Refugees Unwelcome? Changes in the Public Acceptance of Immigrants and Refugees in Germany in the Course of Europe’s ‘Immigration Crisis’

Abstract

Based on an innovative design, combining a multi-factorial survey experiment with a longitudinal perspective, we examine changes in the public acceptance of immigrants in Germany from the beginning of the so-called "migration crisis" to after the sexual assaults of New Year's Eve 2015/16. In contrast to previous studies investigating similar research questions, our approach allows to differentiate changes along various immigrant characteristics. Derived from discussions making up the German immigration discourse during this time, we expect reduced acceptance especially of those immigrants who were explicitly connected to the salient events, like Muslims and the offenders of NYE. Most strikingly, we find that refugees were generally highly accepted and even more so in the second wave, whereas the acceptance of immigrants from Arab or African countries further decreased. Moreover, female respondents' initial preference for male immigrants disappeared. Contrary to our expectations, we find no changes in the acceptance of Muslims. We conclude that (1) public opinion research is well advised to match the particular political and social context under investigation to a fitting outcome variable to adequately capture the dynamics of anti-immigrant sentiment and that (2) the vividly discussed upper limits for refugees seem to be contrary to public demands according to our data.

First Impressions of Faces of Refugees are More Strongly Influenced by Target Cues and Perceiver Attitudes Than by Sheer Group Affiliation

“…Previous work on prejudice toward refugees has focused on the group level by investigating evaluations of group labels or of hypothetical individual exemplars from groups and found both a general devaluation of refugees (Canetti et al, 2016;Kotzur et al, 2019;Murray & Marx, 2013;Schweitzer et al, 2005) and pronounced devaluations of specific subgroups such as economic and Muslim refugees (Bansak et al, 2016;Czymara & Schmidt-Catran, 2017;Kotzur et al, 2017). In the present studies, we investigated perceptions and evaluations of refugees on an individual level, that is, we used specific individuals as targets.…”

“…By focusing on Middle Eastern Muslim refugees, we can also contribute to a better understanding of prejudiced perception toward a so-far underrepresented but highly relevant group of targets. Whereas public debates about refugees are ubiquitious and controversial (Chouliaraki & Zaborowski, 2017;Czymara & Schmidt-Catran, 2017;Hager & Veit, 2019;Jäckle & König, 2017;Liebe, Meyerhoff, Kroesen, Chorus, & Glenk, 2018), the current scientifc understanding of refugee perception is limited (Bansak, Hainmueller, & Hangartner, 2016;Kotzur, Forsbach, & Wagner, 2017;Kotzur, Friehs, Asbrock, & Zalk, 2019).…”

“…This evidence is also supported by research on stereotypes and prejudices toward refugees, PREJUDICE AT FIRST SIGHT? 5 showing, for instance, that refugees are more negatively evaluated (Kotzur et al, 2019), and refugees labeled as Muslims (vs. Christians) have a lower probability of being accepted as asylum-seekers (Bansak et al, 2016;Czymara & Schmidt-Catran, 2017;Hager & Veit, 2019).…”

The Limited Influence of Right-Wing Movements on Social Media User Engagement

“…In January 2016, the activity increased again after New Year's Eve sexual assaults on women in the German town Cologne, for which mostly Northern-African and Arabic men were held responsible in the media. Past research indicates that the topic of immigration and sexual violence became more salient after this event in German media outlets (Czymara and Schmidt-Catran 2017). As will be shown below, the Cologne Assaults were also heavily exploited by Pegida to legitimate its xenophobic agenda.…”

Untitled

“…Immigrants' identities, and particularly their gender, religion, ethnicity, race, age, generation, and social-economic status, have all been heavily discussed (Brown & Brown, 2017;Czymara & Schmidt-Catran, 2017). Also, some studies stress the diversity of immigrants when compared with the past (Donato & Armenta, 2011;Koopmans, 2013).…”