Economic conditions, group relative deprivation and ethnic threat perceptions: a cross-national perspective

Abstract

Explaining negative attitudes towards immigration in general and threat due to immigration, in particular, has been a major topic of study in recent decades. While intergroup contact has received considerable attention in explaining ethnic threat, group relative deprivation (GRD), that is, feelings that one's group is unfairly deprived of desirable goods in comparison to relevant out-groups, has been largely ignored in cross-national research. Nevertheless, various smaller-scale studies have demonstrated that GRD can have a decisive impact on prejudice. In the current study, we examine the association between GRD and ethnic threat systematically across 20 European countries, thereby controlling for intergroup contact and value priorities. The 7th round of the European Social Survey (ESS) includes questions assessing respondents' feelings of group deprivation compared to immigrants and offers for the first time an opportunity to contextualise the threat-inducing effect of GRD across Europe. A multilevel structural equation model (MLSEM) demonstrates a considerable association between GRD and ethnic threat both on the individual and country levels. The results indicate that GRD is not only an important mediating factor between social structural positions and perceived threat, but also fully mediates the relation between contextual economic indicators and ethnic threat. This is an electronic version of an article published online in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 22-Feb-2019. This journal is available online at: www.tandfonline.com. AbstractExplaining negative attitudes towards immigration in general and threat due to immigration in particular has been a major topic of study in recent decades. While intergroup contact has received considerable attention in explaining ethnic threat, group relative deprivation (GRD), that is, feelings that one's group is unfairly deprived of desirable goods in comparison to relevant out-groups, has been largely ignored in cross-national research. Nevertheless, various smaller-scale studies have demonstrated that GRD can have a decisive impact on prejudice. In the current study we examine the association between GRD and ethnic threat systematically across 20 European countries, thereby controlling for intergroup contact and value priorities.The 7 th round of the European Social Survey (ESS) includes questions assessing respondents' feelings of group deprivation compared to immigrants and offers for the first time an opportunity to contextualise the threat-inducing effect of GRD across Europe. A multilevel structural equation model (MLSEM) demonstrates a considerable association between GRD and ethnic threat both on the individual and country level. The results indicate that GRD is not only an important mediating factor between social structural positions and perceived threat, but also fully mediates the relation between contextual economic indicators and ethnic threat.

The social‐psychological bases of far‐right support in Europe and the United States

“…Additionally, we applied longitudinal analyses, a necessary strategy for tentative claims of causal connections over time. Future studies could extend the current framework by including other social‐psychological underpinnings of far‐right support, such as perceived relative deprivation (e.g., Meuleman, Abts, Schmidt, Pettigrew, & Davidov, ; Walker & Pettigrew, ), collective narcissism (de Zavala et al, ; Marchlewska, Cichocka, Panayiotou, Castellanos, & Batayneh, ), restricted intergroup contact (Knowles & Tropp, ; Pettigrew, ), and political cynicism (e.g., Van Assche et al, ; Van Assche, Van Hiel, Dhont, & Roets, ), and by examining the unique effects of these predictors in a single and unified model.…”

What factors explain anti-Muslim prejudice? An assessment of the effects of Muslim population size, institutional characteristics and immigration-related media claims

“…The original response options were 1 = 'Yes, several', 2 = 'Yes, a few' and 3 = 'No, none'. We recoded this variable so that higher values indicated more contact (for a more detailed examination of the contact effect, see Green et al 2018, andMeuleman et al 2018, in this volume). Since the extent of media consumption in the form of watching TV may also explain negative attitudes towards Muslim immigrants (Popescu et al 2015), we controlled for individual TV exposure as well.…”

The role of relative deprivation in majority‐culture support for multiculturalism

“…This perceived deprivation was associated with group‐based feelings of anger, in turn promoting greater engagement in political action against government redress for Aboriginal Australians. More recently, Meuleman, Abts, Schmidt, Pettigrew, and Davidov () found that group RD by Europeans was associated with perceived ethnic threat. In a similar vein, Bagci, Stathi, and Piyale () found that, in a high conflict intergroup context (disadvantaged Kurds and advantaged Turks), imagined contact with the disadvantaged group increased both collective active tendencies and, marginally, perceptions of RD among members of the advantaged group.…”