Migrants, refugees and xenophobia in 2018 election campaign – monitoring report

In autumn 2018, we monitored the election campaign and read thousands of social media posts of candidates for mayors of ten Polish provincial capitals.

We engaged in monitoring to answer the following questions: would themes of migration and refugees appear in the local election campaign? Would the history of the 2015 campaign repeat itself and these themes would become the electoral fuel for (at least some of) the candidates? Is the increasingly visible presence of foreigners in Poland and relations between Poles and migrants an important topic for politicians and their voters? In view of the dynamic growth of migration to Poland, will the subject of integration of newcomers resonate in the campaign?

We present findings of the project in a monitoring report, entitled Migrants, Refugees and Xenophobia in 2018 Election Campaign.

The project was completed in partnership with SentiOne, who provided an online monitoring tool, free of charge.

The monitoring was a mobilisation action taken as part of the Helsinki Initiative for Human Rights. To find out more, follow this link.

This report can be accessed here.