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Political Mobilisation, Ethnic Diversity and Social Cohesion: The Conditional Effect of Political Parties
Abstract
Recent research on the consequences of ethnic diversity for social cohesion indicates that the effects of diversity are not necessarily universal. In this article we hypothesise that the rhetoric of political parties conditions whether diversity negatively affects generalised trust. Political campaigns might highlight the salience of cultural diversity issues in their discourse or, moreover, use a divisive rhetoric of ‘nationalistic’ positions. Thus political mobilisation might heighten the perceived conflict between those who are native born and immigrants, especially in diverse societies. In order to test this argument, we investigate the influence of political rhetoric framed on cultural diversity issues, that is, nationalism and multiculturalism – obtained from the Comparative Manifestos Project– on generalised trust in 21 European democracies. We find that the negative impact of ethnic diversity on trust is particularly strong when these issues are mobilised by political parties. It does not, however, matter whether these issues are presented in a positive or negative light.
... Recent scholarship sheds light on one of these possible implications in particular; the mobilization effect on public opinion. A common finding in this literature is that anti-immigrant political rhetoric increases the level of nationalist sentiment and ethnocentric attitudes in the majority population (Helbling et al. 2015(Helbling et al. , 2016Bohman 2011;Hopkins 2010Hopkins , 2011however, see Hjerm and Schnabel 2010), suggesting that political rhetoric can drive the development or cementing of anti-immigrant environments more generally. How this rhetoric affects its objects-first-and second-generation immigrants 1 -remains an understudied question, however. ...
... Recent scholarship on the potential consequences of anti-immigrant political rhetoric has shown that it increases the level of anti-immigrant/nationalist attitudes in the majority population (Helbling et al. 2015(Helbling et al. , 2016Bohman 2011;Hopkins 2010Hopkins , 2011however, see Hjerm and Schnabel 2010) and strengthens majority members' in-group/out-group framing of social interaction (Sønderskov and Thomsen 2015). These insights are important for understanding the societal consequences of political appeals to ethnocentrism. ...
... This is in line with Helbling et al. (2016) finding that inclusive appeals are ineffective for impacting the majority population's view on the nation. However, all analyses were also performed with a ratio measure (following Helbling et al. 2015): Ratio measure = Multiculturalism, negative − Multiculturalism, positive Multiculturalism, negative + Multiculturalism, positive I note when results from these analyses differ from analyses with the absolute measure. ...
Anti-immigrant political rhetoric is proliferating in Europe, inspiring research to examine the potential effects on public opinion. However, studies of the reactions of first- and second-generation immigrants—the objects of this rhetoric—remain scarce. This article argues that political rhetoric should be treated as a context of integration affecting political outcomes, in particular political belonging. To that end, the article combines qualitative evidence from focus group discussions conducted in Denmark, a high-salience context, and quantitative evidence from cross-national survey and party manifesto data from 18 Western European countries over a 12-year period. In addition to demonstrating a negative mean effect, the analyses show that those most in focus of contemporary political messages (Muslims and immigrants with shorter educations) are most affected, suggesting a sophisticated processing of political rhetoric. In contrast, traditional explanations concerning structural incorporation, generational integration, and exposure to rhetoric are not supported. The article discusses the implications of the results for democratic inclusion in contemporary Europe.
... On the one hand, there are good reasons to believe the attitudes on immigration between citizens and politicians are in tune. After all, voters have been shown to be influenced by political mobilization on this issue, and parties can be expected to keep an eye on public opinion out of electoral considerations (Helbling et al. 2015;Odmalm and Super 2014). At the same time, however, there is also much literature suggesting that voter-party congruence on this issue might be very weak: a particularly persistent argument is that at least historically political parties have defended much more permissive policies than the public at large would prefer (Freeman 1995). ...
... On the one hand, there are good reasons to suspect that the two are in tune with each other. Multiple studies have demonstrated that political parties can influence public opinion on immigration (Helbling et al. 2015;Hopkins 2010;Odmalm and Super 2014) and conversely that political parties tend to cater to public opinion on immigration out of electoral considerations (Korkut 2014)-especially in response to the success of anti-immigrant parties (Van Spanje 2010). ...
... Second, manifestoes are available and mostly comparable for all countries under study, which facilitates reliability in the coding process. Third, the analysis of this paper allows for a more fine-grained investigation of parties' views on an immigration-related subject than what most cross-national studies of party positions on immigration rely on, namely data from the Comparative Manifesto Project (Akkerman and Rooduijn 2014;Helbling et al. 2015;Sønderskov and Thomsen 2015). This massive database consists of coded party positions on a wide number of issues in 25 democracies since 1945, but unfortunately only includes very general orientations towards multiculturalism and nationalism, and is therefore less suited for our purposes. ...
Academics have long predicted the tension between immigration and welfare to lead to the erosion of redistributive institutions, but empirical studies have found little evidence for that prediction. This paper argues that concerns about immigrant welfare dependence are more likely to lead to one or more of the following three responses: (1) changes to admission policies aimed at attracting those immigrants who are least likely to turn to the state for financial support; (2) restrictions on immigrants’ access to social programmes and benefits; and (3) extensive integration services and immigrant-targeted labour market programmes. Combining a content analysis of party manifestoes and secondary analysis of cross-national survey data, this paper maps the views of parties and voters on these possible strategies in 15 Western European welfare states. The analysis reaches three main conclusions. First, the currency these responses enjoy differs strikingly from one country to another. Second, ideological affiliation helps to explain some of the variation within countries. Third, by and large the views of voters and the position of political parties seem to be in line with each other, albeit with important exceptions.
... Interest in cataloging and measuring multicultural policies grew rapidly in the last decade (Helbling and Vink, 2013). Ruud Koopmans and colleagues identify policies across 10 West European countries at four points in time (1980, 1990, 2002 and 2008) to assess "differential rights based on group membership," distinguishing "cultural monism" from "cultural pluralism" approaches (2005:51, 73; 2012). ...
... Figure II plots scores on the Multiculturalism Policy Index and Goodman's Civic Integration Policy index (CIVIX) for 14 countries in 2000(Goodman, 2010, 2012b. In 2000, the association between the two indices was negative but statistically insignificant, bolstering the conclusion that the indices measured different dimensions of incorporation policy (Helbling, 2013). By 2010, however, we find a strong, negative correlation between the two policy domains after some countries shifted to more demanding civic integration policies with limited expansion in multiculturalism policies. ...
... Populism also goes hand-inhand with mobilization by far-right and right-center parties that have attacked immigrants and multiculturalism, with little distinction between the two. Alternatively, rejection of multiculturalism might be a new type of elite-led policy change: Far-right political leaders have arguably politicized multiculturalism for political gain over other issues of public concern, such as economic globalization (Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle, 2013). ...
Across immigrant-receiving democracies, “multiculturalism” has come under assault by political decision-makers and commentators. The academic debate, while less fiery, is also heated. We start by outlining the multiple meanings of “multiculturalism”: a term for demographic diversity; a political philosophy of equality or justice; a set of policies to recognize and accommodate ethno-racial and religious diversity; or a public discourse recognizing and valorizing pluralism. We then review the existing empirical literature and offer some new statistical analyses to assess what we know about the harm or benefits of multicultural policies, focusing on sociopolitical outcomes. We conclude that multicultural policies appear to have some modest positive effects on sociopolitical integration for first-generation immigrants and likely little direct effect, positive or negative, on those in the second generation. On the question of majority backlash, the limited scholarship is mixed; we speculate that multiculturalism works best in places where both minorities and majority residents see it as part of a common national project. We end by considering the conditions under which this happens and whether there are distinctions between “Anglo-settler” and other countries.
... A number of studies find negative associations between local or regional degrees of ethnic diversity and trust (Dinesen and Sønderskov, 2015;Putnam, 2007;Ziller, 2015). However, evidence is mixed especially with regard to generalized social trust (e.g., Hooghe et al., 2009) and recent studies suggest that the diversity-trust relationship depends on conditioning factors such as economic, political, and cultural contexts (Gundelach and Manatschal, 2017;Helbling et al., 2015;Kesler and Bloemraad, 2010;Reeskens and Wright, 2013;Ziller, 2015). ...
... Still others point to political factors. Helbling et al. (2015) show that political salience of ethnic diversity amplifies trust-eroding effects. Gundelach and Manatschal (2017) examine the role of sub-national immigrant integration policies in Switzerland and find that ethnic diversity is less negatively related to social trust in cantons with liberal access to public employment as well as restrictive regulations on family reunification and naturalization. ...
This study examines whether the values prevalent in one's social environment moderate the link between immigration-related ethnic diversity and social trust. Drawing on arguments related to intergroup relations and anomie, we expect that contexts characterized by a comparatively high degree of openness mitigate a trust-eroding effect of immigration. In contrast, we expect that contexts of low openness or high conservation may reinforce a trust-eroding effect. We test these propositions using survey data from Europe and the United States merged with regional indicators on immigration and value contexts. The results show that high levels of contextual openness attenuate trust-eroding consequences of immigration growth. With regard to mechanisms, we find that contextual openness moderates how change in immigration relates to generalized forms of trust rather than outgroup trust. This points to an overall anomie-reducing function of openness norms, especially in times of ethnic change.
