Neoliberal ideology and negative attitudes toward immigrants: Evidence from a survey and survey experiment in Japan

Abstract

Existing research has emphasized that neoliberalism triggers anti‐immigrant attitudes. At the national level, this has been attributed to two context‐dependent mechanisms: the existence of radical right‐wing political parties that combine pro‐market ideology with authoritarian social conservatism, and an ethnically and racially heterogeneous environment in which immigrants are over‐identified as welfare recipients. However, these associations may not be context‐dependent because the majority of people tends to share the stereotype of immigrants as incompetent and welfare‐dependent. To test this, we used the case of Japan, where the presence of radical right‐wing parties is marginal in national politics and the size of immigrants is considerably small. By analyzing representative survey data, we showed that neoliberalism is associated with anti‐immigrant attitudes, even in Japan. Furthermore, we conducted a survey experiment in which we varied the skill level and country of origin of immigrants in vignettes. The results showed that respondents who espoused the neoliberal ideology were more sensitive to the skill level of immigrants. These respondents strongly opposed low‐skilled immigrants and in favor of high‐skilled immigrants. They were also opposed to the immigration of certain ethinic groups—Chinese immigrants. These results suggest that the association between neoliberalism and anti‐immigrant attitudes is not necessarily context‐dependent, but rather that stereotypes about immigrants facilitate the association.

Perceptions of Threat, American National Identity, and Americans’ Attitudes Toward Documented and Undocumented Immigrants

“…Some scholars link favorable or unfavorable immigration attitudes to specific attributes of immigrants, such as the suggestion that high-skilled immigrants are more favored compared to low-skilled immigrants (Hainmueller and Hiscox, 2010;Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2015;Malhotra, Margalit, and Mo, 2013). One major distinction among immigrants that has drawn some attention is that between documented and undocumented immigrants (Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2015;Iragashi, Nakai, and Ono, 2023;Merolla, Ramakrishnan, and Haynes, 2013;Ramakrishnan, Easterling, and Neblo, 2014;Wright, Levy, and Citrin, 2016). There is a consensus in this body of research that undocumented immigrants are less favorably evaluated than documented immigrants, and we also speculate here that there are strong differences in the determinants of evaluations of documented and undocumented immigrants.…”

Neoliberalismo autoritario, retórica antiinmigrante y remesas hacia México en el gobierno de Trump

“…En ese sentido, Rita Edozie (2021: 99) sostiene que el neoliberalismo autoritario "pone en riesgo las democracias occidentales consolidadas", desestabilizando de manera evidente a las débiles e incipientes democracias del Sur global. En ese contexto, las políticas antiinmigrantes típicas del neoliberalismo autoritario no se han expresado sólo en Estados Unidos; también en otras zonas, donde estas personas son tratadas con desprecio, acceden a trabajos mal pagados e inseguros, y se les niega el acceso a la salud, lo que evidentemente vulnera sus derechos (Dutta, 2020;Igarashi y Ono, 2019).…”

A narrative inquiry into Vietnamese migrants' experiences of disaster risk reduction

“…This neglect of post-arrival orientation can mean that Asian migrants' needs in disaster risk management are ignored. Igarashi and Ono (2019) suggested that in countries like Japan, neoliberal ideology can promote anti-immigrant attitudes. They argued that pro-market ideology, and in turn preference for labour with higher-level skills, are strongly promoted within a neoliberal framework.…”