Who We Are and Who Can Join Us: National Identity Content and Entry Criteria for New Immigrants

Abstract

We argue that attitudes about immigration can be better understood by paying closer attention to the various ways in which national group boundaries are demarcated. We describe two related lines of work that address this. The first deals with national group definitions and, based on evidence from studies carried out in England and analyses of international survey data, argues that the relationship between national identification and prejudice toward immigrants is contingent on the extent to which ethnic or civic definitions of nationality are endorsed. The second, which uses European survey data, examines support for ascribed and acquired criteria that can be applied when determining who is permitted to migrate to one's country, and the various forms of national and individual threat that affect support for these criteria. We explain how the research benefits from a multilevel approach and also suggest how these findings relate to some current policy debates.Hostility toward immigrants is widespread and appears frequently in the media. In Western Europe, for example, exclusionary reactions toward Eastern European immigrants have become common at the level of both policy and public opinion since the recent expansions of the European Union in 2004 and 2007. Multiculturalism faces a new level of criticism even in contexts where it has

From Cultural Discordance to Support for Collective Action

“…Thus, while models of acculturation (Berry, 1997;Bourhis et al, 1997) argue for concordant attitudes towards cultural maintenance to be beneficial for majority-minority relations, the perception of low cultural discordance may, in fact, undermine minority members' support for collective action and be harmful to immigrants' interests in the long run. This may be especially true in the European immigration context, as an ethnic representation of national identity based on common ancestry (Smith, 2001) still remains vivid (Reeskens & Hooghe, 2010) in many receiving countries, and is linked to prejudiced attitudes towards those who do not share the same ethnic ancestry as the majority group (e.g., Meeus, Duriez, Vanbeselaere, & Boen, 2010;Pehrson & Green, 2010;Pehrson, Vignoles, & Brown, 2009). Thus, even immigrants who do not insist on maintaining their cultural heritage and are willing to assimilate may not be guaranteed full inclusion into host society.…”

Conceptions of national identity in a globalised world: Antecedents and consequences

“…In the context of national groups this implies that, although nations have legal definitions for who belongs in the country and who doesn't, these may or may not line up with psychological prototypes of who belongs in the country. Around the world, legal definitions of who belongs can be found in citizenship laws which are often classified to reflect two primary principles-jus sanguinis (right of blood) and jus soli (right of soil; Levanon & LewinEpstein, 2010;Pehrson & Green, 2010). According to a jus sanguinis model of citizenship, national belongingness is based on descent or heritage from a particular group.…”

What determines attitudes to immigration in European countries? An analysis at the regional level

“…Analyses focusing on group identity find that contact with a minority group triggers a defensive reaction and feelings of threat (Krysan 2000;Quillian 1996). Perceived threat is then translated into an irrational antipathy which is accompanied by faulty generalisations such as prejudice, or an overreaction about the negative consequences of immigration (Quillian 1996;Kónya 2005;Pehrson and Green 2010).…”

“…In studies of attitudes of Europeans on the other hand, the focus is placed mostly on immigration, sometimes with the conditional influence of the race and culture of the immigrants in question (e.g. Scheepers et al 2002;Schneider 2007;Schlueter and Wagner 2008;Green et al 2010;Pehrson and Green 2010;Rustenbach 2010;Gorodzeisky 2011). …”