Two studies identify conditions under which positive political framing of refugees reduces anti-immigrant sentiment. The argument is that portraying refugees as vulnerable, assimilable, and deserving of help produces measurable declines in xenophobic attitudes.
Eleven rounds of the European Social Survey (2002â2023) are analyzed, totaling 222,989 respondents from 30 European countries. The analysis tests whether personal health is an overlooked driver of anti-immigrant attitudes.
This study proposes a new typology separating polity-specific attitudes (shaped by national contexts) from transnational attitudes (shaped by migratory experience). The typology is applied to four core dimensions of political competition in contemporary Europe: redistribution, homosexuality, European integration, and immigration.
Citizens often view immigrants as less deserving of welfare than native-born residents, but explanations remain contested and strategies for increasing public support for inclusive policies are unclear. Recent theory links redistribution preferences to perceptions of immigrantsâ "membership commitment"âwhether immigrants are seen as part of the political community.
Attitudes toward immigration are often attributed to effects on native wages and employment as well as to cultural and social concerns, but these influences are difficult to separate empirically. This study uses a contrast between two types of labor migrantsâthose who take up residence and work in the country versus those who commute across an international borderâto hold laborâmarket competition constant while varying cultural and social exposure.
This study investigates how public concern that immigration increases crime shapes electoral politics. Existing research credits an educational realignment for a growing leftâright split on immigration. The argument here is different: leftist voters can be more conservative on immigrant crime than leftist parties, and that voterâparty mismatch can drive highly educated progressives (so-called cosmopolitans) toward right-wing parties.
This study refines the idea of cultural threat by treating it explicitly as a zero-sum problem and by specifying concrete cultural rights that Muslims might receive. The goal is to resolve theoretical ambiguity and measurement problems in prior work on why people oppose immigrants.
Immigration has been shown to drive ethnocentrism and antiâglobalization attitudes in nativeâborn populations. Yet understanding how global integration shapes intercultural relations also necessitates clear evidence on how migration affects the attitudes of migrants. We argue that migration can foster tolerance, cosmopolitan identities, and support for international cooperation among migrants who experience sustained contact with other cultural groups. We evaluate this theory with the first randomized controlled trial resulting in overseas migration, which connected individuals in India with job opportunities in the Persian Gulf region's hospitality sector. Two years after the program began, individuals in the treatment group were significantly more accepting of ethnic, cultural, and national outâgroups. Migration also bolstered support for international cooperation and cultivated cosmopolitan identities. Qualitative and quantitative evidence links these changes to intercultural contact overseas. By focusing on migrants rather than nativeâborn individuals, our study illustrates how crossâborder mobility can facilitate rather than undermine global integration.
Many states pair immigration-control measures with development assistance intended to address the "root causes" of migration. A representative type of such "root causes" aid (RCA) project implemented by the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Africa was evaluated using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess whether development assistance can reduce the desire to migrate.
Many European countries have introduced mandatory integration courses for refugees. Evaluations often find short-term economic gains, but evidence on long-term social and political integration is limited.
Emigrationâboth internal and internationalâshapes electoral politics in two complementary ways: it changes who remains to vote and it alters the preferences of those left behind.
Jieun Park asks why womenâcontrary to some expectationsâoften express stronger opposition to immigration than men. Park proposes that this gender gap is shaped by labor market vulnerability: as immigrants enter occupations traditionally held by women, non-immigrant women who occupy more vulnerable job positions may see immigrants as economic competitors rather than partners.
This study asks how cross-border labor migration changes migrantsâ redistribution preferences, comparing migrants themselves to their left-behind family members. Using a randomized intervention that facilitated labor migration from India to the Middle East, the authors test whether moving alters support for taxation and redistribution and explore mechanisms tied to economic gains, self-reliance, and expectations of upward mobility.
Since 2010, rapid rises in migration have prompted frequent claims that newcomers cause more crime. This study asks whether sudden, large local inflows of migrants change peopleâs concern about crime and whether those concerns reflect changes in actual crime rates.
How does giving noncitizen residents the right to vote in local elections affect their decision to become citizens? Contrary to the common costâbenefit view that enfranchisement reduces naturalization by removing a key incentive, the argument tested here is that early access to local suffrage can encourage formal membership by fostering political ties and identification with the destination state.
