Immigrant Integration policies and perceived Group Threat: A Multilevel Study of 27 Western and Eastern European Countries

Abstract

Although immigrant integration policies have long been hypothesized to be associated with majority members' anti-immigrant sentiments, systematic empirical research exploring this relationship is largely absent. To address this gap in the literature, the present research takes a cross-national perspective. Drawing from theory and research on group conflict and intergroup norms, we conduct two studies to examine whether preexisting integration policies that are more permissive promote or impede majority group members' subsequent negative attitudes regarding immigrants. . For both studies, the results from multilevel regression models demonstrate that immigrant integration policies that are more permissive are associated with decreased perceptions of group threat from immigrants. These findings suggest that immigrant integration policies are of key importance in improving majority members' attitudes regarding immigrants, which is widely considered desirable in modern immigrantreceiving societies. AbstractAlthough immigrant integration policies have long been hypothesized to be associated with majority members' anti-immigrant sentiments, systematic empirical research exploring this relationship is largely absent. To address this gap in the literature, the present research takes a cross-national perspective. Drawing from theory and research on group conflict and intergroup norms, we conduct two studies to examine whether preexisting integration policies that are more permissive promote or impede majority group members' subsequent negative attitudes regarding immigrants. For several Western and Eastern European countries, we link country-level information on immigrant integration policies from 2007 with individual-level survey data from the Eurobarometer 71.3 collected in 2009 (Study 1) and from the fourth wave of the European Value Study collected between 2008 and 2009 (Study 2). For both studies, the results from multilevel regression models demonstrate that immigrant integration policies that are more permissive are associated with decreased perceptions of group threat from immigrants. These findings suggest that immigrant integration policies are of key importance in improving majority members' attitudes regarding immigrants, which is widely considered desirable in modern, immigrant-receiving societies.2

Individual values, cultural embeddedness, and anti-immigration sentiments: Explaining differences in the effect of values on attitudes toward immigration across Europe

“…These studies suggest that unfavorable economic conditions on the country level accompanied by large-scale immigration are perceived as a threat to the economy and may induce hostile attitudes (Gorodzeisky 2011;Meuleman, Davidov, and Billiet, 2009;Pichler 2010;Quillian 1995Quillian , 1996Scheepers et al 2002;Semyonov et al 2006). Other contextual variables identified as sources of hostile attitudes are negative media coverage (Schlüter and Davidov 2011) and national immigration policies (Schlüter, Meuleman and Davidov 2013;Weldon 2006).…”

Host or hostile? Attitudes towards asylum seekers in Israel and in Denmark

“…This is due to the lowering of levels of selectivity and inequality, which influence opinions on immigrants' deservingness of welfare benefits (Van Der Waal et al, 2013). Likewise, migration policy regimes have proved significant predictors of perceptions of threat and exclusionary attitudes to immigrants: the closer the immigration regime tends to an ethno-national model, emphasizing the nation's cultural and ethnic homogeneity and applying more restrictive immigrant integration policies, the stronger will the majority population's anti-immigrant attitudes be (Hjerm, 2007;Schlüter et al, 2013) Denmark and Israel also diverge in other structural attributes such as their wealth distribution (Gini index) and economic performance (GDP), and in their geopolitical stance and history. These factors have been found directly or indirectly to affect the formation of attitudes to and policy on out-groups seeking asylum (Billiet et al, 2016;Givens and Luedtke, 2005;Kuntz et al, 2017 in this volume for the case of immigrants).…”

How State Support of Religion Shapes Attitudes Toward Muslim Immigrants. New Evidence from a Subnational Comparison

“…With regard to genuinely political factors, some studies have looked at the effects of welfare state regimes on attitudes toward immigrants (Facchini & Mayda, 2009;Hanson, Scheve, & Slaughter, 2007;van Oorschot & Uunk, 2007), and more recently, researchers have started to explain attitudes toward immigrants by investigating the effects of citizenship and integration policies (Ceobanu & Escandell, 2011;Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010;Pehrson, Vignoles, & Brown, 2009;Schlueter, Meuleman, & Davidov, 2013;Weldon, 2006;Wright, 2011;Wright & Bloemraad, 2012). Our study will also consider these alternative explanations by incorporating indicators of religious demography and general immigrant integration policies in our statistical models below.…”