Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:14:02.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Economic Inequality, Immigrants and Selective Solidarity: From Perceived Lack of Opportunity to In-group Favoritism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2020

Gabriele Magni*
Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

How does economic inequality affect support for redistribution to native citizens and immigrants? While prior studies have examined the separate effects of inequality and immigration on redistribution preferences, the interaction between inequality and communal identity has been largely overlooked. This article explains that inequality triggers selective solidarity. Individuals exposed to inequality become more supportive of redistribution – but only if the redistribution benefits native-born citizens. Inequality therefore reinforces the already popular opinion that native citizens deserve welfare priority and widens the gap between support for natives and support for immigrants. This study first provides cross-national evidence with survey data linked to contextual socio-economic indicators from advanced industrialized countries. To evaluate causally identified effects, it then presents the results of a survey experiment administered to a nationally representative sample of Italian citizens. The findings imply that economic inequality can increase support for populist radical right parties that advocate discrimination in access to welfare services based on native citizenship.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alesina, A and La Ferrara, E (2000) Participation in heterogeneous communities. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115(3), 847904., CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, A and Glaeser, EL (2004) Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, A and La Ferrara, E (2005) Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities. Journal of Public Economics 89(5), 897931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, A, Miano, A and Stantcheva, S (2018) Immigration and Redistribution. Working Paper No. 24733. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, K (2017) Anxiety reduces empathy toward outgroup members but not ingroup members. Journal of Experimental Political Science 4(1), 6880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, and Lord, C (2013) Aristotle's Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, AB, Piketty, T and Saez, E (2011) Top incomes in the long run of history. Journal of Economic Literature 49, 371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballard-Rosa, C, Martin, L and Scheve, K (2017) The structure of American income tax policy preferences. The Journal of Politics 79(1), 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benabou, R and Ok, EA (2001) Social mobility and the demand for redistribution: the POUM hypothesis. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2), 447487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhard, H, Fischbacher, U and Fehr, E (2006) Parochial altruism in humans. Nature 442(7105), 912915.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bobo, L and Kluegel, JR (1993) Opposition to race-targeting: self-interest, stratification ideology, or racial attitudes? American Sociological Review 58(4), 443464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, S and Gintis, H (2000) Reciprocity, self-interest, and the welfare state. Nordic Journal of Political Economy 26(1), 3353.Google Scholar
Bowles, S and Gintis, H (2013) A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brady, D and Finnigan, R (2014) Does immigration undermine public support for social policy? American Sociological Review 79(1), 1742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, MB and Campbell, DT (1976) Ethnocentrism and Intergroup Attitudes: East African Evidence. Oxford: Sage.Google Scholar
Brown-Iannuzzi, JL, et al. (2015) Subjective status shapes political preferences. Psychological Science 26(1), 1526.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bullock, HE (1999) Attributions for poverty: a comparison of middle-class and welfare recipient attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29(10), 20592082.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgoon, B, Koster, F and Van Egmond, M (2012) Support for redistribution and the paradox of immigration. Journal of European Social Policy 22(3), 288304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carreras, M, Irepoglu Carreras, Y and Bowler, S (2019) Long-term economic distress, cultural backlash, and support for Brexit. Comparative Political Studies 52(9), 13961424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavaillé, C and Ferwerda, J (n.d.) Understanding the Determinants of Welfare Chauvinism: The Role of Resource Competition. Working paper presented at the 2016 APSA Conference. Available from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dbdb/b79bb3d65c2ab28e9ace996302c839deddea.pdf?_ga=2.246465730.754495766.1586479398-400373362.1584989783.Google Scholar
Cavaillé, C and Trump, KS (2015) The two facets of social policy preferences. The Journal of Politics 77(1), 146160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chetty, R, et al. (2014) Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(4), 15531623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citrin, J et al. . (1997) Public opinion toward immigration reform: The role of economic motivations. The Journal of Politics 59(3), 858881.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corak, M (2013) Income inequality, equality of opportunity, and intergenerational mobility. Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(3), 79102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corneo, G and Grüner, HP (2002) Individual preferences for political redistribution. Journal of Public Economics 83(1), 83107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Côté, S, House, J and Willer, R (2015) High economic inequality leads higher-income individuals to be less generous. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(52), 1583815843.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Daenekindt, S, de Koster, W and van der Waal, J (2017) Social mobility and political distrust: cults of gratitude and resentment? Acta Politica 53(2), 269282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlberg, M, Edmark, K and Lundqvist, H (2012) Ethnic diversity and preferences for redistribution. Journal of Political Economy 120(1), 4176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancygier, RM and Donnelly, MJ (2012) Sectoral economies, economic contexts, and attitudes toward immigration. The Journal of Politics 75(1), 1735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Tocqueville, A (2003[1835]). Democracy in America. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.Google Scholar