... A few studies have tried to explain such differences by examining heterogeneous effects of ethnic diversity across countries (i.e., studying if the effect of diversity varies according to specific country-level variables). Focusing on ethnic diversity at the national level, Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle (2015) show that the negative relationship between national ethnic diversity and trust is only significantly negative in countries where the immigration issue is relatively high on the political agenda, which might suggest that political elites and their rhetoric play a role in connecting citizens' experiences with diversity to their perception of the generalized other. Kesler and Bloemraad (2010) also report heterogeneous effects; they find that the negative impact of diversity is numerically smaller (i.e., closer to zero) in more economically equal countries and in countries where minorities are officially recognized and accommodated. ...
... Heterogeneous effects at the country or regional level have also been examined as we already discussed. The results suggest that the effects of aggregate diversity vary as a function of regional/country-level inequality, elite rhetoric, integration policies, ethnic polarization, and economic growth, but not unemployment, poverty, population size, level of democracy, and political climate (Bjørnskov 2008;Gundelach and Manatschal forthcoming;Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle 2015;Kesler and Bloemraad 2010;Ziller 2015). ...
Due to its wide-ranging implications for social cohesion in diversifying Western countries, the question of the potential negative consequences of ethnic diversity for social trust is arguably the most contentious question in the literature on social trust. In this chapter we critically review the empirical evidence for a negative relationship between contextual ethnic diversity (measured locally within countries) and social trust. We cautiously conclude that there are indications of a negative relationship, although with important variations across study characteristics including national setting, context unit analyzed, and conditioning on moderating influences. Building on the review, we highlight a number of paths for theoretical and methodological advances, which we argue would push the literature on the relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust forward.
... 34 "The role of political parties in politicising immigration issues has heavily increased over the last two decades….immigration became the most polarising issue in the electoral arena during the 1990s as well as the most salient one in protest politics, and has remained in this position ever since…This stands in contrast to the time up to the mid-1980s, when immigration was one of the least politicised issues on the political agenda of European countries, and immigration policy was decided behind closed doors and without public debate" (Helbling, Reeskens and Stolle 2015). This suggests that we need after all to return to the original carriers of solidarity: political parties. ...
... The potential role of progressive civil society coalitions is being displaced by electoral politics, and the electoral dynamics do not reward the vocal embrace of inclusive solidarity. In the 35 A recent study by Helbling, Reeskens and Stolle (2015) suggests that as immigration becomes more politically salient, as measured by its presence in party manifestos, social cohesion declines, regardless of the valence of the discussion. In other words, even positive discussions of immigration and multiculturalism can trigger these negative effects, simply by making the issue more salient. ...
Building and sustaining solidarity is an enduring challenge in all liberal-democratic societies. Ensuring that individuals are willing to accept these “strains of commitment,” to borrow John Rawls’ apt phrase, has been a worry even in relatively homogeneous societies, and the challenge seems even greater in ethnically and religiously diverse societies. This paper focuses is on the political sources of solidarity. Much has been written about the economic and social factors that influence the willingness of the public to accept and support immigrants and minorities. But solidarity is also a political phenomenon, which can be built or eroded through politics. In addition, our focus on the political sources of solidarity. Understandably, the existing literature concentrates on the politics of backlash and exclusion. This paper looks at the politics of diversity from the opposite direction, asking what are the potential sources of political support for inclusion, and the conditions under which they are effective. How is solidarity built? How is it sustained? Reframing the analysis in this way does not necessarily produce optimism about the future prospects. But exploring the potential political sources of support leads to broader, multilayered perspective with long time horizons. The paper advances a framework for analysis which incorporates three levels: the sense of political community, the role of political agents, and impact of political institutions and policy regimes. Each of these levels, and the interactions among them, matter.
... 6 It has already been fruitfully explored in other studies examining the elite-level political space over such issues (Alonso and There are some concerns about using party manifestos to capture 'elite rhetoric'; Kriesi et al. (2008: 67) for example argue that voters cannot be influenced by party manifestos as they do not read them. However, Helbling et al. (2015) have argued that even so, they proxy statements given by politicians in public debates (see also Robertson 1976: 72;Helbling and Tresch 2011). Moreover, it has been shown that the manifesto data lead to similar results as data from expert surveys (Marks et al. 2007;Netjes and Binnema 2007;Ray 2007). ...
... We collapsed the information that is provided by two issues covered in the CMP: 'multiculturalism' and 'national way of life' (see also Helbling et al. 2015). For each, there is a positive and a negative formulation: 'Multiculturalism: negative' (MultiNeg) is defined as 'enforcement or encouragement of cultural integration' (Volkens 2002: 35), and 'multiculturalism: positive' (MultiPos) is defined as 'favourable mentions of cultural diversity, communalism, cultural plurality, and pillarisation; preservation of autonomy of religious, linguistic heritages within the country including special educational provisions'. ...
Over the last decade, the topic of national-identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national-identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national-identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national-identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national-identity, than inclusionary ones.
... Several non-experimental studies of effects of media coverage of immigration and diversity on perceived group threat, anti-immigrant attitudes, and xenophobic violence point in this direction (Boomgaarden and Vliegenhart, 2009; Koopmans and Olzak, 2004;Schlüter and Davidov, 2013). The only study that we are aware of that has investigated media coverage effects on trust confirms that political rhetoric about immigration strenghtens the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and trust, but suggests that it does not matter whether immigration issues are postively or negatively framed (Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle, 2013). As a complement to the experimental evidence for a negative effect of diversity on trust, we now explore whether the effect of contextual diversity is robust if we include the experimental treatments as well as the full range of control variables on both the individual and contextual levels of analysis. ...
... We have no a priori hypothesis about the direction such an interaction effect could take, because plausible reasons can be given either way. On the one hand, people who live in ethnically diverse areas might be pre-sensitized to ethno-cultural diversity and might therefore react stronger to cognitive stimuli that refer to such diversity (Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle, 2013;Hopkins, 2010). On the other hand, one can argue that for those who live in ethnically diverse areas this dimension is already cognitively salient and will hardly be reinforced by comparatively weak stimuli such as our experimental primes. ...
This study not only shows that the empirically well-established negative relationship between residential diversity and trust in neighbors holds for the case of Germany, but goes beyond existing research by providing experimental evidence on the causal nature of the diversity effect. Respondents exposed to experimental stimuli that made salient the ethnic or religious heterogeneity of their neighborhoods display significantly lower levels of trust in their neighbors than do respondents in the control group. Further, we explore the role of interethnic contact in mediating the relationship between diversity and trust in a degree of detail unmatched by earlier studies. We consider not only positive forms of interethnic contact such as friendships, but also neutral and negative encounters between people of native and immigrant origin. We find that interethnic contacts mediate negative diversity effects on trust in different ways for both groups. For natives, distant encounters and negative experiences with immigrants in diverse contexts reduce trust, whereas for people of immigrant origin trust in neighbors suffers from the relatively small number of native acquaintances in diverse neighborhoods.
... Among the determinants influencing anti-immigrant attitudes in contemporary Europe is individual political ideologies because of the strong politicization of issues concerning immigration (Hampshire 2016;). Scholarship shows that increased nationalist sentiments and xenophobic attitudes have been caused due to the existing anti-immigrant political rhetoric in Europe (Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle 2015;Hopkins 2010Hopkins , 2011. Rydgren (2003) and Semyonov et al. (2006) have emphasized how anti-immigrant right-wing political parties have been successful in garnering aggregated support from nationals for their agenda infusing negative attitudes against foreigners. ...
... For example, it has been shown that public opinion towards migration (higher levels of public support for immigrants and for inclusive policies, particularly in terms of economic threats) is higher in countries with more inclusive integration policies. 4 More far-reaching integration policies also help to close the gaps in political participation, interest, and trust of immigrants (Helbling et al., 2015;Ruedin, 2013;Thorkelson, 2016;Welge, 2015). ...
Dans toute l’Europe, l’intégration des immigrés sur le marché du travail a tendance à être plus lente que celle des natifs. Cet article analyse empiriquement le rôle joué par les politiques d’intégration dans la réduction de cet écart dans les pays de l’Union européenne (UE). En nous appuyant sur l’indicateur de politique d’intégration pour migrants (MIPEX), nous constatons que les pays ayant des politiques plus développées en faveur de l’intégration des immigrés ne disposent pas nécessairement d’un taux d’emploi des personnes immigrées plus élevé. Cette constatation est due au fait que différents types de politiques ont des effets opposés : alors que les politiques favorisant le regroupement familial, luttant contre la discrimination et permettant la participation politique semblent augmenter l’intégration des personnes d’origine étrangère sur le marché du travail, une plus grande mobilité sur le marché du travail, ainsi qu’un accès plus large à la résidence permanente et à la nationalité sont négativement liés au taux d’emploi des immigrés. En outre, nos résultats confirment que l’intégration des immigrés sur le marché du travail varie en fonction de la composition des compétences de la population immigrée. Un plus haut niveau d’éducation favorise l’intégration. La composition de la population immigrée au sein d’un pays en termes de niveaux de qualifications, pourrait toutefois être également influencée par les politiques d’intégration dans les pays de destination potentiels, une hypothèse que nous testons également. Nous montrons que les politiques d’intégration agissent effectivement comme un facteur d’attraction. Cependant, il semble que les politiques d’intégration plus élaborées affectent principalement le nombre d’immigrés hautement qualifiés entrant sur le territoire, mais pas le nombre d’immigrés moyennement ou faiblement qualifiés. Des facteurs différents semblent donc être en jeu pour les personnes faiblement et moyennement qualifiées, mais une fois déplacées, nos résultats montrent que ce sont elles qui bénéficient le plus des politiques d’intégration.