Seminal theories in political science hold that military service can accelerate minority and immigrant integration into mainstream society by providing skills, social networks, and civic bonds. But estimating whether service causes better long-term outcomes is difficult because individuals who join the military may already be more likely to integrate.
Prior studies find that subtle messagingâby prompting perspective takingâcan reduce prejudice. For example, reminding citizens about their familyâs displacement has been shown to induce empathy toward refugees.
This paper asks how state-led population displacement shapes long-run political identities, using the historical relocation of Pashtun communities under Emir Abd alâRahman in Afghanistan as a case study. The authors reconstruct where tribes were moved and connect those historical settlements to contemporary locations, then analyze novel microlevel survey data to compare political attitudes and identity among coethnic Pashtun communities separated by the resettlement. Their central contribution is evidence on whether and how a state-building resettlement campaign produced durable, regionally rooted political attachments.
Kristina Simonsen and Tobias Widmann investigate when and why political parties use moral language in debates about immigration. Moral language here means rhetoric that frames immigration in terms of right and wrong, duty, purity, or fairnessâclaims about fundamental beliefs rather than pragmatic trade-offs. Understanding these dynamics matters because moralized rhetoric can deepen conflict, shape public attitudes, and alter policy debates on a high-salience issue.
This paper by Maria T. Krupenkin (BJPS) examines whether media coverageâparticularly anti-immigrant rhetoric on cable newsâcan motivate ordinary people to seek out information on reporting suspected unauthorized immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The study probes whether news emphasis on crime and welfare dependency translates into public interest in concrete, potentially harmful behaviors.
Value conflict is central to opposition to multiculturalism in Europe, but it is unclear which kinds of value clashes drive anti-immigrant bias. This study introduces a simple, low-cost, and scalable experimental approach to test how natives respond when immigrants are perceived as violating either welfare-state norms or gender-equity normsâtwo norm types prominent in European immigration debates.
This article asks how Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent Syrian and Ukrainian refugees and whether implicit hierarchies of race and gender shape those representations. Drawing on Critical Securitisation Theory, the authors compare discursive patterns to test a hypothesis that stigmatisation based on race and gender affects EU representations of refugees. The manuscript reports a computational comparison of EP speech acts to see when refugees are cast as urgent threats and when speech enables deâthreatening or protective framings.
This study asks whether discriminatory U.S. immigration policies shape foreign public opinion about Americans. Prior work on negative international reactions to U.S. actions has focused on military interventions, efforts to influence other countries' economic policies, or U.S. positions on minority representation. The argument here is that immigration policiesâespecially those perceived as discriminatoryâcan similarly generate anti-American sentiment.
Selection bias makes it difficult to identify how social surroundings shape political attitudes. This study leverages a unique population whose placement is externally assigned to mitigate that problem and reveal causal influence of social context on views about immigration.
What leads some communities to be displaced before violence reaches them? This study probes whether social cohesionâby enabling collective actionâraises the likelihood that whole communities undertake âpreemptive evacuationâ ahead of belligerent operations. Using detailed archival Village Files to build a village-level dataset about Arab Palestinian communities during the 1948 ArabâIsraeli War, the authors assess variation in social cohesion alongside other social, political, and economic village characteristics to evaluate links between cohesion, migration, and casualties.
This research asks whether native Europeans' bias against Muslim immigrants is driven by the belief that Muslims hold conservative views on women's rights, and whether shared gender ideas can reduce that bias. The hypothesis predicts that this ideational basis for discrimination is especially pronounced among native women.
Immigration is a major global concern for citizens. This article explores whether widespread political focus on immigration affects judicial decisions within Switzerland's asylum appeals system. Drawing on all 196 asylum appeal rulings between 2007 and 2015, we find that higher salience of the asylum topic significantly influenced judges' outcomes in similar cases.
Immigration debates often lump together non-naturalized residents (stock) and future arrivals (flow), but new research shows native Americans differentiate between them significantly.
Minority candidates face two distinct electoral disadvantages in Switzerland, according to new findings. First, voters express more outgroup hostility toward minority-origin candidates with non-Swiss names by allocating them fewer negative preference votes than majority candidates. Second, these candidates also experience ingroup favoritism biasâmajority voters grant more positive preference votes to their own group members.
