European Opinion About Immigration: The Role of Identities, Interests and Information

Abstract

This article assesses the influence of material interests and cultural identities on European opinion about immigration. Analysis of respondents in twenty countries sampled in the 2002–03 European Social Survey demonstrates that they are unenthusiastic about high levels of immigration and typically overestimate the actual number of immigrants living in their country. At the individual level, cultural and national identity, economic interests and the level of information about immigration are all important predictors of attitudes. ‘Symbolic’ predispositions, such as preferences for cultural unity, have a stronger statistical effect than economic dissatisfaction. Variation across countries in both the level and the predictors of opposition to immigration are mostly unrelated to contextual factors cited in previous research, notably the amount of immigration into a country and the overall state of its economy. The ramifications of these findings for policy makers are discussed in the context of current debates about immigration and European integration.

Changing attitudes toward immigration in Europe, 2002–2007: A dynamic group conflict theory approach

“…Indeed, recent European studies have presented mixed evidence for propositions of static group conflict theory. Some studies confirm that the size of the foreign population (Quillian, 1995;Scheepers et al, 2002;Semyonov et al, 2008;Schneider, 2008) or GDP-based income statistics (Quillian, 1995, Schneider, 2008 have an impact on outgroup attitudes, while others were not able to replicate these findings (Sides and Citrin, 2007;Strabac and Listhaug, 2008). These contradictions might be due to differences in concrete operationalizations of the variables, but also to problems with the cross-cultural comparability of the measurements.…”

“…With measurements from 'only' 17 countries and three time points, the sample size at the highest level is too small for the asymptotic properties of the multilevel estimators to kick in (for similar arguments, see: Coenders and Scheepers, 2008;Sides and Citrin, 2007). For this reason, we prefer to use a two-step approach.…”

“…Conform our theoretical framework, we will explore whether changes in out-group attitudes are driven by changes in economic conditions and minority group size. : Quillian, 1995;Schneider, 2008;Semyonov et al, 2008;Sides and Citrin, 2007;Strabac and Listhaug, 2008). In this logic, the real GDP growth can be seen as an indicator for changes in overall economic conditions.…”

“…Several other studies confirmed these findings that minority group size (Coenders et al, 2004;Lahav, 2004;Scheepers et al, 2002;Schneider, 2008;Semyonov et al, 2004 ;Semyonov et al, 2008) or economic conditions (Semyonov et al, 2008;Schneider, 2008) affect outgroup attitudes. Nevertheless, support for group conflict theory is not unambiguous, as there also exists conflicting evidence that cannot be ignored (see, for example : Semyonov et al, 2004;Sides and Citrin, 2007 ;Strabac and Listhaug, 2008).…”

Migration and Multiculturalism

“…Drawing Migration and multiculturalism 27 on this seminal work, value-based threats have regularly been shown to be associated with anti-immigrant prejudice (McLaren, 2003;Sides & Citrin, 2007). For example, a study conducted in the Netherlands showed that perceived symbolic, but not material, threat predicted prejudice against Muslim immigrants (Velasco Gonzáles, Verkuyten, Weesie, & Poppe, 2008).…”