Conference Agenda

Resentment over immigration reverberates in political debates across many democracies, giving rise to mobilized grievances with far-reaching socio-political repercussions such as the rise of populist radical right parties and anti-refugee protests that have taken place in many Western democracies. Having significant implications, the drivers of anti-immigrant animus have been extensively studied with existing research emphasizing the influence of threat perceptions on anti-immigrant sentiments and the impact of group relative deprivation on perceived threat. However, the extent to which fraternal deprivation affects immigration attitudes and the role migration context plays in shaping the way threat perceptions and group relative deprivation translate into opposition to immigration remains unexplored.

Addressing this gap, the current study explores the social resentment mechanisms driving opposition to immigration and it investigates the context-cognition interplay by disentangling the effects of immigrant group size and integration policies. Through a cross-country analysis of 2014-15 European Social Survey data coupled with contextual information on national immigrant shares and integration policies (MIPEX), we analyze how feelings of group and threat perceptions shape opposition to immigration across diverse European migration contexts.

Our findings demonstrate that fraternal deprivation heightens anti-immigrant animus via threat perceptions and the connection between fraternal deprivation and opposition to immigration is stronger in immigrant-heavy countries. Moreover, our research reveals that integration policies granting immigrants encompassing rights strengthen the impact of relative deprivation-driven threat perceptions on opposition to immigration. As such, our study offers valuable insights into the growing support for anti-immigrant parties and policies in multicultural policy contexts despite the well-documented norm-setting effects of such policy contexts and sheds light on how grievances over immigration might have been effectively mobilized in many European democracies in recent decades.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic – and of its consequent economic crisis – on the intergroup relationships has not been deeply investigated so far, often because of lack of data. Recently released data from the 10th round of the European Social Survey, combined with round 9th, allows for investigating this issue by using data collected before and after the pandemic outbreak. Building on the Group Conflict Theory, the Group Relative Deprivation, and Schwartz’s and Inglehart’s Value Theories, we aim addressing the following research questions: 1) How do attitudes toward immigration and the perception of ethnic groups as a threat change after the Covid-19 pandemic in EU countries? 2) to what extent contextual factors, such as the Political Opportunity Structure (POS), economic conditions, and the salience of the topic immigration contribute explaining these changes while controlling for individual factors? Our analysis shows that, after the pandemic crisis and in opposition to our initial hypotheses, negative attitudes towards ethnic groups decreased in several EU countries, but not in all countries and not with the same intensity. Using the combination country-year as socio-historical context, we apply multilevel modelling to contribute explaining attitudes towards immigration while controlling for individual factors. While the role of economic conditions results less relevant than expected, the consequences of the crisis may have impacted on the priorities of EU citizens and immigration was no longer at the core of the public debate and this, together with favorable POS, contribute explaining the increase of positive attitudes towards immigration.

While the native attitudes toward immigrants have received a lot of attention in political science research, this has not been the case for the attitudes of immigrants themselves toward other immigrants. In this paper, I approach the question from a transnational perspective: By leveraging data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the World Value Survey, I investigate the extent to which immigrants' attitudes towards immigration across Europe are shaped by their home country's sociopolitical climate. This study aims to uncover how attitudes in their home country shape attitudes among immigrants in the destination country and how these change over time. The findings of this research will contribute valuable insights to the ongoing discourse surrounding attitudes toward immigration and help better understand the diversity of immigrants' political orientations, shedding light on the interconnected nature of beliefs and sentiments across borders,

Can integration policies prevent or at least decrease immigrants’ experiences of discrimination? Do they even strengthen immigrants' national identification?

While national identification is generally seen as a prerequisite for social cohesion, for immigrants, identification with the host society is a crucial step towards psychological integration, which promotes educational and economic achievement and, in turn, fosters positive inter-group relations in national societies.

This identification process is hindered by experiences of discrimination. According to Rejection Identification Theory, they signal clear boundaries of membership that are difficult for ethnic minorities to overcome (Branscombe et al., 1999). Various integration policies are intended to remedy these boundaries and signal norms of belonging. Therefore, we argue that integration policies can have a moderating effect on the relationship between everyday experiences of discrimination and identification with the host society. While previous studies have mainly focused on the impact of integration policies on discriminatory behaviour by members of the host society, we shift the perspective to the impact of these policies on the sense of belonging of immigrant populations. By combining data from the last four rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS) with integration policy scores from the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), we aim to contribute to the understanding of the role of integration policies in fostering a sense of national belonging. Preliminary results suggest that the negative effects of individual experiences of discrimination in everyday life on feelings of national belonging are almost completely offset in countries with strong integration policies. Put differently: immigrant-friendly policies have the potential to strengthen immigrants’ national identification and protect them from feeling alienated due to discriminatory experiences, which consequentially benefits the social cohesion of national societies.

Branscombe, N., Schmitt, M., & Harvey, R. (1999). Perceiving pervasive discrimination among African Americans: Implications for group identification and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(1), pp. 135–149.

A copious theoretical and qualitative literature draws a connection between cultural racism and negative attitudes toward Muslims. Recently, quantitative cross-national research has begun tracing the contours of cultural racism using items on people’s belief in cultural superiority. This article bridges these two areas to investigate how cultural racism and intergroup contact—a widely-researched antidote to xenophobia—interact to influence anti-Muslim attitudes in Europe. Using independent data sources (European Social Survey and Pew data), two studies test the hypothesis that cultural racism hinders the xenophobia-alleviating effect of contact. Results show that for the most widespread forms of anti-Muslim sentiment, rejection of Islam and of Muslim family members, cultural racism and contact work independently of one other. However, for the rejection of potential Muslim immigrants, the contact effect is often significantly diminished for those who hold culturally racist views. On the other hand, interactive effects show that the culturally racist group may benefit more from contact when it comes to accepting Muslim neighbors. Findings are discussed in the context of increasing political rhetoric that casts Muslims as irreconcilably different and the potential for greater contact with demographic shifts.