Dimick, M, Rueda, D and Stegmueller, D (2016) The altruistic rich? Inequality and other-regarding preferences for redistribution in the US. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 11(4), 385439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimick, M, Rueda, D and Stegmueller, D (2018) Models of other-regarding preferences, inequality, and redistribution. Annual Review of Political Science 21, 441460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eger, MA (2009) Even in Sweden: the effect of immigration on support for welfare state spending. European Sociological Review 26(2), 203217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurobarometer (2016) European Commission. Eurobarometer 85.2. Ann Arbor, MI: GESIS [distributor], Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-01-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36734.v1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurobarometer (2017) European Commission. Eurobarometer 87.3. Ann Arbor, MI: GESIS [distributor], Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2017-12-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36876.v1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E and Schmidt, KM (1999) A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(3), 817868.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finseraas, H (2009) Income inequality and demand for redistribution: a multilevel analysis of European public opinion. Scandinavian Political Studies 32(1), 94119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fong, C (2001) Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution. Journal of Public Economics 82(2), 225246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, R (2016) Who should we help? An experimental test of discrimination in the British Welfare State. Political Studies 64(3), 630650.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallup (2018) Immigration. Available from https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx.Google Scholar
Gilens, M (1999) Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giuliano, P and Spilimbergo, A (2014). Growing up in a recession. Review of Economic Studies 81(2), 787817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, J, Haidt, J and Nosek, BA (2009) Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(5), 10291046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hainmueller, J and Hiscox, MJ (2007) Educated preferences: explaining attitudes toward immigration in Europe. International Organization 61(2), 399442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, AO (1970) Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holland, AC (2018) Diminished expectations: redistributive preferences in truncated welfare states. World Politics 70(4), 555594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, L and Marks, G (2005) Calculation, community and cues: public opinion on European integration. European Union Politics 6(4), 419443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, L and Marks, G (2018) Cleavage theory meets Europe's crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage. Journal of European Public Policy 25(1), 109135., CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, L, Marks, G and Wilson, CJ (2002) Does left/right structure party positions on European integration? Comparative Political Studies 35(8), 965989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, DJ (2009) Partisan reinforcement and the poor: the impact of context on explanations for poverty. Social Science Quarterly 90(3), 744764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, DJ (2010) Politicized places: explaining where and when immigrants provoke local opposition. American Political Science Review 104(1), 4060.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenworthy, L and McCall, L (2008) Inequality, public opinion and redistribution. Socio-Economic Review 6(1), 3568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinder, DR and Kam, CD (2010) Us Against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H (2007) Growth and persistence of the radical right in postindustrial democracies: advances and challenges in comparative research. West European Politics 30(5), 11761206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuo, A and Margalit, Y (2012) Measuring individual identity: experimental evidence. Comparative Politics 44(4), 459479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuziemko, I et al. (2014) ‘Last-place aversion’: evidence and redistributive implications. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(1), 105149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuziemko, I et al. (2015) How elastic are preferences for redistribution? Evidence from randomized survey experiments. The American Economic Review 105(4), 14781508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kymlicka, W (2001) Politics in the Vernacular. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen, CA (2006) The Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes: How Welfare Regimes Influence Public Support. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Larsen, CA (2008) The institutional logic of welfare attitudes: how welfare regimes influence public support. Comparative Political Studies 41(2), 145169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipset, SM and Bendix, R (1959) Social Mobility in Industrial Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lübker, M (2007) Inequality and the demand for redistribution: are the assumptions of the new growth theory valid? Socio-Economic Review 5(1), 117148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lupu, N and Pontusson, J (2011) The structure of inequality and the politics of redistribution. American Political Science Review 105(2), 316336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luttmer, EF (2001) Group loyalty and the taste for redistribution. Journal of Political Economy 109(3), 500528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magni, G (2017) It's the emotions, Stupid! Anger about the economic crisis, low political efficacy, and support for populist parties. Electoral Studies 50, 91102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magni, G (2019) “Replication file for: Economic Inequality, Immigrants, and Selective Solidarity: From Perceived Lack of Opportunity to Ingroup Favoritism”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/INUMDT, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:WMrZwvew2rL8GWIz8DorPw== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, G (2012) Europe and its Empires: From Rome to the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies 50(1), 120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mau, S and Burkhardt, C (2009) Migration and welfare state solidarity in Western Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 19(3), 213229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCall, L et al. (2017) Exposure to rising inequality shapes Americans’ opportunity beliefs and policy support. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(36), 95939598.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meltzer, AH and Richard, SF (1981) A rational theory of the size of government. Journal of Political Economy 89(5), 914927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D (1999) Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Moene, KO and Wallerstein, M (2001) Inequality, social insurance, and redistribution. American Political Science Review, 859874.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, J. and Pardos-Prado, S. (2019) Immigration and support for social policy: an experimental comparison of universal and means-tested programs. Political Science Research and Methods 7(4), 717735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, BJ, Johnston, CD and Lown, PL (2015) False consciousness or class awareness? Local income inequality, personal economic position, and belief in American meritocracy. American Journal of Political Science 59(2), 326340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, K (1989) Falling from Grace: The Experience of Downward Mobility in the American Middle Class. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Nishi, A et al. (2015) Inequality and visibility of wealth in experimental social networks. Nature 526(7573), 426429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
