Voting for who we want to be

Love it or hate it, election season is around the corner, and we can do little but accept the fact that elections have an effect on everyone. There will be tweets and retweets, mailshots, emails, billboards, and more.

We will come across politicians making proposals about what they think is broken and what's needed to fix it, hoping we will agree with them and vote them in to 'get the job done'.

Many voters, however, will argue that this is all for nothing and that their votes will make no difference. At times, this might well be true. When things are relatively fine, the systems proceed routinely as normal and most people find there is no need to bother (Runciman, 2018).

Crises, however, generate engagement… and over the past two decades, we've had no shortage of these. We had the financial crisis in the US subprime mortgage market in 2008, the refugee crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, war and conflict – and, throughout all this, Brexit.

Brexit tested Britain's democratic system to the core and split the British population midway. Whether the real effects of Brexit have matched expectations is contestable. One certain outcome is that immigration remains as salient an issue as ever (Andreouli & Nicholson, 2018). But have you ever wondered why migration ranks right up there with other staple issues in every election? And why not even Brexit has succeeded in addressing the problem?

The politics of immigration

The reason why migration is a persistently important political issue is that it has to do with the national economic cycle (Sammut et al., 2022). Crucially, migration helps fill job positions by importing workers who demand less wages. This helps keep operational costs down, so helps drive industry, which generates revenue and taxes. 
Block the supply of workers and labour costs rise to the point where locals would be happy to take on these otherwise low-income jobs. This in turn might be a deal breaker for industry to be financially viable, which makes it all worse off in the end – no jobs and no industry.

What we need, therefore, is a balance between allowing too many migrants in to avoid threatening the cultural fabric, and allowing too little to avoid threatening the economic subsystem. On the migration issue, our politicians (as well as us) are divided over which of these two sides to err on.

Obviously, good as well as bad examples abound. It all depends on where one chooses to look. London is a thriving multicultural success that sees hundreds of nationalities co-exist unproblematically on a daily basis. London is also a tragic example of the failures of multiculturalism where different nationalities have segregated to protect their own interests against poverty, and where flare-ups of racial tensions take place from time to time.

For this reason, integration remains contested (Berry et al., 2022). Migrants typically favour integration whilst locals typically favour assimilation. The former policy promotes liberties for practising immigrants' native culture, whilst the latter policy puts a stronger emphasis on promoting inclusive local practices and events. Again, the question arises as to which side to err on, and where to look for evidence.

Democratic Populism

The selective focus people tend to take on migration is rooted in their personal experiences that serve to stereotype different others. It is these stereotypes and our inclinations towards them that determine which side we effectively lean on (Buhagiar, Sammut, Rochira & Salvatore, 2018).

In recent years, many countries around Europe as well as the UK have seen a rise in populist politics fuelled by right-wing sentiments. The rallying cry across the Western world is a clear voice against migration. In the US it is aimed at Hispanic migrants from Latin America; in the EU it is aimed at extra-European migrants like Arab refugees who, being mostly Muslim, bring with them altogether different cultural and religious practices; in pre-Brexit UK it was aimed at Eastern European migrants from newly joined EU member states like Poland and Romania.

In the current climate, border control seems to be a predominant concern everywhere, and it has propelled some unorthodox parties and their leaders to power. How did this happen?

The answer is that it happened democratically. People who felt disaffected withdrew their support from traditional parties and promised it to others who voiced their concerns. In other words, they chose different representatives to deliver politically incorrect sentiments in politically correct ways.

Politicians who have managed to do so successfully have done pretty well at the polls most anywhere. They have succeeded in bringing together populist coalitions driven not by a vision of the future but by a niggling issue in the present, coalitions of antipathy relative to foreigners who have 'come here to take what is ours'.

Some are concerned about losing their job; some are concerned that their wages will decrease due to competition; some fear losing their culture or their spiritual traditions; some are worried about the burden on public services. Populism isn't driven by what we will get when we succeed; it is concerned with what we stand to lose if we fail. It is a coalition of worries about what will happen if we relate more openly with different others (Veltri et al., 2019).

Which side to err on?