... For example, it has been shown that public opinion towards migration (higher levels of public support for immigrants and for inclusive policies, particularly in terms of economic threats) is higher in countries with more inclusive integration policies. 4 More far-reaching integration policies also help to close the gaps in political participation, interest, and trust of immigrants (Helbling et al., 2015;Ruedin, 2013;Thorkelson, 2016;Welge, 2015). ...
... When it comes to migrants' electoral and non-electoral political participation, this is found to be clearly fostered by inclusive integration policies (Aleksynska, 2011;Helbling et al., 2015;Thorkelson, 2016;Welge, 2015). Many studies also identify an effect on migrants' health status, with research suggesting that migrants' mental or physical health is affected by a country's integration policies and migrant health policies (Bakhtiari et al., 2018;Juarez et al., 2019;Walkden et al., 2018). ...
This paper explores the link between migration policies and migration and migrant integration dynamics, providing an overview and analysis of key findings from the existing literature. This link is usually analysed from a two-fold perspective: either in relation to the main factors associated with migration policies, or in relation to the effect of migration policies. This report considers research from both perspectives and presents key findings that serve to update existing research as well as fostering additional research on the topic. Various potential factors have been identified as possible determinants of migration policies: migration-related factors (e.g. size of the migrant group in a country); institutional factors (e.g. country’s wealth, its welfare system and its labour market conditions); media and political factors (e.g. political ideologies and public opinion). More restrictive policies are associated with lower numbers of migrants, smaller immigration flows and changes in the composition of these flows (e.g., reduction of low-skilled migrants). Policies also produce unintended effects, such as an increase in the number of undocumented migrants in a country. Furthermore, under inclusive policies there is less public fear of migrants in the public opinion, while migrants enjoy greater opportunities to participate in society, improve their skills, and establish themselves in the destination countries. Migrants also develop positive attitudes about their life satisfaction, their health, and their participation in politics.
... Az ingázás mellett szerepet játszhat ebben a helyi média, ami kibővíti a lokális fogalmát (Phan 2008), továbbá a szélsőjobboldali pártok politikája, ami ráirányítja a lakosok figyelmét a bevándorlásra, majd negatív összefüggésbe helyezi azt, ami növelheti a bevándorlásellenes attitűdöt (Bohman-Hjerm 2016, Bertus 2017). Ezen pártok retorikája a bizalom csökkenéséhez és a társadalmi kohézió gyengüléséhez vezethet (Helbling et al. 2015). Az alacsony bizalommal rendelkező lakosok pedig egyértelműen felülreprezentáltak a szélsőjobboldali Svéd Demokraták párt szavazói között (Holmberg-Rothstein 2020). ...
This study investigated the impact of ethnocultural diversity on changes in social cohesion in Västra Götaland County, Sweden, where the number of immigrants
increased rapidly between 2014 and 2018. To investigate diversity, the authors used a
diversity index weighted by cultural parameters in addition to the proportion of immigrants and the classical fragmentation index, while social cohesion was analysed using generalised and localised trust, respectively, with questionnaire surveys. The multilevel modelling used in the research has shown the role of individual variables and the impact of the diversity of the municipalities and city districts studied. The generalised
trust was not affected by diversity in the multilevel models and correlation results,
regardless of the measurement method (minority proportion, unweighted and weighted
fragmentation index), but the individual variables provided a good indication of the
level of trust of the individual. However, localised trust is already negatively affected
by ethnic diversity, as residents in ethnically mixed municipalities or districts have lower
localised trust, which confirms the constrict theory, that living in ethnically mixed areas
leads to lower trust in general. There is no difference in model fit between the use of
diversity indices and immigrant shares.
... Studies investigating the power of anti-immigrant political framing on public opinion primarily focus on unidirectional attitudinal change (i.e., whether populations become more or less hostile toward immigrants, on average), thereby neglecting broader questions of moral evaluation and attitudinal and affective polarization (Dekeyser & Freedman, 2021;Flores, 2018;Helbling et al., 2015;Helbling et al., 2016;Hopkins, 2010Hopkins, , 2011. In addition, these studies' use of simple measures of political rhetoric (above all, the relative salience of immigration in comparison with other political topics) makes it difficult to determine whether particular kinds of language drive opinion change, whereas their reliance on observational data leaves the question of causality unresolved. ...
Morally charged rhetoric is commonplace in political discourse on immigration but scholars have not examined how it affects divisions over the issue among the public. To address this gap, we employ preregistered survey experiments in two countries where anti-immigration rhetoric has been prominent: the United States and Denmark. We demonstrate that exposure to moralized messages leads respondents to place greater moral weight on their existing immigration opinions and become more averse to political leaders and, in the United States, social interaction partners who espouse opposite beliefs. This suggests that political moralization contributes to moral conflict and affective polarization. We find no evidence, however, that moral framing produces attitudinal polarization—that is, more extreme immigration opinions. Our study helps make sense of the heightened intensity of anti-immigrant politics even when attitudes are stable. It also suggests a promising avenue for comparative research on affective polarization by shifting the focus from partisanship to the moralization of existing issue disagreements.
... How specific migrant integration policies are in fact crafted, however, depends largely on political actors in charge of the policy area, on their ideologies and interests that inform a policy choice (Akkerman 2012;Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle 2015). Overall, social-democratic parties, as well as conservative and Christian-democratic parties, have for a long time taken a liberal and inclusive approach to reconcile concerns by citizens with the needs of newcomers. ...
Anti-immigrant claims are seen as key to the success of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in parliamentary opposition. Yet migrant integration policies adopted by PRRPs in executive power are still a blind spot in research. Some scholars assess their policy impact as weak and attribute this to a lack of robust policy suggestions, others point to their taming by mainstream coalition partners and by government responsibility. Recently though, PRRPs have found more favourable political opportunities in the increased salience of migration and a rightward shift of centre-right parties. Drawing on policy documents from the Austrian coalition government of the radical right Austrian Freedom Party and the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (2017-2019), this paper investigates policy designs and constraints in the area of migrant integration. Our study points out the impact of PRRPs in government on integration policy through strengthening regulatory instruments, weakening distributive instruments and using organizational instruments to centralize policy implementation at the expense of NGOs. Yet this approach not only alters the substance of policy designs, the radical right also imprints a populist mode of confrontational and accelerated policy-making. Against these changes, taming is left to political and especially institutional constraints at national and international levels.
... One part of the explanation could be that the exposure to out-groups without intergroup contact increases threat perceptions, which potentially increases distrust. However, diversity is not related to distrust in all contexts or at all times (Stolle et al., 2008;Helbling et al., 2015;Tolsma and van der Meer, 2018). Other contextual experiences that appear to matter for trust are poverty and disorder (Abascal and Baldassarri, 2015), intergroup segregation (Uslaner, 2002) and quality of institutions (Nannestad, 2008). ...
Following public debates on the topic of trust in Quebec, this article examines the alleged social capital differential between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The literature has found lower levels of generalized trust in Quebec, but explanations offered are diverse and conjectural, with historical, sociological and political factors all in contention. We test contextual and compositional influences, including cohort differences, language and linguistic ability, religion, ethnicity, and neighbourhood-level measures of diversity, using pooled cross-sectional data from the Canadian General Social Survey (2003, 2008 and 2013) linked with precise measures of neighbourhood-level ethnic and linguistic diversity drawn from the Canadian census. We identify those Quebecers who have low levels of trust and those who more closely resemble their counterparts in the rest of Canada. We find that individual linguistic ability and linguistic heterogeneity of the neighbourhood are important correlates of trust and that among francophone populations, social distrust is found most in unilingual homogenous communities.
... 42. A recent study by Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle (2015) suggests that as immigration becomes more politically salient, as measured by its presence in party manifestos, social cohesion declines, regardless of the valence of the discussion. In other words, even positive discussions of immigration and multiculturalism can trigger these negative effects, simply by making the issue more salient. ...
Building and sustaining solidarity is an enduring challenge in all liberal-democratic societies. The claims of solidarity require individuals to tolerate views and practices they dislike, to accept democratic decisions that go again their beliefs or interests, and to moderate the pursuit of their own economic self-interest to help the disadvantaged. Ensuring that individuals are willing to accept these “strains of commitment,” to borrow John Rawls’ apt phrase, has been a worry even in relatively homogeneous societies, and the challenge seems even greater in ethnically and religiously diverse societies. Anxiety about the impact of diversity on solidarity has been a recurring theme in both academic scholarship and public debates around immigration and multiculturalism. In order to better understand the nature of this challenge, we need to understand the meaning of solidarity, and the mechanisms by which it can be enhanced or diminished.