OECD (2014) Focus on Inequality and Growth – December. Available from http://www.oecd.org/social/inequality-and-poverty.htm.Google Scholar
Paskov, M and Dewilde, C (2012) Income inequality and solidarity in Europe. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30(4), 415432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, K (2017) The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Petersen, MB (2012) Social welfare as small-scale help: evolutionary psychology and the deservingness heuristic. American Journal of Political Science 56(1), 116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pew (2012) A third of Americans now say they are in the lower classes. Available from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/10/a-third-of-americans-now-say-they-are-in-the-lower-classes/.Google Scholar
Pew (2013) Europeans grow dissatisfied with the inequities of the economic system. Available from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/14/europeans-grow-dissatisfied-with-the-inequities-of-the-economic-system/.Google Scholar
Pew (2014) Fairness of the economic system, views of the poor and the social safety net. Available from https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-3-fairness-of-the-economic-system-views-of-the-poor-and-the-social-safety-net/Google Scholar
Piketty, T (1995) Social mobility and redistributive politics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110(3), c551584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, and Adam, J (2011) The Republic of Plato. Volume 2, Books VI-X and Indexes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, D (2016) Adam Smith on what is wrong with economic inequality. American Political Science Review 110(2), 342352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reeskens, T and Van Oorschot, W (2012) Disentangling the ‘New Liberal Dilemma’: on the relation between general welfare redistribution preferences and welfare chauvinism. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 53(2), 120139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romer, T (1975) Individual welfare, majority voting, and the properties of a linear income tax. Journal of Public Economics 4(2), 163185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, JJ and Gourevitch, V (1997) Rousseau: ‘The Discourses’ and Other Early Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rueda, D (2018) Food comes first, then morals: redistribution preferences, parochial altruism, and immigration in Western Europe. The Journal of Politics 80(1), 225239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rueda, D and Stegmueller, D (2016) The externalities of inequality: fear of crime and preferences for redistribution in Western Europe. American Journal of Political Science 60(2), 472489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shayo, M (2009) A model of social identity with an application to political economy: nation, class, and redistribution. American Political Science Review 103(2), 147174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A, Raphael, DD and Macfie, AL (1982) The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Sniderman, PM, Hagendoorn, L and Prior, M (2004) Predisposing factors and situational triggers: exclusionary reactions to immigrant minorities. American Political Science Review 98(1), 3549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H and Turner, JC (1979) An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. In Austin, WG and Worchel, S (eds) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, pp. 3347. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co.Google Scholar
Tóth, IG and Keller, T (2011) Income Distributions, Inequality Perceptions and Redistributive Claims in European Societies. AIAS, GINI Discussion Paper, 7.Google Scholar
Tranvik, I (n.d.) Money in the Politics: Aristotle on Economic Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate Conference.Google Scholar
Trump, KS (2018) Income inequality influences perceptions of legitimate income differences. British Journal of Political Science 48(4), 929952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trump, KS and White, A (2018) Does inequality beget inequality? Experimental tests of the prediction that inequality increases system justification motivation. Journal of Experimental Political Science 5(3), 206216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uslaner, EM and Brown, M (2005). Inequality, trust, and civic engagement. American Politics Research 33(6), 868894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van der Waal, J, Achterberg, P, Houtman, D, De Koster, W and Manevska, K (2010) ‘Some are more equal than others’: economic egalitarianism and welfare chauvinism in the Netherlands. Journal of European Social Policy 20(4), 350363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Der Waal, J, De Koster, W and Van Oorschot, W (2013) Three worlds of welfare chauvinism? How welfare regimes affect support for distributing welfare to immigrants in Europe. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 15(2), 164181.Google Scholar
Volscho, TW and Kelly, NJ (2012) The rise of the super-rich: power resources, taxes, financial markets, and the dynamics of the top 1 percent, 1949 to 2008. American Sociological Review 77(5), 679699.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiner, B, Osborne, D and Rudolph, U (2011) An attributional analysis of reactions to poverty: the political ideology of the giver and the perceived morality of the receiver. Personality and Social Psychology Review 15(2), 199213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilkinson, R and Pickett, K (2010) The Spirit Level. Why Equality is Better for Everyone. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Van Oorschot, W (2006) Making the difference in social Europe: deservingness perceptions among citizens of European welfare states. Journal of European Social Policy 16(1), 2342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, NJ (2006) Beyond welfare: framing and the racialization of white opinion on social security. American Journal of Political Science 50(2), 400420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Magni et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Magni et al. supplementary material(File)
File 4.3 MB