There's a lesson that lurks in coalition building that can be traced back to army officer T.E. Lawrence, or as he is more popularly known, Lawrence of Arabia (Schmidle, 2013). Lawrence was a British intelligence officer who got involved in the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans that took place in 1916.

He is credited with enlisting the support of unlikely allies, that is, Faisal's Northern Arab Army and Abdullah's Eastern Arab Army. Whilst neither had the capability to mount full-frontal attacks directly, together they had enough to weaken the enemy through disruption and, at a critical point, deliver a winning blow.

It is a classical case of two weaker specimens outdoing a single stronger one – strength in numbers, on which our democracy is based. The migration debate is similarly coalitional in bringing together differently inclined individuals under a common concern.

Some see promise for the future. Some see Brexit regret. Some see a broader range of practices, a broader range of labour skills, a broader range of tradeable goods, which make for the essential ingredients in industry. Others see a disastrous future. Cheap labour that erodes wages and quality of life, impoverished public services and an over-abundance of different ways of life that make everyone uncomfortable with everyone else.

Both standpoints can be argued, defended and supported with legitimate evidence. Both can advance their claims by appealing to others with different ambitions and different concerns. Some may agree on the basis of developing industry and trade, maximising economic benefits and creating more jobs for locals and foreigners alike. Others will disagree on the basis of rescuing dwindling industries, restricting competition from cheap labour or eroding local customs.

Either way, supporting or resisting migration involves a coalition of worldviews that might agree on the cause but disagree on the details. This is the nature of politics. The question to ponder, in this and coming elections, is which side to err on? Whilst political messages are often presented in black and white, issues in real life are rarely so, and more commonly involve an extensive range of shades of grey.

In voting, we essentially make an ethical choice in one direction or another that is not so much based on who we are but more on who we want to be. In expressing our perspective through casting a vote, we exercise our ability to choose a future for us that leans one way more than it does another.

This is the crucial point. Which way things go is beyond most anyone's control. Politicians are experts in the art of trying, not necessarily succeeding. Is what they are proposing worth a try? More so than the opposing side's prospects? We all agree that what we have falls somewhat short of what we wish we had, one way or another.

So, we want to vote, so that we can help pull things one way or push them in another. Through voting, we lend a helping hand that can succeed or fail in tipping the balance. We will always find reasons that fit our aspirations and so will our political opponents. Who we genuinely end up becoming depends on the little choices we make that express, through our vote, who we wish ourselves to be. This is how politics matters.

Gordon Sammut is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Malta, where he directs the Centre for the Study & Practice of Conflict Resolution. He is interested in how political projects serve in establishing coalitions for competitive aims.

Key sources

Andreouli, E., & Nicholson, C. (2018). Brexit and everyday politics: An analysis of focus-group data on the EU referendum. Political Psychology, 39(6), 1323-1338.
Berry, J.W., Lepshokova, Z., MIRIPS Collaboration, & Grigorjev, D. (2022). How shall we all live together?: Meta-analytic review of the mutual intercultural relations in plural societies project. Applied Psychology, 71(3), 1014-1041. 
Buhagiar, L.J., Sammut, G., Rochira, A. & Salvatore, S. (2018). There's no such thing as a good Arab: Cultural essentialism and its functions concerning thee integration of Arabs in Europe. Culture & Psychology, 24(4), 560-576. 
Runciman, D. (2018). How democracy ends. London, UK: Profile Books.
Sammut, G., Buhagiar, L.J., Mifsud, R., et al (2022). Attitude polarization and closed-mindedness: The immigration issue in Malta from 2010 to 2020. In F.M. Moghaddam & M. J. Hendricks (Eds.), Contemporary immigration: Psychological perspectives to address challenges and inform solutions (pp. 123–141). American Psychological Association.  
Schmidle, R. (2013). In the desert with Lawrence of Arabia. In G. Sammut, P. Daanen & F.M. Moghaddam (Eds.), Understanding the Self and Others: Explorations in Intersubjectivity & Interobjectivity. London: Routlege.
Veltri, G.A., Redd, R., Mannarini, T. & Salvatore, S. The identity of Brexit: A cultural psychology analysis. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 29(1), 18-31.