Our approach to these questions focuses on the sources of solidarity. Recent research has concentrated on diagnosing the dynamics that undermine solidarity and generate backlash and exclusion in diverse societies. This is understandable, since political life in democratic countries has been characterized by both neoliberal attacks on the welfare state and populist attacks on immigration. However, we look at the politics of diversity from the opposite direction, exploring the potential sources of support for an inclusive solidarity. How is solidarity built? How is it sustained over time? How has been strengthened as well as weakened in the contemporary era?
... We operationalized the political party positions on cultural diversity analogously to Helbling et al. (2015). For each country and election year, we collapsed the positive and negative party positions regarding the dimensions of multiculturalism and the national way of life. ...
This article addresses the extent to which economic downturns influence the perception of immigrants as an economic threat and through which channels this occurs. Our primary objective is an investigation of the specific mechanisms that connect economic conditions to the perception of immigrants as a threat. We therefore also contribute to theoretical discussions based on group threat and realistic group conflict theory by exposing the dominant source of competition relevant to these relationships. Furthermore, we investigate whether people react more sensitive to short-term economic dynamics within countries than to the long-term economic circumstances. Our database comprises all waves of the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2017. The macro-economic indicators we use include GDP per capita, unemployment, and national debt levels, covering the most salient economic dimensions. We furthermore control for the country’s migration situation and aggregate party positions toward cultural diversity. Our results show that the dynamic short-term developments of the economy and migration within countries are of greater relevance for perceived immigrant threat than the long-term situation. In contrast, the long-term political climate appears to be more important than short-term changes in the aggregate party positions. Further mediation analyses show that objective economic conditions influence anti-immigrant attitudes primarily through individual perceptions of the country’s economic performance and that unemployment rates are of primary importance.
... This negative relationship is typically stronger for trust in neighbors and when studying diversity of local areas. 1 At the same time, several studies find that demographic, economic, political, and cultural characteristics moderate the relationship between ethnic diversity and trust (Kesler and Bloemraad, 2010;Uslaner, 2012;Helbling et al., 2015;Ziller, 2015;Gundelach and Manatschal, 2017;. ...
This study examines the relationship between residential segregation and social trust of immigrants and natives in the Netherlands. Building on previous studies that have found evidence for a negative segregation-trust link, we present a nuanced narrative by (i) distinguishing between an ethnic minority and majority perspective, (ii) elaborating theoretical foundations on the moderating role of individual exposure in the form of ethnic minority concentration in the neighborhood, and (iii) taking income segregation into account. In addition to the refined theoretical framework, our study employs a rigorous empirical approach. Using two waves (2009 and 2013) of the Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study—a geocoded panel study with an oversampling of Moroccan and Turkish immigrants—we are able to study the influence of (changes in) municipality-level segregation patterns for both natives and immigrants, and consider the roles of both neighborhood ethnic minority concentration, as well as income-based segregation. Results from four-level multilevel models show that ethnic segregation is negatively related to the social trust of immigrants. At the same time, this negative relationship is particularly strong in neighborhoods with a low level of minority population concentration, which provides support for the so-called integration paradox where negative intergroup interactions reduce social trust. For respondents of Dutch origin, we find no evidence that their social trust is sensitive to ethnic segregation or that this relationship is conditional on minority concentration at the neighborhood level.
... At the center of debate is whether immigration-induced ethnic diversity and social cohesion (social capital) are incompatible. That is, does the former have a corrosive effect on the latter, as has been shown (Fieldhouse and Cutts 2010;Helbling et al. 2015;Putnam 2007;Ziller et al. 2018)? This debate was stimulated by the so-called 'hunkering down' thesis originally proposed by Putnam (2007). ...
A substantial literature has emerged examining the relationship between ethnic diversity due to immigration and social cohesion in the host country. Empirical evidence concerning this relationship, however, remains inconsistent, if not contradictory. Aside from rare exceptions, the bulk of evidence is also based on North American and European countries. The present study focuses on a novel empirical context: Georgia, a country located in the South Caucasus. Based on multilevel modeling of population-based data, it examines the associations between outgroup contact and attitude toward immigrants and two measures of social cohesion: generalized trust and civic engagement. Results show that net of controls at individual and regional levels, a negative orientation toward foreigners significantly predicts lower trust in generalized others. Frequency of outgroup contact, on the other hand, is positively related to civic participation. This linkage is also weaker in geographic areas with higher levels of anti-immigrant attitude. A major policy implication from this study is to encourage more intergroup contact through effective residential integration, amongst other measures.
... The individual-level data on political ideology and opposition to immigration is from the European Social Survey data sets fielded in 2002 and 2014. Thus, we exploit the fact that ethnic diversity and its politico-ideological correlates have become even more visible in daily life and public discourse during the period 2002-2014 (see also Bale et al., 2010;Helbling et al., 2015). Converse (1964) concluded that ordinary citizens are ideologically innocent, but decades of research has not confirmed this. ...
This paper introduces a dynamic perspective on how (personal) political ideology shapes reactions to immigration policies at the mass level. Greater ethnic diversity and growing calls for multiculturalism represent a disproportionately greater challenge to rightists because they value conformity, tradition, and stability more than leftists. Consequently, we hypothesize that the impact of political ideology on opposition to immigration has become stronger over time. Analyses show that: (a) leftists were less opposed to immigration than rightists in both 2002 and 2014, and (b) rightists have become more opposed to immigration in the time between 2002 and 2014, whereas leftists’ reactions remained stable across this period. We tested our motivated reasoning hypothesis in a repeated cross-sectional (fixed effects regression) analysis of individual-level data from 18 countries ( N = 55,367). The individual-level data on political ideology and immigration policy preferences is from the European Social Survey data sets fielded in 2002 and 2014.
... Tidigare studier har visat på att om och hur frågor uppmärksammas i den politiska och mediala debatten kan bidra till förskjutningar i attityderna hos befolkningen (se t.ex. Helbling, Reeskens & Stolle, 2015). Mot bakgrund av det stora fokus som varit på migration i den politiska och mediala debatten är det ytterst relevant att fortsätta följa utvecklingen inte minst i de europeiska länderna vad gäller synen på invandring och även på andra grupper. ...
... This is the case even though the media in these countries -unlike, for example, the UK press -endeavor to a great extent to highlight positive examples. Earlier studies have indicated that whether and how issues are illuminated in political and media debates can contribute to shifts in the attitudes of the population (see, inter alia, Helbling, Reeskens & Stolle, 2015). In view of the major focus there has been on migration in political and media debates, it is extremely relevant to continue to monitor developments, not least in European countries, with regard to the views on immigration and also on other groups. ...
... Tidigare studier har visat på att om och hur frågor uppmärksammas i den politiska och mediala debatten kan bidra till förskjutningar i attityderna hos befolkningen (se t.ex. Helbling, Reeskens & Stolle, 2015). Mot bakgrund av det stora fokus som varit på migration i den politiska och mediala debatten är det ytterst relevant att fortsätta följa utvecklingen inte minst i de europeiska länderna vad gäller synen på invandring och även på andra grupper. ...
... In particular, scholars who refer to group threat theory argue that ethnic struggles for resources and symbolic representation compromise social cohesion (e.g. Hou and Wu, 2009;Helbling et al., 2015). Accordingly, it is not ethnic diversity per se that undermines trust and cooperation, but simply out-group presence. ...
Ethnic diversity is typically measured by the well-known Hirschman-Herfindahl Index. This paper discusses the merits of an alternative approach, which is in our view better suited to tease out why and how ethnic diversity matters. The approach consists of two elements. First, all existing diversity indices are non-relational. From the viewpoint of theoretical accounts that attribute negative diversity effects to in-group favoritism and out-group threat, it should however matter whether, given a certain level of overall diversity, an individual belongs to a minority group or to the dominant majority. We therefore decompose diversity by distinguishing the in-group share from the diversity of ethnic out-groups. Second, we show how generalized entropy measures can be used to test which of diversity's two basic dimensions matters most: the variety of groups, or the unequal distribution (balance) of the population over groups. These measures allow us to test different theoretical explanations against each other, because they imply different expectations regarding the effects of in-group size, out-group variety, and out-group balance. We apply these ideas in an analysis of various social cohesion measures across 55 German localities and show that both in-group size and out-group diversity matter. For the native majority as well as for persons of immigration background, the variety component of diversity seems to be more decisive than has formerly been acknowledged. These findings provide little support for group threat and in-group favoritism as the decisive mechanisms behind negative diversity effects, and are most in line with the predictions of theories that emphasize coordination problems, asymmetric preferences, and network closure.
