The Individual and Contextual Determinants of Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in Europe

• In Event: Nativism and Nationalism

Abstract

The rise to prominence of anti-immigration attitudes in liberal democracies revived the debates over the determinants of hostile attitudes towards immigrants. Prior works within the political psychology and intergroup attitudes literatures point to the role of prejudice, racial resentment, and threat perceptions in shaping hostility towards immigrants. While these works provide robust explanations for anti-immigration attitudes at the individual level, studies that explore the role of contextual factors impacting those attitudes remain limited given the lack of comparative, cross-regional assessments of the role of country-level variables. This study explores the role of contextual factors in hostility towards immigrants and highlights the critical importance of changing contextual economic and political factors in triggering anti-immigrant sentiment. I argue that anti-immigrant attitudes will be intensified among those who feel economically insecure within contexts where a country is going through adverse economic conditions and rising right-wing populist party presence. For adverse economic conditions, I consider measures of economic inequality, social safety nets, and economic recession. For the rise of right wing populist parties, I consider measures of right wing party vote share in the elections and the attendance/support for right-wing party rallies. I then evaluate the effects of these factors on individual-level anti-immigrant sentiment with the aid of cross-national European Social Survey data. In considering country-level variables alongside individual-level European Social Survey data, I more specifically use multi-level modeling to make cross-country comparisons of immigration attitudes. Findings are discussed in terms of the relative impacts of economic factors and racial resentment in the formation of anti-immigration attitudes under different contexts. Accordingly, this study expands upon extant explanations for the recent emergence of an anti-immigrant environment in liberal democracies by focusing on changing economic and political contexts and their interactions with individual-level dispositions.

Author

• Sumeyye Mine Iltekin, University of Delaware