Our study explores opinion backlash to policies permitting immigrant demonstrations.
This article investigates public perceptions and government responses regarding climate-induced migration.
This article examines whether international terrorism affects public opinions on refugees.
This article examines how authoritarian leaders respond to citizens seeking exit opportunities abroad.
New research examines the effects of immigrant settlement patterns in ethnic enclaves on political engagement.
A groundbreaking study investigates the surprising link between rising hate crimes against refugees and fears among native men regarding competition for female partners. The research reveals that ecological patterns show a strong correlation between areas with higher rates of refugee presence experiencing increased hate crime incidents, specifically targeting individuals perceived as outsiders. Using innovative survey measures in Germany alongside detailed geographic data:
The likelihood of being nominated to political office appears lower among immigrants residing in areas with greater ethnic density.
Most forced migrants are displaced within the Global South. Prior work from the Global North finds migrants gravitate toward liberal policy environments, while conventional wisdom expects de jure policies to matter little in developing countries because enforcement is weak and policy knowledge is low. This study asks whetherâand under what conditionsâde jure displacement policies shape where forced migrants flee in the developing world.
This study examines how political scientists respond to nativist migration policy announcements. The research isolates the causal effect of these pronouncements on immigration destination choices.
How does exposure to refugees influence voting behavior?
Innumeracy â difficulty working with numbers and giving accurate estimates about political facts â is widespread among the public. Using an online sample of respondents from 10 European countries, this study examines whether a conspiracy mindset predicts systematic misperceptions about the share of immigrants in respondents' own countries.
Citizenship policies across sixteen European countries (1975-2014) have significantly evolved. Using new comparative data, this study argues that policy changes result from electoral competition facing governments.
Using the 2016 American National Election Study, the authors examine how Americansâ perceptions of immigrant threat and the strength of their American identity jointly relate to vote choice in the 2016 presidential election. Grounded in social identity theory, the paper tests whether perceptions of immigrant threat are more likely to translate into support for Donald Trump among those with stronger American identity, and conversely whether American identityâs effects on vote choice are activated by threat perceptions. With survey data from ANES, the authors report that immigrant-threat perceptions and American identity magnify each otherâs effects: threat perceptions have larger associations with support for Trump among respondents with stronger American identity, and American identity has stronger associations with vote choice when respondents perceive greater immigrant threat.
This article asks whether statesâ freedom-of-foreign-movement policies affect human trafficking flows and how spatial context matters. Using cross-national data, the authors test competing claims that open borders either enable traffickers by reducing detection or that restrictive movement increases vulnerability to traffickers. The central contribution is to show that considering a stateâs own mobility rules together with neighboring statesâ practices is necessary to understand how freedom of movement relates to trafficking.
Human trafficking impacts millions globally, particularly women, girls, and marginalized communities. The U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reports are a key data source for tracking global human trafficking but may contain political biases.
This article examines persistent misconceptions linking refugees to terrorism through three prominent narratives: Trojan horse, copycat, and scapegoat. Using quantitative methods and data from multiple international sources, it systematically evaluates the validity of these claims.
Does anti-immigrant sentiment correlate with gender conservatism? This study examines immigration attitudes across eleven West European countries and a Dutch panel spanning 2007-2019. It reveals:
Right-wing populist parties often gain support by attracting voters from mainstream left groups. This has sparked debate about whether a 'accommodation strategy'âadopting more restrictive immigration views in line with the political mainstreamâcan help regain power for left-leaning governments.
This article examines how benefit competition influences voter attitudes toward immigrants' social rights. Rather than simply stating that increased benefits for immigrants negatively impacts native-born support, we analyze the nuanced relationship between income level and this political preference.
Recent elections across Europe and North America fueled populist anti-immigrant sentiment, leading many to expect Brexit would reinforce xenophobia. However, this study conducted an experiment around the referendum finds that among both Leave and Remain supporters, anti-immigrant attitudes softened post-Brexit.
The political representation gap between immigrants and natives persists across democratic parliaments.
New findings reveal that German citizens with a mixed conception of national identity held more variable opinions about immigration than those holding singular civic or ethnic views. This complexity challenges previous assumptions about the stability provided by strong national identities.