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... Canada's recent incrementalist approach 3 to change in multicultural discourse, however, attracts far less attention and controversy compared with Merkel and others' dramatic statements about postmulticulturalism or interculturalism policies (see Bloemraad & Wright, 2014, for a discussion). Suffice to say, the general public often have so little information and understanding of issues (Converse, 1964(Converse, , 1970, that public opinion toward multiculturalism is often dependent on the framing and narrative crafted by political leaders (see Helbling, Reeskens, & Stolle, 2013;Hooghe & de Vroome, 2015, this issue). ...
In this special issue on “Multiculturalism During Challenging Times,” we present six articles focused on multiculturalism as it is currently practiced or implemented in Canada, across Europe, in Mauritius, and in South Korea. We apply SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to assess the strengths and weaknesses of its application and the opportunities and threats it presents for the countries studied
here. Strengths: We find that multiculturalism fosters national identity, promotes cultural tolerance and modernization, and assists with the incorporation of cultural
minorities. Weaknesses: At the same time, multiculturalism also creates “faultlines”
along cultural and religious groups, could promote separate and parallel lives, and
could pose a challenge to equality in liberal societies. Opportunities: Multiculturalism
has the potential to be used as a tool for attracting talents, a source of competitive
advantage for nations, and a discourse for politicians to score political gains. Threats:
Multiculturalism also has the potential to be perceived as incompatible with Western,
liberal values, a burden to the state welfare, and challenge existing national identities.
We conclude with some suggestions for future research to extend our understanding
of multiculturalism within the context of increasing globalization and greater
international migration.
... Hopkins (2010) found that anti-immigrant sentiments in the US increased when rising immigration on the local level combined with debates in national politics and media in which immigration was problematized (similarly Schlueter and Davidov 2011 for Spain). In a similar vein, Helbling et al. (2013) find that negative impacts of ethnic diversity are stronger in countries where immigration is a salient topic in political party programs. A few cross-national studies have investigated whether such policy effects can be generalized into the domain of social cohesion, measured in these studies by generalized trust. ...
The question whether ethnic diversity is associated with declining social cohesion has produced much controversy. We maintain that more attention must be paid to cognitive mechanisms to move the debate ahead. Using survey data from 938 localities in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, we explore a crucial individual-level mechanism: perceptions of diversity. We not only consider perceptions of the amount, but also of the qualitative nature of diversity. By asking about various qualitative aspects of diversity, we test the cognitive salience of three explanations that have been proposed in the literature for negative diversity effects: out-group biases, asymmetric preferences and coordination problems. We show that all three mechanisms matter. Perceptions both mediate statistical diversity effects, and have important explanatory power of their own. Moreover, we are able to address the question to what extend the relationship of perceived diversity and neighborhood social cohesion varies across policy contexts. Based on assumptions in the literature about positive impacts of inclusive and culturally pluralist immigrant integration policy approaches, we hypothesize that ethno-cultural diversity is less negatively related to neighborhood social cohesion in more inclusive policy contexts. Our results provide partial support for this hypothesis as perceived diversity has a significantly stronger negative impact on neighborhood cohesion in Germany.
... Canada's recent incrementalist approach 3 to change in multicultural discourse, however, attracts far less attention and controversy compared with Merkel and others' dramatic statements about postmulticulturalism or interculturalism policies (see Bloemraad & Wright, 2014, for a discussion). Suffice to say, the general public often have so little information and understanding of issues (Converse, 1964(Converse, , 1970, that public opinion toward multiculturalism is often dependent on the framing and narrative crafted by political leaders (see Helbling, Reeskens, & Stolle, 2013;Hooghe & de Vroome, 2015, this issue). ...
Since the events of September 11, 2001, there has been a shift in the attitudes towards immigration and multiculturalism. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that "multiculturalism... has utterly failed." Likewise, the U.K. is moving towards "post-multiculturalism" as a way forward to foster social cohesion and promote assimilation and a common identity. The premise behind the post-multiculturalism/anti-immigration movement is that multiculturalism is not working, and new public policies and programs are needed to move beyond multiculturalism. This symposium will provide a forum for academic discourse on whether multiculturalism has failed to work, how multiculturalism can contribute to organizations, societies, and nations, and what can be done to foster greater tolerance and inclusion. A roundtable will be used to involve the audience as participants, and to generate active discussions. The objective of the symposium is to: (1) exchange knowledge, ideas, and experiences about multiculturalism; (2) develop a future research agenda; and (3) encourage collaborations among contributors and audience participants, particularly those from the African continent.
High levels of social cohesion have been shown to be beneficial both for social entities and for their residents. It is therefore not surprising that scholars from several disciplines investigate which factors contribute to or hamper social cohesion at various societal levels. In recent years, the question of how individuals deal with the increasing diversity of their neighborhoods and society as a whole has become of particular interest when examining cohesion. The present study takes this a step further by combining sociological and psychological approaches in investigating whether the group-level acceptance of diversity, a core feature of cohesive societies, is related to prevailing mentalities of individuals once the social structure of a community is accounted for. We hypothesize that after controlling for individual sociodemographic and for structural variables, three individual characteristics play an important role for the level of acceptance of diversity in a given entity. We propose that individual intergroup anxiety (IGA) acts as a motor of the rejection of diversity whereas individual empathy should act as a safeguard. Furthermore, we propose that right-leaning political orientation (PO) has a negative influence on the acceptance of diversity. This study is based on a large, representative sample of the German general population (N1 = 2,869). To draw comparisons among different social entities, the sample was divided by federal states (N2 = 16). Data were analyzed by using a two-step approach for analyzing group-level outcomes in multilevel models. The analyses confirmed our hypothesis that intergroup anxiety at the individual level hampers the acceptance of diversity in a given sociopolitical entity. Furthermore, we found that intergroup anxiety is impacted by the economic situation in a federal state (measured per capita gross domestic product), as economic weakness intensified the fear of others. Surprisingly, neither empathy nor political orientation played a role for the acceptance of diversity. Implications for future research on social cohesion as well as for the work of policy makers are discussed.
Political sociology is a large and expanding field, and The New Handbook of Political Sociology supplies the knowledge necessary to keep up with the newest developments. Written by a distinguished group of leading scholars in sociology, this volume provides a critical survey of the state of the art and points the way to new directions in future research. The New Handbook presents the field in six parts: theories of political sociology, the information and knowledge explosion, the state and political parties, civil society and citizenship, public policy, and globalization and empire. Covering all subareas of the field with both theory and empirics, it directly connects scholars with the cutting edge. A total reconceptualization of the first edition, the New Handbook features nine additional chapters and highlights the role of race, gender, colonialism, and knowledge production.
This chapter focuses on the narrower question of the likelihood of negative social effects on residents of the host society, via the possible reduction of trust and social cooperation, broadly conceived. There are at least three ways in which someone might be concerned about migration's impact on trust and social cooperation. First, they may wonder whether migration reduces trust via the alleged mechanism of increasing diversity. Second, they may wonder whether migration directly affects trust and cooperation via the mechanism of importing different cooperative norms. Third, they may suppose that migration can undermine support for the welfare state, perhaps aided by political entrepreneurs willing to present immigrants as “free riders”. Paul Collier argues that increasing migration is likely to undermine social trust, a form of social capital, through increasing diversity. Collier's tendency to conflate all of these mechanisms under the rubric of “bad social models” potentially obscures the fact that they are different mechanisms.
Research on the relationship between nationhood and individual attitudes prominently focuses on whether – and how – the distinction between ethnic and civic conceptions may be drawn in mass public opinion. We depart from this literature to explain the effects of party rhetoric on shaping more restrictive conceptions of nationhood, which previous research refers to as “ethnic,” “objective,” or “ascriptive” views on nationhood. We do so in three parts: we examine whether political rhetoric, in terms of party manifestos, and individual-level conceptions of nationhood are linked; whether the relationship depends on the ideological alignment between political parties and respondents; and whether political rhetoric and individual predisposition act in combination. We analyze three waves of survey data from the International Social Survey Program’s National Identity module from 1995, 2003 and 2013, covering 58,498 respondents from 39 countries. We find that political rhetoric influences respondents’ conceptions of nationhood. This effect, however, is not as straightforward as initially expected. While the overall political climate does not have a direct effect at the societal level, it does affect the way in which a specific party’s political messages influence the attitudes of their individual recipients. Once the political climate is more ethnocentric, conceptions of nationhood tend to be more restrictive across the board, even among respondents aligned with parties that do not emphasize ethnic conceptions.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Beitrag untersucht, ob Menschen in einheimisch-homogenen Nachbarschaften, die an ethnisch-divers zusammengesetzte Nachbarschaften angrenzen oder von diesen sogar umgeben sind, besonders zu xenophoben Einstellungen neigen. Diese als „Halo“ (auf Deutsch „Ring“) bezeichnete sozial-räumliche Konstellation synthetisiert zwei prominente theoretische Ansätze zur Erklärung von Xenophobie: Weil die homogen-zusammengesetzte direkte Nachbarschaft kaum Möglichkeiten zu positivem Intergruppenkontakt birgt, können die umgebenden ethnisch-diversen Nachbarschaften umso ungebremster subjektive Wettbewerbsängste und Bedrohungsgefühle auslösen, die letztendlich in Xenophobie münden. Jenseits von klassischen Hypothesen über die Kontexteffekte von Bevölkerungsanteilen, liegt das Augenmerk dieses Ansatzes somit auf der Bedeutung der Einbettung von Nachbarschaften in ihre lokale Umgebung. Unsere Analysen auf Basis des geokodierten ALLBUS 2014 finden jedoch keine Bestätigung für die Halo-Effekt-Hypothese, weder im Allgemeinen noch für besonders Xenophobie affine Subpopulationen. Unser Artikel verdeutlicht dennoch, auf einer theoretisch generelleren Ebene, dass die Einbettung von Nachbarschaften in ihre lokale Umgebung bedeutsam sein kann und demonstriert die methodischen Besonderheiten einer solchen räumlichen Analyse der geokodierten ALLBUS-Daten. Im Fazit werden darüber hinaus plausible Gründe diskutiert, warum unsere Ergebnisse von Studien aus anderen Ländern abweichen.
