Bethany Lacina – författare

Do people have special rights in a place if they are one of the locals there? The belief that they do is common worldwide. Yet, entitlement to place has little role in most accounts of migration politics. Instead, migration politics commentary is a showdown between culture and economics, in-group identities and material incentives. In Strangers and Settlers, Bethany Lacina provides the first global study of nativism that features a unified account of the drivers of backlash against international and domestic migration. Drawing from forty years of global public opinion surveys conducted in 146 countries; detailed census records from 70 countries spanning the mid-1950s to now; and a wealth of comparative information on both migration policy and nativist activism, Lacina describes a world of nested hierarchies of locals, offering new insights about migration politics. As she shows, both domestic and international migration politics take place within a nativist status quo. Being local is normative even within national and ethnic groups and when the material stakes of migration are low. Governments use a range of policies to ensure locals maintain political and economic superiority over newcomers, particularly international migrants. An unprecedentedly comprehensive study, Strangers and Settlers shows that the status quo throughout the world is nativism, but the key to making sense of its variety is understanding whether and how regimes, residents, and newcomers clash over controlling who is local.

Do people have special rights in a place if they are one of the locals there? The belief that they do is common worldwide. Yet, entitlement to place has little role in most accounts of migration politics. Instead, migration politics commentary is a showdown between culture and economics, in-group identities and material incentives. In Strangers and Settlers, Bethany Lacina provides the first global study of nativism that features a unified account of the drivers of backlash against international and domestic migration. Drawing from forty years of global public opinion surveys conducted in 146 countries; detailed census records from 70 countries spanning the mid-1950s to now; and a wealth of comparative information on both migration policy and nativist activism, Lacina describes a world of nested hierarchies of locals, offering new insights about migration politics. As she shows, both domestic and international migration politics take place within a nativist status quo. Being local is normative even within national and ethnic groups and when the material stakes of migration are low. Governments use a range of policies to ensure locals maintain political and economic superiority over newcomers, particularly international migrants. An unprecedentedly comprehensive study, Strangers and Settlers shows that the status quo throughout the world is nativism, but the key to making sense of its variety is understanding whether and how regimes, residents, and newcomers clash over controlling who is local.

Migration and nativism are explosive issues in Europe and North America. Less well-known is the tumult that soaring migration is creating in the politics of developing countries. The key difference between anti-migrant politics in developed and developing countries is that domestic migration - not international migration - is the likely focus of nativist politics in poorer countries. Nativists take up the cause of sub-national groups, vilifying other regions and groups within the country as sources of migration. Since the 1970s, the majority of less-developed countries have adopted policies that aim to limit internal migration. This Element marshals evidence from around the world to explore the colliding trends of internal migration and nativism. Subnational migration is associated with a boom in nativist politics. Pro-native public policy and anti-migrant riots are both more likely when internal migration surges. Political decentralization strengthens subnational politicians' incentives and ability to define and cater to nativists.