This study investigates whether correcting misconceptions about immigration influences attitudes over time.
Concerns about refugees and asylum seekers increasing crime rates have driven many countries to reduce refugee admissions. However, these fears are often debated due to ambiguous research on the actual impact.
New research reveals that economic inequality triggers selective solidarity, increasing support for redistributionâbut only when benefits favor native citizens.
Recent migration trends have spurred debate about how generous welfare states treat newcomers. The prevailing view suggests immigrants benefit most from these systems, but this paper questions that assumption.
Decreased Reporting: While debates swirl around sanctuary cities, one lesser-discussed consequence of interior immigration enforcement involves its effect on crime reporting by undocumented immigrants.
Early settlement locations in the host country profoundly shape immigrants' political integration.
New research examines the tangible effects of enforcement escalations on undocumented immigrants and their communities.
This paper examines how immigration threat frames influence partisan views of democratic citizenship across three countries. Using embedded vignette surveys in the US, UK, and Germany, I show that immigration threats filter through partisanship differently in polarized societies.
UNHCR promotes voluntary repatriation as the preferred solution to refugee crises, but refugees' preferences about return vary widely and are poorly understood.
This study investigates whether the share of immigrants in a community influences support for anti-immigration parties. It systematically reviews 20 existing studies employing causal inference methods and utilizes a novel Bayesian meta-analysis framework to address reporting bias and heterogeneity across contexts.
Hate speech prosecutions against anti-immigration politicians often attract significant media attention. This research investigates how such legal actions impact electoral support through an experiment using manipulated TV news stories about a Dutch Forum voor Democratie (FvD) politician.
A common assumption in political science is that national-level policies and mandates directly dictate how politicians respond to immigrant communities. However, this article challenges that by examining local political dynamics.
For years, debates over welfare restrictions focused heavily on racialized rhetoric targeting immigrants.
Migrants in rapidly urbanizing developing-country cities vote far less than local-born residents. Three potential explanations were tested: strong socioeconomic ties to origin regions, administrative hurdles to enrollment that hit newcomers harder, and political ostracism by antimigrant elites.
Immigration remains a defining issue in modern US politics. While studies have long focused on how cultural and economic factors shape opinions about immigration, this research uncovers an unexpected link: political trust significantly influences support for immigration policies.
A large literature links refugee presence to higher local conflict risk. This study argues that positive local effects of hosting refugeesâespecially through developmentâhave been overlooked and may reduce, not increase, conflict.
Why do some Americans assume social welfare programs primarily help immigrants? This pre-registered survey experiment explores the triggers for this perception. Respondents viewed generic policies differently when primed with specific concerns:
Major national sporting events can boost pride but potentially worsen attitudes toward refugees. This paper investigates how a narrow Kenyan victory in the 2019 Africa Cup football match affects resource allocation preferences and views on refugee contributions to diversity among Kenyans.
The American National Election Studies (ANES) 2012 and Cooperative Congressional Election Studies (CCES) 2018 surveys reveal a counterintuitive pattern: âŠâŠ Non-Hispanic whites who support the DREAM Act often also favor harsh immigration policies.
This study examines how anti-immigrant rhetoric used by elites affects immigrants' democratic participation. The paper explores the relationship between political discourse and voting behavior among immigrant populations.
This paper examines the stability of public attitudes toward immigration over time.
New research reveals physical barriers, intended as tools of immigration enforcement (state repression), actually increase refugee flows rather than reducing migration. Using a global directed dyad-year dataset covering 1990-2016, we find that barriers create a 'sunk costs' problem affecting people's status movement from migrant to refugee. This backfire effect occurs because enforcement discourages return and thus encourages seeking asylum.
How does the presence of immigrant coworkers shape support for anti-immigration parties? The literature offers two competing expectations: close workplace contact can reduce intergroup prejudice, but immigrant coworkers might also be seen as labor-market competitors who increase opposition. This study leverages matched Swedish workplace records and election returns to adjudicate between these mechanisms.
The article argues that immigration attitudes reshaped the strategic environment for parties and leaders in many advanced democracies. Using comparative survey evidence from spring 2015, it shows that immigration views had already driven a wedge between mainstream parties and their partisans, opening space for new movements and producing measurable electoral consequences.