Across immigrant-receiving democracies, “multiculturalism” has come under assault by political decision-makers and pundits. The academic debate, while less fiery, is also heated. We start by outlining the multiple meanings of “multiculturalism:” a term for demographic diversity; a political philosophy of equality or justice; a set of policies to recognize and accommodate ethno-racial and religious diversity; or a public discourse recognizing and valorizing pluralism. We then review the existing empirical literature and offer some new statistical analyses to assess what we know about the harm or benefits of multicultural policies, focusing in particular on socio-political outcomes. We conclude that multicultural policies appear to have some modest positive effects on socio-political integration for first generation immigrants, and likely little direct effect, positive or negative, on those in the second generation. On the question of majority backlash, the limited scholarship is mixed; we speculate that multiculturalism work best in places where both minorities and majority residents see it as part of a common national project. We end by considering the conditions under which this happens and whether there are distinctions between “Anglo-settler” and other countries.
The consequences of marginalized ethnic group emancipation for historically privileged groups are rarely examined, despite assertions that the disruption of traditional power balances leads to backlash. This paper addresses identity change in a ‘most probable case’ of intergroup threat, examining reactions to indigenous empowerment in Bolivia. After translating theory on identity change into testable implications, it explores meso-level rhetoric of the Santa Cruz Autonomy movement through diverse sources and micro-level identification through time-series survey data. It finds evidence for the constructionist power of discourse: its ability to create societal consensus on collective identity in a relatively short time span.
(Forthcoming in Politics)
So positiv man die Willkommenskultur bewerten mag, die bei der Aufnahme der Geflüchteten entstanden ist: Es ist keine ausgemachte Sache, dass die offene Haltung der Bevölkerung und die neu entstandene Kooperationskultur vor Ort von Dauer sein werden und zur Integration der Geflüchteten beitragen. Roland Roth widmet sich in seinem Beitrag den kritischen Aspekten. Auch wenn viele pragmatische Lösungen gefunden wurden, zu denen vor allem die Zivilgesellschaft beigetragen hat: Die Flüchtlingsfrage als solche bleibt politisch ungelöst. Inwieweit die Integration Geflüchteter Auswirkungen auf den sozialen Zusammenhalt hat, entscheidet sich auch daran, inwieweit es gelingt, die Konfliktlinie ,Öffnen vs. Schließen’ zu zivilisieren.
In the discussion of the sources of social capital, it has been stressed that generalized trust is built up by the citizens themselves through a culture that permeates the networks and organizations of civil society. This approach has run into conceptual problems, and empirical evidence has provided only mixed support. An alternate approach is to highlight how social capital is embedded in and linked to formal political and legal institutions. Not all political institutions matter equally, however. Trust thrives most in societies with effective, impartial, and fair street-level bureaucracies. The causal mechanism between these institutional characteristics and generalized trust is illustrated in a cross-national context.
What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers of the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved.
Why and under which conditions do people employ ethnic categories rather than others (such as age, class, gender, and so on) to conceptually organize their social environment? This article analyses an open-ended question on who is seen as responsible for neighbourhood problems taken from a recently conducted large-scale survey in Germany. By doing so, this study tries to give novel insight on native Germans' use of ethnic folk classifications and aims to identify contextual factors that might explain why people characterize problem-groups in ethnic terms. This article shows that drunkards, the elderly and especially teenagers are seen as problem-groups more frequently than any ethnic minority. Conditions of economic decline and out-group size are analysed as to whether they are associated with a higher likelihood of using ethnic categories. The findings suggest that the effects of out-group size are diminishing in their impact, whereas the effects of economic decline are accumulating in strength.
Using a special module (MEUS) of the 2000 General Social Survey, we investigate Americans’ perceptions of the racial and ethnic composition of the United States. We show that, because of innumeracy, it is critical to gauge perceptions through relative, rather than absolute, group sizes. Even so, it appears that, as of 2000, roughly half of Americans believed that whites had become a numerical minority; such perceptions were even more common among minority-group members than among whites. Majority-group respondents’ perceptions of the relative sizes of minorities affect their attitudes towards immigrants, blacks and Hispanics, with those having the most distorted perceptions holding the most negative attitudes. Although perceptions of group sizes in the nation are linked to the perceived racial/ethnic composition of the communities where respondents reside, the effects of the former on attitudes are largely independent of the latter. Our findings highlight the frequently overlooked value of an old bromide against prejudice: education.
In the social capital literature a distinction is made between trust expressed in people in general, and trust in people who
are known to us personally. In this article we investigate the frames of reference respondents make use of when answering
two commonly used interpersonal trust questions. Half of our sample was administered a version which asks respondents whether
“most people” can be trusted. The other half of the sample was administered an alternative version of the question, in which
the object of trust is restricted to “people in your local area.” Immediately after answering the trust question all respondents
were asked to report, in their own words, who came to mind when formulating their response. Counter to the widespread assumption
that these questions measure generalized trust, we find that a substantial number of respondents report having thought about
people who are known to them personally. Furthermore, respondents who report having thought about individuals who are known
to them also report substantially higher levels of trust than people who say they thought about abstract categories such as
“people in general.” Our results suggest that apparent differences in trust across question formats and groups within the
general public derive, at least in part, from heterogeneity in question interpretation.
In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, one of the strongest extreme right parties of Europe thrives: the Vlaams Blok (the Flemish Bloc). The basic question of this article is straightforward: Do the Flemish media contribute to the success of the Vlaams Blok by emphasizing the themes of the party? The theoretical argument is twofold: agenda setting by the media and issue ownership by parties. The issues the Vlaams Blok owns are determined using two sources: its electoral manifestoes and its electorate's motivations to vote for the party. This leads to four issues: Flemish nationalism, immigrant topics, antipolitics issues, and crime-related themes. Using a vast media data set covering three newspapers and two TV stations and stretching over 10 years (1991-2000), we examine to what extent these issues were covered. The analysis shows that especially immigrant topics and crime receive extensive and growing media attention, and time series analysis shows that this rise parallels the electoral growth of the Vlaams Blok. The media could be considered co-responsible for the Vlaams Blok's upsurge.
This study investigated the effects of strategic television news coverage of a routine political issue in a nonelectoral context on political cynicism, issue evaluation, and policy support. An experimentally manipulated television news story about the en- largement of the European Union was produced in a strategy version and an is- sue-framed version, which were embedded in an experimental bulletin of a national news program. Results showed that exposure to strategic news fuelled political cyni- cism and activated negative associations with the enlargement issue. Politically knowledgeable participants displayed higher levels of cynicism and were more nega- tive in their evaluation. Strategic news did not suppress policy support. A 2-wave ex- perimental design with a second posttest was employed to test the longevity of effects. The effects of exposure to strategic news on political cynicism muted between the im- mediate and delayed posttest. These findings suggest that effects may not persist un- less participants are exposed to additional news framed in a similar way. News is the key source of information about politics and the economy for a major- ity of citizens in Western democracies. Previous studies of the impact of news on public perceptions of and engagement in politics have produced mixed results. These studies are characterized by a number of features, such as a strong focus on American politics during elections and often-assumed long-term effects on demo-
We use a multi-level modelling approach to estimate the effect of ethnic diversity on measures of generalized and strategic trust using data from a new survey in Britain with a sample size approaching 25,000 individuals. In addition to the ethnic diversity of neighbourhoods, we incorporate a range of indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals and the areas in which they live. Our results show no effect of ethnic diversity on generalized trust. There is a statistically significant association between diversity and a measure of strategic trust, but in substantive terms, the effect is trivial and dwarfed by the effects of economic deprivation and the social connectedness of individuals.
An important problem in multilevel modeling is what constitutes a sufficient sample size for accurate estimation. In multilevel analysis, the major restriction is often the higher-level sample size. In this paper, a simulation study is used to determine the influence of different sample sizes at the group level on the accuracy of the estimates (regression coefficients and variances) and their standard errors. In addition, the influence of other factors, such as the lowest-level sample size and different variance distributions between the levels (different intraclass correlations), is examined. The results show that only a small sample size at level two (meaning a sample of 50 or less) leads to biased estimates of the second-level standard errors. In all of the other simulated conditions the estimates of the regression coefficients, the variance components, and the standard errors are unbiased and accurate.
