Discrimination against mobile European Union citizens before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown: Evidence from a conjoint experiment in Germany

Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Carolin H Rapp, Christian Adam, Oliver James and Anita Manatschal
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Xavier Fernández-i-Marín: Geschwister-Scholl-Institut for Political Science, LMU Munich, Germany Department of Political Science, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Carolin H Rapp: Department of Political Science, 4321University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Christian Adam: Chair of Comparative Politics, Zeppelin University, Germany
Oliver James: Department of Politics, 215734University of Exeter, UK
Anita Manatschal: Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies, 30779University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

European Union Politics, 2021, vol. 22, issue 4, 741-761

Abstract: One of the greatest achievements of the EU is the freedom of movement between member states offering citizens equal rights in EU member states. EU enlargement and the COVID-19 pandemic allow for a critical test of whether EU citizens are indeed treated equally in practice. We test preferential treatment of EU citizens in two hypothetical choice experiments in Germany at two different time points: in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Theories of responses to threat suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should increase discrimination against mobile EU citizens. While our findings reveal sizeable discrimination based on nationality and language proficiency of mobile EU citizens, the findings also suggest that, contrary to expectations, discrimination did not increase in the initial COVID-19 crisis period.

Keywords: COVID-19; discrimination; mobile EU citizens; conjoint experiment; pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:22:y:2021:i:4:p:741-761

DOI: 10.1177/14651165211037208

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