This study explores U.S. natives' attitudes toward immigrants by examining attribute affinityâhow individuals evaluate immigrant groups based on perceived shared characteristics.
This study reveals that public opinion on migration is significantly influenced by terrorism occurring abroad. Contrary to popular belief, news about terrorist attacks does not primarily link negative views to refugees or direct migrant populations.
The study asks why citizens in the Middle East and North Africa express stronger opposition to some migrant groupsâespecially subâSaharan African migrantsâand how local context shapes which perceived threats matter.
This study asks whether walls, fences, and other border fortifications actually stop the international spread of violent militancy. The central finding is that fortifications sometimes reduce cross-border diffusion, but their effectiveness depends heavily on local conditions that affect a state's ability to monitor and police the border.
Aid distribution among Syrian refugees in Lebanon surprisingly reduces anti-refugee violence.
The forced return of migrants with criminal records can transmit crime across borders. This study quantifies how US deportations of convicts affect violent crime in migrantsâ countries of origin.
Traditionally viewed as local affairs, county sheriff elections have become unexpectedly politicized by national political dynamics. This study examines how a salient national issue â immigration enforcement â can transform these typically non-partisan contests into highly politicized battlegrounds.
This paper argues residential mobility hurdles significantly shape public views on immigration. Examining domestic housing policies and their constraints reveals a key driver of growing restrictionism, even outside traditional economic crises.
This article examines how autocrats strategically balance motives in shaping emigration policies.
Does a growing Latino population change how state legislators vote on immigration policy? We find that it depends entirely on party.
Voting rights for immigrants are extended after three years of residency in Norway, creating a unique opportunity to examine their influence on political incorporation. This study leverages individual-level registry data and employs a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the residency cutoff point. Analysis reveals that early voting access significantly increases subsequent electoral engagement among all immigrant groups.
When do displaced persons return home after conflict? Drawing on labor migration theories, this analysis shows that positive feelings toward original locations don't always motivate permanent return. Economic opportunities often determine whether displaced individuals become regular visitors or remain in host communities.
This paper examines how stigmatizing attributes affect Latino perceptions of discrimination.
This study examines how direct xenophobic attacks impact identity portfolios in African nations.
This paper examines post-WWII population transfers in Poland.
Does direct democracy hurt immigrant minorities?
This article investigates the drivers behind attitudes toward immigrants across eleven countries on four continents through a comparative experimental design. Using over 18,000 interviews, it tests two prominent theories: Sociotropic Economic Threat and Labor Market Competition.
Low education levels predict anti-immigration sentiment. But is this a cause or just selection bias?
Did taste-based discrimination motivate German immigrants toward assimilation or alienation during World War I? This paper examines how an exogenous shock, anti-Germanism in the US during WWI, influenced their decisions. Using measures of naming patterns and naturalization petitions, it finds that Germans significantly increased Americanization efforts amid rising native hostility.
New research suggests immigration affects public support for social redistribution differently depending on whether programs are universal or means-tested. This study employs survey experiments to demonstrate that while universal welfare mitigates negative perceptions of immigrants, targeted benefits increase hostility among natives.
This study examines how migration-related money transfersâremittancesârelate to violations of rights to physical integrity (for example, torture and political assassination) in the countries migrants leave behind. The focus is on whether remittances influence violent political repression within migrant-sending countries.
New research explores how the presence of young men within newly arrived immigrant populations affects German public opinion. Contrary to expectations, findings indicate that these groups receive less support when characterized by a high share of young males. This is attributed primarily to perceived security and cultural risks rather than economic benefits.
Labor market competition theories explaining anti-immigrant attitudes have received limited empirical validation in recent literature. Rather than focusing on migrant supply, this research proposes a new theory centered on job availability and skill specificity.
Does exposure to the refugee crisis increase support for extreme-right parties? This study leverages a sudden refugee surge on Aegean islands to provide causal evidence that brief, visible inflows changed electoral outcomes before the September 2015 Greek election.
This article explores how Mass Resettlement influenced Ethnic Violence across Rwanda. The author theorizes that regimes deploy resettlement strategically along contested frontiers, creating a defense mechanism built on ethnic demographics.