Generalized trust has become a paramount topic throughout the social sciences, in its own right and as the key civic component of social capital. To date, cross-national research relies on the standard question: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?” Yet the radius problem—that is, how wide a circle of others respondents imagine as “most people”—makes comparisons between individuals and countries problematic. Until now, much about the radius problem has been speculation, but data for 51 countries from the latest World Values Survey make it possible to estimate how wide the trust radius actually is. We do this by relating responses to the standard trust question to a new battery of items that measures in-group and out-group trust. In 41 out of 51 countries, “most people” in the standard question predominantly connotes out-groups. To this extent, it is a valid measure of general trust in others. Nevertheless, the radius of “most people” varies considerably across countries; it is substantially narrower in Confucian countries and wider in wealthy countries. Some country rankings on trust thus change dramatically when the standard question is replaced by a radius-adjusted trust score. In cross-country regressions, the radius of trust matters for civic attitudes and behaviors because the assumed civic nature of trust depends on a wide radius.
This article presents the results of a two-wave experiment designed to examine how journalistic news frames can facilitate the communication of advocacy frames designed to influence audience perceptions of a political issue. We constructed five versions of a newspaper article about large-scale hog farms. The versions differed in the weight they gave to frames promoted by organizations interested in this issue. The relative emphasis given the competing frames was reflected in subjects' interpretations of the issue and in their evaluations of hog farms. A retest three weeks after the initial exposure revealed a significant, though muted, cognitive impact of the frames. The implications of these results for journalism, issue advocacy, and the study of issue framing are discussed.
A number of scholars have noted a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social capital or social trust, especially in the US. Evidence from other countries has been more mixed and sometimes contradictory. In this paper we provide the first Anglo-American comparative analysis of the relationship between neighbourhood diversity and social capital, and show how this relationship varies across ethnic categories. We apply multilevel structural equation models to individual level data from the 2000 Citizen Benchmark Survey for the US and the 2005 Citizenship Survey for Great Britain. The findings suggest that while for attitudinal social capital among Whites the negative underlying relationship with diversity is apparent in both countries, the effect is much weaker or reversed for minority groups. For structural social capital the negative relationship is apparent for minorities but not Whites, but this is mainly attributable to other neighbourhood characteristics.
This book is probably the most important source of evidence published up to now on the consolidation of democracy in Eastern Europe. It provides estimates of party positions, voter preferences and government policy from election programmes collected systematically for 51 countries from 1990 onwards. Time-series are presented in the text. This also reports party life histories (essential to over time analyses) and provides updated and newly validated vote statistics. All this information and much more is available on the devoted website described in the book. The final chapter gives instructions on how to access the data on your own computer. For comparative purposes, similar estimates of policy and preferences are given for CEE, OECD and EU countries. These estimates update the prize-winning data set covered in Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945-1998 - also published by OUP. A must-buy for all commentators, students and analysts of democracy, in Eastern Europe and the world.
This book, first published in 1985, presents a comprehensive analysis of immigration policy in Europe. Six representative countries are looked at in detail: Sweden, Holland, Britain, France, West Germany and Switzerland. All have experienced large-scale postwar immigration and exemplify different policy responses: the 'guestworker' system in Germany and Switzerland; policies aiming at permanent settlement in Britain and Sweden; intermediate policies in France and Holland. Britain, France and Holland are also countries where there has been substantial immigration from ex-colonies. The book looks at the size and composition of immigration to each country, its history, the economic and social background to immigration, its regulation and policy measures and their effects on immigrants. The second part of the book provides a comparative analysis of the different immigration policies and the reasons for them; changes in immigration policy; the different forms of regulation and control, housing, education, and social welfare provisions.
Public opinion research demonstrates that citizens' opinions depend on elite rhetoric and interpersonal conversations. Yet, we continue to have little idea about how these two forces interact with one another. In this article, we address this issue by experimentally examining how interpersonal conversations affect (prior) elite framing effects. We find that conversations that include only common perspectives have no effect on elite framing, but conversations that include conflicting perspectives eliminate elite framing effects. We also introduce a new individual level moderator of framing effects-called "need to evaluate"-and we show that framing effects, in general, tend to be short-lived phenomena. In the end, we clarify when elites can and cannot use framing to influence public opinion and how interpersonal conversations affect this process.
Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany explores the causes of public opposition to immigration and support for anti-immigrant political movements in the three industrialized Western countries. Combining sophisticated modeling of recent public-opinion data with analysis of the past 110 years of these nations' immigration history, the book evaluates the effects of cultural marginality, economic self-interest, and contact with immigrants. Though analysis partly confirms each of these three explanations, the author concludes that being a cultural outsider usually drives immigration-related attitudes more than economics or contact do.
Howard addresses immigrant integration, one of the most critical challenges facing European countries today, the resolution of which will in large part depend on how foreigners can become citizens. Howard’s research shows that despite remarkable convergence in their economic, judicial, and social policies, the countries of the European Union still maintain very different definitions of citizenship. Based on an innovative measure of national citizenship policies, the book accounts for both historical variation and contemporary change. Howard’s historical explanation highlights the legacies of colonialism and early democratization, which unintentionally created relatively inclusive citizenship regimes. Howard’s argument focuses on the politics of citizenship, showing in particular how anti-immigrant public opinion - when activated politically, usually by far right movements or public referenda - can block the liberalizing tendencies of political elites. Overall, the book shows the far-reaching implications of this growing and volatile issue.
Radical right parties have only been successful in a few countries. Why do such a small percentage of voters choose the radical right in Germany? Why is the radical right winning more seats in Austria than in France and Germany? Terri Givens argues that radical right parties will have difficulty attracting voters and winning seats in electoral systems that encourage strategic voting and/or strategic coordination by the mainstream parties. Her analysis demonstrates that electoral systems and party strategy play a key role in the success of the radical right.
Few phenomena have been more disruptive to West European politics and society than the accumulative experience of post-WWII immigration. Against this backdrop spring two questions: Why have the immigrant-receiving states historically permitted high levels of immigration? To what degree can the social and political fallout precipitated by immigration be politically managed? Utilizing evidence from a variety of sources, this study explores the links between immigration and the surge of popular support for antiimmigrant groups; its implications for state sovereignty; its elevation to the policy agenda of the European Union; and its domestic legacies. It argues that post-WWII migration is primarily an interest-driven phenomenon that has historically served the macroeconomic and political interests of the receiving countries. Specifically, it is the role of politics in adjudicating the claims presented by domestic economic actors, foreign policy commitments, and humanitarian norms that creates a permissive environment for significant migration to Western Europe.
Explanations of naturalization and jus soli citizenship have relied on cultural, convergence, racialization, or capture theories, and they tend to be strongly affected by the literature on immigration. This study of naturalization breaks with the usual immigration theories and proposes an approach over centuries and decades toward explaining naturalization rates. First, over centuries, it provides consistent evidence to support the long-term existence of colonizer, settler, non-colonizer, and Nordic nationality regime types that frame naturalization over centuries. Second, over three and a half decades, it shows how left and green parties, along with an index of nationality laws, explain the lion’s share of variation in naturalization rates. The text makes these theoretical claims believable by using the most extensive data set to date on naturalization rates that include jus soli births. It analyzes this data with a combination of carefully designed case studies comparing two to four countries within and between regime types, and tests them with cross-sectional pooled regression techniques especially suitable to slow-moving but dynamic institutions.
Gallya Lahav's study examines the issue of immigration in the context of a Europe where the role of the nation state is in question, as the logic of the single market clashes with national policymaking. Immigration is a central issue in European politics since around a quarter of the world's migrants reside in Europe. Consequently, politicians throughout the continent are grappling with the problems this raises. Analyzing elite and public opinion, Lahav's book shows how support from both has led to the adoption of restrictive immigration policies despite the requirements of open borders.
Social capital is the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collection action problems (Coleman 1990; Putnam 1993). Although normally conceived as a property of communities, the reciprocal relationship between community involvement and trust in others is a demonstration of social capital in individual behavior and attitudes. Variation in social capital can be explained by citizens' psychological involvement with their communities, cognitive abilities, economic resources, and general life satisfaction. This variation affects citizens' confidence in national institutions, beyond specific controls for measures of actual performance. We analyze the pooled General Social Surveys from 1972 to 1994 in a latent variables framework incorporating aggregate contextual data. Civic engagement and interpersonal trust are in a tight reciprocal relationship, where the connection is stronger from participation to interpersonal trust, rather than the reverse.
Les A., a partir de l'analyse d'un sondage national sur les relations entre Noirs et Blancs aux Etats-Unis, comparent les estimations de la composition raciale et ethnique de la population, faites par ces deux groupes. Dans quelle mesure les gens se basent-ils sur leur experience personnelle pour juger de ce qui est typique?
