% prcomp(
formula = ~ sh_unemployed_2011 + sh_agriculture_epl_2011 +
sh_industry_epl_2011 + sh_commerce_epl_2011 +
sh_service_epl_2011 + sh_cars_2017,
data = ., na.action = na.exclude,
scale = TRUE))
cntrls$pca_econ <- -pca_econ$x[ , "PC1"] %>% scale() %>% as.numeric()
## Educational qualification of pop
(pca_edu <- cntrls %>% prcomp(
formula = ~ sh_illiterate_2011 + sh_sec_education_2011 +
sh_students_2011 + sh_university_enrolled_2016,
data = ., na.action = na.exclude,
scale = TRUE))
cntrls$pca_edu <- -pca_edu$x[ , "PC1"] %>% scale() %>% as.numeric()
## Combine with further controls
cntrls <- cntrls %>%
mutate(
sh_foreing_16 = sh_foreing_16 %>% scale() %>% as.numeric(), # Share foreign Born in 2016
pop2011 = (pop2011 / Superficieterritorialekmqal) %>% log() %>% scale() %>% as.numeric(), # logged population density
Altitudinedelcentrometri = Altitudinedelcentrometri %>% scale() %>% as.numeric()) # Altitude
21 / 21

Far-right Electoral Wins Increase Racism

Source: Bursztyn, Egorov, and Fiorin (2020)

2 / 21
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