Does geographical variation in tolerance towards specific ethnic groups reflect an underlying cultural trait? This study uses English data to test if anti-immigrant sentiment today correlates with medieval immigrant settlement patterns, despite modern immigration being different. It finds that the geographic persistence of attitudes is driven by a deep-rooted cultural characteristic rather than contemporary diversity.
How can prejudice toward Syrian refugees be reduced? A survey experiment among Turkish citizens examined the effect of religious primes. FACTORS: Sunni/Muslim identity emphasis and a factual statement on economic costs were tested separately and together using factorial design.
New research investigates how immigration influences public welfare spending across American states.
This article investigates how Americans' opinions on immigration influence their views toward welfare recipients and government spending. Using data from the Cumulative American National Election Study spanning 1992-2012, we find that attitudes about immigrants significantly shape public perceptions of welfare policies.
Socialization theory posits that education reduces anti-foreigner sentiment by transmitting official democratic values, which discourage prejudice against minorities. This effect should be amplified in more democratic societies.
Why This Matters: Political conflict is often framed as a response to group threats, but emotions that are unrelated to race or immigration may still shape policy opinions. Antoine Antoine investigates whether incidental anger â anger not triggered by racial or ethnic cues â can activate ethnocentric attitudes among white Americans and change how those attitudes predict views on racial and immigration policies.
New research challenges conventional wisdom about local government motives regarding federal immigration partnerships.
This study investigates how large-scale social protests, specifically those occurring in Europe during 2006 focused on immigration issues, influenced public opinion regarding policies toward immigrants.
What do Americans think about immigrants? We analyzed responses to nine attributes in a conjoint experiment.
This study examines how xenophobic rhetoric affects immigrant political behavior.
New research reveals how immigration and rising racial diversity are reshaping partisan identity among white Americans.
This paper investigates how changes in local ethnic composition affect Anglo attitudes toward immigration policy.
This study investigates individual decisions regarding flight during civilian conflicts, challenging the assumption that forced migration is solely driven by coercion.
While cultural factors consistently predict opposition to immigration, economic competition remains a contested explanation. This study examines Americans' attitudes toward H-1B visasâa specific pathway allowing Indian skilled workers into high-technology sectors.
International migrants are among the largest disenfranchised groups in modern democracies. This paper examines how giving noncitizens suffrage affected public policy, specifically education and social spending, across Swedish municipalities. The author argues that standard political competition models suggest a selection bias when measuring the impact of enfranchising noncitizens. Using unique data from Sweden's municipal-level introduction of voting rights for noncitizens, they find substantial increases in relevant government spending where noncitizens represented a significant portion of the electorate.
Adding value to existing aggregate cross-national analyses on forced migration, I use subnational-level data to investigate circumstances that affect people's decisions of whether or not to flee their homes during civilian conflicts. Building on existing literature, I argue that conflict by itself is not the sole factor affecting people's decisions to flee or stay. Apart from a direct physical impact, civil war can destroy economic infrastructure and expose people to economic hardships, which can contribute to displacement. In addition, flight may be impeded or facilitated by such factors as geographical features, physical infrastructure, and social conditions under which people live. Using count data from the Maoists ''people's war'' in Nepal, a subnational analysis of displacement is conducted to provide a more refined test of existing large-n studies on the causes of forced migration. The empirical results are consistent with the major hypotheses developed in the field. With more precise measures of conflict, economic and physical conditions, and presence of social networks, I demonstrate the importance of a rationalist framework in understanding the choice of flight.
This article analyzes the determinants of asylum migration to Western Europe. Potential asylum seekers balance the costs of staying versus the costs of migrating. Estimation results confirm that economic hardship and economic discrimination against ethnic minorities lead to higher flows of asylum seekers. However, political oppression, human rights abuse, violent conflict, and state failure are also important determinants. Migration networks and geographical proximity are important facilitators of asylum flows as predicted by theory and colonial experience, religious similarity, and casual contact with the developed world (aid, trade, and tourism) are not. Natural disasters and famines are also not statistically significant determinants. These events are typically short term and unexpected, whereas asylum migration to Western Europe requires preparatory planning. If Western European countries want to tackle the root causes of asylum migration, then they need to undertake policy measures that promote economic development, democracy, respect for human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution in countries of origin.