How Open Borders Fueled the Far Right in Switzerlan
In the early 2000s, Switzerland opened its borders to workers from neighboring EU countries, expecting economic benefits and stronger ties with Europe. Instead, this move fueled a sharp rise in support for far-right, anti-immigrant parties—despite no measurable economic, cultural, or security threats. A recent study by Ala Alrababah (Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi) with Andreas Beerli, Dominik Hangartner, and Dalston Ward (all of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, Zurich), published in the American Political Science Review, finds that this shift was not a reaction to actual threats caused by immigration, but rather the result of political elites crafting an anti-immigrant narrative.