Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T12:28:07.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The impact of mass-level ideological orientations on immigration policy preferences over time

Part of: IPSR-RISP Migration collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2018

Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen  and
Arzoo Rafiqi
Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus C., Denmark
Arzoo Rafiqi
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus C., Denmark
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This paper introduces a dynamic perspective on how (personal) political ideology shapes reactions to immigration policies at the mass level. Greater ethnic diversity and growing calls for multiculturalism represent a disproportionately greater challenge to rightists because they value conformity, tradition, and stability more than leftists. Consequently, we hypothesize that the impact of political ideology on opposition to immigration has become stronger over time. Analyses show that: (a) leftists were less opposed to immigration than rightists in both 2002 and 2014, and (b) rightists have become more opposed to immigration in the time between 2002 and 2014, whereas leftists’ reactions remained stable across this period. We tested our motivated reasoning hypothesis in a repeated cross-sectional (fixed effects regression) analysis of individual-level data from 18 countries (N = 55,367). The individual-level data on political ideology and immigration policy preferences is from the European Social Survey data sets fielded in 2002 and 2014.

Keywords

political ideologyopposition to immigrationmotivated reasoningrepeated cross-sectional analysis
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 279 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2018 

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

Akkerman, T (2015) Immigration policy and electoral competition in Western Europe: a fine-grained analysis of party positions over the past two decades. Party Politics 21(1): 54–67.Google Scholar
Alford, JR, Funk, C and Hibbing, JR (2005) Are political orientations genetically transmitted? American Political Science Review 99(2): 153–167.Google Scholar
Allison, PD (2009) Fixed Effects Regression Models. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Alonso, S and da Fonseca, SC (2011) Immigration, left and right. Party Politics 18(6): 865–884.Google Scholar
Bale, T, Green-Pedersen, C, Krouwel, A, Luhter, KR and Sitter, N (2010) If you can’t beat them, join them? Explaining social democratic responses to the challenge from the populist radical right in Western Europe. Political Studies 35(3): 410–426.Google Scholar
Bohman, A and Hjerm, M (2016) In the wake of radical right electoral success: a cross-country comparative study of anti-immigration attitudes over time. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42(11): 1729–1747.Google Scholar
Brader, T, Nicholas, AV and Suhay, E (2008) What triggers public opposition to immigration? Anxiety, group cues, and immigration threat. American Journal of Political Science 52(4): 959–978.Google Scholar
Chandler, CR and Tsai, Y-M (2001) Social factors influencing immigration attitudes: an analysis of data from the general social survey. Social Science Journal 38(2): 177–188.Google Scholar
Citrin, J and Sides, J (2008) Immigration and the imagined community in Europe and the United States. Political Studies 56(1): 33–56.Google Scholar
Cole, A (2005) Old right or new right? The ideological positioning of parties of the far right. European Journal of Political Research 44(2): 203–230.Google Scholar
Converse, PE (1964) The nature of belief systems in mass publics, in DE Apter (eds). Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press, pp. 206–261.Google Scholar
Dahlstrøm, C and Esaiasson, P (2011) The immigration issue and anti-immigrant party success in Sweden 1970–2006: a deviant case analysis’. Party Politics 19(2): 343–364.Google Scholar
Davidov, E and Meuleman, B (2012) Explaining attitudes towards immigration policies in European countries: the role of human values. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38(5): 757–775.Google Scholar
ESS (2011) ESS1-2002 Documentation Report, Edition 6.5. The ESS Data Archive. Retrieved from https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/data/round-index.htmlGoogle Scholar
ESS (2014) ESS7-2014. Documentation Report, Edition 3.1. The ESS Data Archive. Retrieved from https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/data/round-index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Federico, CM (2012) Ideology and public opinion, in AJ Berinsky (eds). New Directions in Public Opinion. London: Routledge, pp. 79–100.Google Scholar
Gianfreda, S (2017) Politicization of the refugee crisis? A content analysis of the parliamentary debates in Italy, the UK, and the EU. Italian Political Science Review 48(1): 85–108.Google Scholar
Gorodzeisky, A (2011) Who are the Europeans that Europeans prefer? Economic conditions and exclusionary views toward European immigrants. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 52(1–2): 100–113.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C and Krogstrup, J (2008) Immigration as a political issue in Denmark and Sweden. European Journal of Political Research 47(5): 610–634.Google Scholar
Hague, R, Harrop, M and McCormick, J (2013) Comparative Government and Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Haidt, J, Graham, J and Joseph, C (2009) Above and below left-right: ideological narratives and moral foundations. Psychological Inquiry 20(2–3): 110–119.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, J and Daniel, JH (2014) Public attitudes toward immigration. Annual Review of Political Science 17(1): 225–249.Google Scholar
Heizmann, B (2016) Symbolic boundaries, incorporation policies, and anti-immigrant attitudes: what drives exclusionary policy preferences? Ethnic and Racial Studies 39(10): 1791–1811.Google Scholar
