Ala Alrababah

The main theories explaining electoral backlash against immigration focus on citizens' cultural, economic, and security concerns. We test these predictions in Switzerland, which opened its labor market to neighboring countries in the 2000s. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we document a substantial rise in immigrant workers in Swiss border municipalities after the border opened. This was accompanied by a 6-percentage-point (95% confidence interval 2–10) increase in support for anti-immigrant parties, equivalent to a 32% rise at the mean. However, we find no adverse effects on citizens' employment, wages, or subjective perceptions of economic, cultural, or security threats. Instead, we describe how far-right parties introduced novel narratives related to overcrowding to advance hostility toward immigrants. We provide evidence that this rhetoric targeted border municipalities, where it had the greatest impact on voters susceptible to political persuasion. Together, these findings suggest that elites can play a role in driving anti-immigrant votes.

We study the drivers of refugees' decision making about returning home using observational and experimental data from a survey of 3,003 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that the conditions in refugee-hosting countries play a minor role. In contrast, conditions in a refugee's home country are the main drivers of return intentions. Even in the face of hostility and poor living conditions in host countries, refugees are unlikely to return unless the situation at home improves significantly. These results challenge traditional models of decision making about migration, where refugees weigh living conditions in the host and home countries ("push" and "pull" factors). We offer an alternative theoretical framework: a model of threshold-based decision making whereby only once a basic threshold of safety at home is met do refugees compare other factors in the host and home country. We explore some empirical implications of this new perspective using qualitative interviews and quantitative survey data.

Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs. An original survey experiment suggests that the salience of Salah's Muslim identity enabled positive feelings toward Salah to generalize to Muslims more broadly. Our findings provide support for the parasocial contact hypothesis—indicating that positive exposure to out-group celebrities can spark real-world behavioral changes in prejudice.

Do place-based interventions that raise visibility and economic activity affect far-right voting? We study the Tour de France (TdF) as a case of brief but visible exposure that combines economic activity with symbolic recognition. Using variation in the annual TdF route between 2002 and 2022, we show that exposed municipalities experience declines in far-right support of 0.03–0.04 standard deviations. The effect exceeds 0.1 standard deviations in recent elections and is strongest in poorer areas and in towns with high prior far-right support. We find evidence consistent with the symbolic mechanism and mixed evidence for the economic one. TdF exposure increases local GDP per capita, effects on voting are larger when French riders win stages, and a two-wave survey around the 2025 TdF provides suggestive evidence that residents in exposed towns report greater recognition. These results contribute to research on geographic inequalities, symbolic politics, and the consequences of place-based interventions.

The contact hypothesis rests on a potential paradox: positive outgroup exemplars may be dismissed as exceptional while negative exemplars may be taken as representative. We investigate whether this asymmetry burdens minorities, in the case of parasocial contact with elite athletes in the English Premier League. Drawing on millions of social media posts, newspaper articles, and Fantasy Premier League transfer data, we find no evidence that minority players are punished more harshly for poor performances. Survey experiments among fans and non-fans demonstrate that negative coverage of a minority player reduces perceived typicality, and among those with parasocial ties, increased outgroup tolerance and empathy. We attribute this to parasocial buffering. The voluntary, passion-driven nature of fandoms may encourage observers to individuate outgroup members and respond with compassion. By treating typicality as an outcome rather than a precondition, we find that negative experiences need not reinforce intergroup stereotypes. Parasocial exposure to celebrities may be especially well-suited for reducing prejudice in scalable and ethical ways.