Public Opinion on Immigration in Western Europe: Economics, Tolerance, and Exposure
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Public Opinion on Immigration in Western Europe: Economics, Tolerance, and Exposure Jason E. Kehrberg Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky, 1615 Patterson Office Tower, Lexington, KY 40506, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Several studies of cross-national attitudes on immigration use a theory of selfinterest that focuses upon the relative size of the immigrant group and the economic situation of the survey respondent. Kunovich wrote that attitudes can also be shaped by national economics, political structure, and culture. This study examines the influences of national economics and one factor of culture: political tolerance. I build upon previous explanations of public attitudes on immigration in two ways. First, I add to the current knowledge concerning the influence of the national economy on attitudes by including estimates of economic wealth and growth. Second, I examine the influence of political tolerance on attitudes on immigration. This study uses ordered probit to examine data from the 1997 Eurobarometer survey. The results show that both economic and political tolerance influence public opinion on immigration. Therefore, attitudes are shaped by numerous factors beyond self-interest economic theories, including the health of the national economy and political tolerance. Comparative European Politics (2007) 5, 264–281. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110099 Keywords: public opinion; immigration; political tolerance; exposure; economics
Introduction One of the major changes in European society since World War II has been the increase in immigration bringing new peoples, languages, religions, and cultural practices to the continent. These changes have resulted in immigration becoming one of the most important political and social issues in Europe, due to a developing pattern of tension between the immigrant population and the native population throughout Europe. The city of Oldham in the United Kingdom has a contemporary history of riots by immigrants and natives. In 2005, civil unrest erupted in France and more recently, immigrant protests throughout Europe erupted due to the political cartoons printed in Denmark.1 Europe has also witnessed the emergence of extreme-right-wing political parties with an anti-immigration platform (Betz, 2001; Lubbers et al., 2002;
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Mayer, 2002; Golder, 2003). These contemporary events increase the importance of understanding the source of public opinion on immigration. Cross-national studies of Europeans’ views on immigration are an increasing body of literature that include studies by Lincoln Quillian (1995), Peer Scheepers et al. (2002), Laruen McLaren (2003), Robert M. Kunovich (2004), Gallya Lahav (2004), and Kessler and Freeman (2005). Currently, we do not completely understand what shapes individual attitudes on this subject. Previous cross-national research has mainly focused upon individual economics, social status, and relative group size to explain public opinion on immigration (Quillian, 1
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