The conditional effects of the refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and nationalism

Wouter van der Brug and Eelco Harteveld
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Wouter van der Brug: Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

European Union Politics, 2021, vol. 22, issue 2, 227-247

Abstract: What was the impact of the 2014–2016 refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and national identification in Europe? Several studies show that radical right parties benefitted electorally from the refugee crisis, but research also shows that anti-immigration attitudes did not increase. We hypothesize that the refugee crisis affected right-wing citizens differently than left-wing citizens. We test this hypothesis by combining individual level survey data (from five Eurobarometer waves in the 2014–2016 period) with country level statistics on the asylum applications in 28 EU member states. In Western Europe, we find that increases in the number of asylum applications lead to a polarization of attitudes towards immigrants between left- and right-leaning citizens. In the Southern European ‘arrival countries’ and in Central-Eastern Europe we find no significant effects. Nationalistic attitudes are also not affected significantly.

Keywords: Left-right; migration attitudes; nationalism; polarization; refugee crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:22:y:2021:i:2:p:227-247

DOI: 10.1177/1465116520988905

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