Recent studies have started to use media data to measure party positions and issue salience. The aim of this article is to compare and cross-validate this alternative approach with the more commonly used party manifestos, expert judgments and mass surveys. To this purpose, we present two methods to generate indicators of party positions and issue salience from media coverage: the core sentence approach and political claims analysis. Our cross-validation shows that with regard to party positions, indicators derived from the media converge with traditionally used measurements from party manifestos, mass surveys and expert judgments, but that salience indicators measure different underlying constructs. We conclude with a discussion of specific research questions for which media data offer potential advantages over more established methods.
Anti-immigrant populism is on the rise throughout western Europe. Traditionally, economic and immigration-related factors are used to explain support for anti-immigrant parties at the aggregate level. Until recently, the role of news media has received only limited attention. The present study assesses the power of news content as an explanatory contextual factor, simultaneously controlling for the unemployment rate, the level of immigration, and leadership in the Netherlands for the period from 1990 to 2002. The results show that the prominence of immigration issues in national newspapers has a significant and positive impact: The more news media reported about immigration-related topics, the higher the aggregate share of vote intention for anti-immigrant parties, even when controlling for real-world developments. Future research explaining anti-immigrant party success needs to take into account the role of news media content.
Switzerland could well have the most peculiar naturalisation system in the world. Whereas in most countries citizenship attribution is regulated by the central state, each municipality of Switzerland has the right to decide who can become a national citizen. By transcending for- mal citizenship models, the Swiss case thus casts citizenship politics in an entirely new light. This dissertation explores naturalisation processes from a comparative perspective, explaining why some Swiss municipalities pursue more restrictive citizenship policies than others. Through quantitative and qualitative data, this study shows how negotiation processes be- tween political actors produce a large variety of local citizenship models. Integrating Bourdieu’s political sociology, the theoretical framework innovatively combines symbolic and material aspects of naturalisations and underlines the production processes of ethnicity. Die Schweiz hat wahrscheinlich eines der aussergewöhnlichsten Einbürgerungssysteme der Welt. Während in den meisten Staaten die Erteilung der Staatsbürgerschaft zentral auf staatli- cher Ebene reguliert wird, kann jede Schweizer Gemeinde selber entscheiden wer Bürger oder Bürgerin werden kann. Der Fall Schweiz erlaubt uns über formale nationale Staatbürgermo- delle hinauszugehen und Staatsbürgerpolitik aus neuen Perspektiven zu beleuchten. Diese Dissertation untersucht Einbürgerungspolitik in vergleichender Weise und zeigt auf wieso gewisse Gemeinden eine restriktivere Staatbürgerpolitik verfolgen als andere. Mit Hilfe quan- titativer und qualitativer Daten zeigt diese Studie wie Aushandlungsprozesse zwischen politi- schen Akteuren eine Reihe von unterschiedlichen lokalen Staatsbürgermodellen zur Folge hat. Auf der Basis von Bourdieu’s politischer Soziologie kombiniert der theoretische Rahmen auf innovative Weise die symbolischen und materiellen Aspekte von Einbürgerungen und hebt die Produktionsprozesse von Ethnizität hervor.
In this article the authors investigate the relationship between concerns about crime and concerns about immigration. Panel survey data from Germany allow the authors to examine people’s views about immigration as they develop over time, showing that consternation about crime is a significant predictor of anxiety over immigration. Moreover, it has a greater substantive impact than other explanatory factors, such as concerns about the economy and objective measures of crime and immigration at the regional level. The authors also demonstrate an interactive effect: The connection between these two issues is especially strong among those interested in politics. A confirmatory step using the European Social Survey reveals that the moderating effect of political engagement is generalizable to the rest of Western Europe. These findings establish that crime is a critical issue for the formation of immigration attitudes. They also highlight individual-level characteristics that drive the bundling of political issues in people’s minds.
Skenderovic's article focuses on the relationship between the issue of immigration and parties of the radical right. Immigration serves as the primary focus for these parties, mirroring their exclusionist world-view in which nationalism, neo-racism and xenophobia are the most prominent features. As powerful competitors in most European party systems, radical-right parties have played an influential role in the struggle that has taken place over the way in which immigrants have been defined and perceived in the last twenty years. Their strategy of presenting immigration as a contentious and menacing development appears to bring some electoral success, since voters support these parties on account of their immigration agenda and their view of immigrants. As Skenderovic shows, Switzerland serves as a particularly interesting case study. Since the 1960s, radical-right parties have used the issue of immigration to appeal to voters and have contributed to the fact that the theme of immigration has remained at the centre of the Swiss political stage. With their exclusionist agenda, Swiss radical-right parties have sought to present immigration as a threat to the country. Instruments available in the system of direct democracy have allowed effective opportunities for these parties to expound on immigration-related issues and to have considerable influence on immigration policymaking. In addition, the alleged danger of Überfremdung, 'over-foreignization', a longstanding discursive frame in Swiss immigration policy, has been consistently evoked by radical-right parties seeking to bolster their anti-immigration campaigns. By primarily drawing attention to the supply side of political mobilization, the Swiss case conspicuously demonstrates the significant roles that a favourable institutional and discursive environment and a concise immigration agenda can play both in the efforts of radical-right parties to gain popular support and in pushing through their demands on issues related to immigration.
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Preface. Introduction. The Modernist Paradigm 1. The Rise of Classical Modernism Part I. Varieties of Modernism 2. The Culture of Industrialism 3. Capitalism and Nationalism 4. State and Nation 5. Political Messianism 6. Invention and Imagination Part II. Critics and Alternatives 7. Primordialism and Perennialism 8. Ethno-symbolism 9. Beyond Modernism? Conclusion Problems, Paradigms and Prospects
This study investigates the portrayal of a number of ethnic minorities in the press, drawing upon analysis of all articles to appear in three Dutch newspapers from 1990 to 1995, resulting in almost 8000 articles. The study examined which different ethnic groups were described, to what extent attention for a group had changed over time, what themes were present in the articles and to what extent problems and crime played a part in these articles. The results showed some remarkable similarities between portrayal in the media of various ethnic minorities and the ethnic hierarchy found among the Dutch population.
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This paper explores the ways in which the local politics of race have been shaped by national concerns and priorities. It argues that the centre-periphery relationship has been a central theme of the liberal settlement that underpins the British tradition of 'race policy'. The settlement offered to remove race from national political debate and relegate it to the supposedly non-political world of local politics. How ever, it was at the local level perforce that racial conflicts were at their sharpest both prior to, and irrespective of, the push to introduce liberalising reforms in the 1960s. The strategy was ultimately flawed since it was based on a series of ill-conceived assumptions, namely that (a) the issue could be taken out of the political realm; (b) the local context offered the best hope of achieving its depolitkisation; and (c) the local authoddes were better suited- or indeed at all suited-to 'manage' race issues than the centre.
The Moral Foundations of Trust seeks to explain why people place their faith in strangers, and why doing so matters. Trust is a moral value that does not depend upon personal experience or on interacting with people in civic groups or informal socializing. Instead, we learn to trust from our parents, and trust is stable over long periods of time. Trust depends on an optimistic world view: the world is a good place and we can make it better. Trusting people are more likely to give through charity and volunteering. Trusting societies are more likely to redistribute resources from the rich to the poor. Trust has been in decline in the United States for over 30 years. The roots of this decline are traceable to declining optimism and increasing economic inequality, which Uslaner supports by aggregate time series in the United States and cross-sectional data across market economies.
Coalitions are the commonest kind of democratic government, occurring frequently in most countries of western Europe. It is usually assumed that political parties came together in a government coalition because they agree already, or can reach an agreement, on the policy it should pursue. This book examines this idea using evidence from party election programmes and government programmes. It demonstrates that party policies do influence government programmes, but not to the extent they would if policy-agreement were the sole basis of coalition.
This article tests three classical theoretical assumptions about the cause of nationalism. It does so by testing if elite discourse, or internal- and external threats have any impact on nationalist sentiments in Europe. Macro data from various sources is combined with attitudinal data from the International Social Survey Programme 2003 for 21 European countries. It is concluded that the articulation of nationalism by political elites does not matter. Internal threats in the form of foreign-born population and language fractionalization affect nationalist sentiment negatively, i.e. nationalist sentiments are weaker in more heterogeneous countries. Finally, it is shown that external threats, in the form of loss of territory, have a positive impact on nationalist sentiments: people are more nationalist in countries that have a more recent loss of territory.
This article is an attempt to qualify existing evidence that increasing diversity is detrimental to a vibrant civil society. We focus specifically on immigration-generated diversity, and argue that while it may have negative effects on some specific civic and political outcomes in some contexts, these effects vary widely across advanced democracies. Our argument rests on analysis of a cross-national, cross-sectional time-series dataset that brings together individual-level World Values Survey data with country-level variables. With these data, we track within-country changes over time in trust and engagement. We show that immigration can have a negative effect on social trust, organizational membership and political engagement, but that institutional arrangements shape this relationship in systematic ways. In more economically equal societies and in more multicultural countries (where cultural minorities are recognized and accommodated), the negative effects of immigration on trust and engagement are mitigated or even reversed. We conclude that there is no general link between immigration-generated diversity and collective-mindedness. Rather, the direction and strength of the relationship depend on institutional and policy contexts.