Didier Ruedin’s research while affiliated with University of Neuchâtel and other places

The field of mobility studies examines social phenomena through the lens of movement. In this perspective, societies are regarded as being constantly reconfigured as they are shaped by a series of mobile entities (capital, people, information). This book engages critically with many of the claims and challenges of mobility studies by providing empirically rich reports of mobilities and their limitations. Instead of assuming a seamless world of flows, the volume emphasizes questions of power, inequality, and moorings as integral to the movement of capital, goods, images, practices, or people. The chapters deal with current and important issues, such as organ transplants, illegal migrations, urban globalization, international policies of higher education institutions, and scientific diasporas.

Experiments on ethnic or racial discrimination often use names to signal originin market situations under the assumption that non-ethnic name signals do notsystematically affect the outcome. Using survey data, we demonstrate significantvariation in perceived trustworthiness and professionalism of names within origins.Linking this to a large-scale name-matched field experiment, we show thatthe variation in name perception predicts discriminatory behavior: Prospectivetenants in Switzerland with names exogenously rated as less trustworthy or lessprofessional receive fewer invitations to an apartment viewing. These marketrelevantcharacteristics explain, to a large extent, group differences in measureddiscrimination. Ethnic minority names that score high on either trustworthinessor professionalism are not discriminated against, while names scoring low on theseare discriminated against (relative to the majority name). In line with intergroupcontact theory, we also show that, regardless of their origin, more common namesface less discrimination. Our results reveal that discriminatory behavior is muchmore nuanced than a simple in-group/out-group dichotomy would suggest.

How does the general public perceive immigrants, whom do they think of when thinking about “immigrants,” and to what extent are these perceptions related to the actual composition of immigrant populations? We use three representative online surveys in the United States, South Africa, and Switzerland (total N = 2,778) to extend existing work on the perception of immigrants in terms of geographic coverage and individual characteristics. We also relate these responses to official statistics on immigration and integration patterns. In all three countries, there are significant discrepancies between perceptions of immigrants and their real proportion in the population and characteristics. Although we observe clear country differences, there is a striking pattern of people associating “immigrants” with “asylum seekers” in all three countries. We consider two possible explanations for the differences between perceptions and facts: the representativeness heuristic and the affect heuristic. In contrast to previous research, we find only partial support for the representativeness heuristic, whereas the results are consistent with the affect heuristic. We conclude that images of “immigrants” are largely shaped by pre-existing attitudes.

Immigration is a hot topic in Europe, but research on the media effects on public attention to immigration remains limited. We examine how media coverage affects the degree of importance attached to immigration in seven Western European Union member states. Data come from an extensive analysis of claims in printed newspapers, and the Eurobarometer (2002-2009). The continuous sample of news coverage is aggregated into a biannual panel, and we relate these data to citizens' perceptions of the most important issues in their country 6 months later (lagged). The public consider immigration more important than other policy-related issues when there is an increase in the volume of news and more political claims on the topic in the media. The media environment appears to be an exogenous actor that can have agenda-setting effects on public concern about immigration. Our results highlight limitations of both the 'policy-gap' thesis and thermostatic models of policy making. Available at: https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6765.12683

We ask how human behavior changes when racial discrimination is costly and when choices are risky. By asking N = 4,944 participants in Germany to form a soccer team in a series of online experiments, we measure decision-making in an accessible way. Higher costs of discrimination can reduce disparities, but we show that these costs can also trigger implicit racial bias: participants who received an additional financial incentive to select more skilled soccer players outperformed nonincentivized participants and differentiated less based on skin color. However, when confronted with risky choices in a lottery, incentivized participants are more likely to gamble to avoid players with a darker skin color. That is, racial (minority) markers alter the risk preferences of people when their decisions carry costly consequences. This implicit racial bias may partly explain why members of visible minority groups are regularly discriminated against in real-world competitive markets.

To describe migration-related phenomena, we need to reflect on the terminology and choose the most adequate one that allows us to determine whether migration is the (main) cause of a phenomenon, a consequence, or even unrelated and misattributed. We argue that the use of such terminology in quantitative and experimental research is often flawed because of its differentiated adoption in legal, political, or scientific contexts. To illustrate our argument, we focus on two commonly used terms, ‘second generation’ and ‘migration background’ to show that in many situations these terms do not accurately describe the population we study. In part, the terms imply a false homogeneity, focus on deficits, and perpetuate differences regarding national belonging where there may be structural reasons and other aspects, such as social class, that lie at the heart of observed differences. With a particular focus on quantitative research, we use survey evidence and a principled literature search, to show that both researchers and the general population often identify immigrants in terms of ethnic origin — even though the term has its own pitfalls. We conclude that quantitative research should avoid reproducing state-created terminology and instead look beyond the strict field of immigration to consider other systems of classification like gender, ethnicity, language, or social class to reduce the negative attributes ascribed to non-citizens.

How does the general public perceive immigrants, whom do they think of when thinking about ‘immigrants’, and to what extent are these perceptions related to the actual composition of immigrant populations? We use three representative online surveys in the United States, South Africa, and Switzerland (total N=2,778) to extend existing work on the perception of immigrants in terms of geographic coverage and individual characteristics. We also relate these responses to official statistics on immigration and integration patterns. In all three countries, there are significant discrepancies between perceptions of immigrants and their real proportion in the population and characteristics. Although we observe clear country differences, there is a striking pattern of people associating ‘immigrants’ with ‘asylum seekers’ in all three countries. We consider two possible explanations for the differences between perceptions and facts: the representativeness heuristic and the affect heuristic. In contrast to previous research, we find only partial support for the representativeness heuristic, whereas the results are consistent with the affect heuristic. We conclude that images of ‘immigrants’ are largely shaped by pre-existing attitudes.

Categorising certain forms of human movement as ‘migration’ and others as ‘mobility’ has far-reaching consequences. We introduce the migration–mobility nexus as a framework for other researchers to interrogate the relationship between these two categories of human movement and explain how they shape different social representations. Our framework articulates four ideal-typical interplays between categories of migration and categories of mobility: continuum (fluid mobilities transform into more stable forms of migration and vice versa), enablement (migration requires mobility, and mobility can trigger migration), hierarchy (migration and mobility are political categories that legitimise hierarchies of movement) and opposition (migration and mobility are pitted against each other). These interplays reveal the normative underpinnings of different categories, which we argue are too often implicit and unacknowledged.

The Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the economic contribution of migrant workers in maintaining essential services and access to goods. This new perspective on migrants as essential workers raised expectations in migration studies that it could reinvigorate an inclusive setting in terms of migration debates and policies. Building on this potential, we examine migration debates in the political party arena with a focus on centrist parties. The analysis focuses on Austria, a country with a high dependence on migrant labor in key sectors and a long‐standing contestation of migration across the political party spectrum. Drawing on an analysis of parliamentary contributions and press releases by the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) during the pandemic, the study finds that the debates did not change fundamentally. Whilst external shocks such as the Covid‐19 pandemic have a limited potential to reverse the focus on unwanted migration in European party politics, crises can lead the political center to reemphasize bifurcation strategies in response to shifts in public discourse, as this study of the Austrian case during the pandemic suggests.