A threat from within? Perceptions of immigration in an enlarging European Union

Abstract

Scholars have taken a considerable interest in how global immigration to Europe generates public concern, but we still know little about the role that migration from within the European region has in fueling apprehensions. To better understand this, I examine how public attitudes towards immigration have responded to migration following the European Union’s most extensive enlargement along its eastern border in 2004. Using recent advances in multilevel modeling, this article analyzes the longitudinal, cross-sectional relationship between east–west internal European migration on public attitudes towards the economic and cultural aspects of immigration in Western Europe using individual-level data from the European Social Survey (2004–2014). The results demonstrate that growing populations of Central and Eastern European foreigners have contributed to Western Europeans’ perception of immigration as an economic threat, even when taking into account simultaneous immigration from outside Europe. Moreover, the relationship between east–west immigration and an individual’s perception of immigration as a threat is conditional upon their socio-economic status. These findings underscore how within-European immigration in Western Europe has become consequential to the public’s attitudes about immigration more generally.

Too many immigrants: How does local diversity contribute to attitudes toward immigration?

“…I find that ethnic diversity is more salient in determining attitudes toward immigration, compared with religious diversity or presence of low-skilled non-white British residents. Recent work by Jeannet (2020) shows that national level migration from E8 countries to Western European countries can be linked to public scepticism about the consequences of immigration, but my finding suggests that when it comes to attitudes toward immigration, direct exposure to low skilled migrants from Central and Eastern European may be less important than local exposure to ethnic diversity. Similar to the findings reported by Laurence and colleagues (2019), I confirmed that context with higher segregation levels between white British and non-white residents is associated with more negative attitudes toward immigration, even net of demographic levels and changes.…”

EU-sentiment predicts the 2016 Dutch referendum vote on the EU’s association with Ukraine better than concerns about Russia or national discontent

“…Two additional concepts can be used to explain Eurosceptic voting behaviour that do not neatly fall within a single theory as they refer potentially to both national grievances and EU policies. First, domestic feelings of economic deprivation may be attributed to the European free labour market (Jeannet, 2020). In that sense, rather than a vote against the EU, the vote would be mainly driven by utilitarian concerns over national economic performance within the EU and the perceived personal and collective costs and benefits from EU membership and integration (economic dissatisfaction) (Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993; Gabel, 1998).…”

Migration and partisan identification as British Unionists or Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland

“…The freedom of movement within the EU added yet another layer of complexity to the disarray of nations and nation–states, in particular the strong flow of unskilled and semi-skilled workers from Eastern to Western Europe and the dispersion of economic and political refugees across the continent (Geddes et al, 2020). The influx of Central and Eastern European as well as non-European immigrants has in turn led to increased perceptions of threat and more negative attitudes towards immigration in Western Europe (Jeannet, 2020).…”