Helbling, M, Stolle, D and Reeskens, T (2015) Political mobilisation, ethnic diversity and social cohesion: the conditional effect of political parties. Political Studies 63(1): 101–122.Google Scholar
Hibbing, JR, Smith, KB and Alford, JR (2014) Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37(3): 297–307.Google Scholar
Hillygus, DS and Shields, TG (2008) The Persuadable Voter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Homola, J and Tavits, M (2017) Contact reduces immigration-related fears for leftist but not for rightist voters. Comparative Political Studies E-print ahead of publication , 1–23.Google Scholar
Hox, J (2010) Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Huber, J (1989) Values and partisanship in left-right orientations: measuring ideology. European Journal of Political Research 17(5): 599–621.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S and Barisione, M (2015) Non-verbal cues as a test of gender and race bias in politics: the Italian case. Italian Political Science Review 45(2): 131–157.Google Scholar
Jensen, C and Thomsen, JPF (2011) Can party competition amplify mass ideological polarization over public policy? The case of ethnic exclusionism in Denmark and Sweden. Party Politics 19(5): 821–840.Google Scholar
Jost, JT (2006) The end of the end of ideology. American Psychologist 61(7): 651–670.Google Scholar
Jost, JT, Nosek, BA and Gosling, SD (2008) Ideology: its resurgence in social, personality, and political psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science 3(2): 126–136.Google Scholar
Jost, JT, Federico, CM and Napier, JL (2009) Political ideology: its structure, functions, and elective affinities. Annual Review of Psychology 60, 307–337.Google Scholar
Jost, JT, Glaser, J, Kruglansk, AW and Sulloway, FJ (2003) Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 339–375.Google Scholar
Kam, CD and Franzese, RJ (2007) Modeling and Interpreting Interactive Hypotheses in Regression Analysis. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Knutsen, O (1995) Value orientations, political conflicts and left-right identification: a comparative study. European Journal of Political Research 28(1): 63–93.Google Scholar
Knutsen, O (1998) Europeans move towards the center: a comparative longitudinal study of left-right self-placement in Western Europe. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 10(4): 292–316.Google Scholar
Kunda, Z (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 108(3): 480–498.Google Scholar
Lahav, G and Courtemanche, M (2012) The ideological effects of framing threat on immigration and civil liberties. Political Behavior 34(3): 477–505.Google Scholar
Leeper, T and Slothuus, R (2014) Political parties, motivated reasoning, and public opinion formation. Advances in Political Psychology 35(Suppl 1): 129–156.Google Scholar
McLaren, LM (2003) Anti-immigrant prejudice in Europe: contact, threat perception, and preferences for the exclusion of migrants. Social Forces 81(3): 909–936.Google Scholar
McLaren, L and Johnson, M (2007) Resources, group conflict and symbols: explaining anti-immigration hostility in Britain. Political Studies 55(4): 709–732.Google Scholar
Rico, G and Jennings, MK (2016) The formation of left-right identification: pathways and correlates of parental influence. Political Psychology 37(2): 237–252.Google Scholar
Rustenbach, E (2010) Sources of negative attitudes toward immigrants in Europe: a multi-level analysis. International Migration Review 44(1): 53–77.Google Scholar
Scheepers, P, Gijsberts, M and Coenders, M (2002) Ethnic exclusionism in European countries: public opposition to civil rights for legal migrants as a response to perceived ethnic threat. European Sociological Review 18(1): 17–34.Google Scholar
Sears, DO, Carl, PH and Leslie, KS (1979) Whites’ opposition to “busing”: self-interest or symbolic politics? American Political Science Review 73(2): 369–384.Google Scholar
Semyonov, M, Raijman, R and Gorodzeisky, A (2006) The rise of anti-foreigner sentiment in European societies, 1988–2000. American Sociological Review 71(3): 426–449.Google Scholar
Sides, J and Citrin, J (2007) European opinion about immigration: the role of identities, interests and information. British Journal of Political Science 37(3): 477–504.Google Scholar
Sniderman, PM and Hagendoorn, L (2007) When Ways of Life Collide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sønderskov, KM and Thomsen, JPF (2015) Contextualizing intergroup contact: do political party cues enhance contact effects? Social Psychology Quarterly 78(1): 49–76.Google Scholar
Taber, CS and Lodge, M (2006) Motivated scepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 755–769.Google Scholar
Taber, CS, Lodge, M and Glathar, J (2001) The motivated construction of political judgments, in JH Kuklinski (ed.). Citizens and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 198–225.Google Scholar
Thomsen, JPF and Rafiqi, A (2018) Intergroup contact and its right-wing ideological constraint. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies E-print ahead of publication , 1–25.Google Scholar
Thorisdottir, H, John, TJ, Liviatan, I and Shrout, PE (2007) Psychological needs and values underlying left-right political orientations: cross-national evidence from Eastern and Western Europe. Public Opinion Quarterly 71(2): 175–203.Google Scholar
Treier, S and Hillygus, DS (2009) The nature of political ideology in the contemporary electorate. Public Opinion Quarterly 73(4): 679–703.Google Scholar
United Nations (2013) International Migration Report 2013. New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. United Nations.Google Scholar
Urso, O (2018) The politicization of immigration in Italy. Who frames the issue, when and how? Italian Political Science Review E-print ahead of publication , 1–17.Google Scholar
Wilkes, R, Guppy, N and Farris, L (2008) “No thanks, we’re full”: individual characteristics, national context, and changing attitudes toward immigration. International Migration Review 42(2): 302–329.Google Scholar
Zhirkov, K (2014) Nativist but not alienated: a comparative perspective on the radical right vote in Western Europe. Party Politics 20(2): 286–296.Google Scholar