Between “eradicate all false religion” and “love the stranger as yourself”: How immigration attitudes divide voters of religious parties

Abstract

The literature on voting for Christian-democratic parties has emphasized that voters of these parties are still motivated by the old religious cleavages that led to the formation of these parties and that structured the vote for these parties for years. Their strong attachment to religious parties even immunized Christian voters from the temptation of the radical right. Yet what the role the new cultural dimension about immigration, civic integration, and identity plays in structuring the vote for religious parties is unclear. Are voters of religious parties immune to the effect of the party polarization of immigration? This paper shows that the policy positions of religious parties matter for what kind of voter votes for them. This paper shows the importance of immigration attitudes in voting for three different religious parties in the Netherlands by combining eight national election surveys between 1994 and 2017.