Introduction

This chapter presents a model of conflict between a West European state or society and domestic dissident immigrant minority groups, such as Muslims. Most of the literature focuses on either the radicalization of young Muslims in Europe or on their links with international terrorism, but rarely models the clash or interaction between the state or majority community and the ‘enemy within’. Identity plays a major part in this, and Akerlof and Kranton (2000) suggest that individuals obtain utility from their identity and by making themselves, as well as others in their group, behave in conformity with group norms. But it also has to be borne in mind that individuals often have multiple identities, as emphasized by Sen (2008). It is possible, therefore, to be both Muslim and European and to believe in most values that characterize Western humanism. The dislike of resident Muslim minority groups amongst the majority (Islamophobia) is not only founded upon real dangers of violent potential from certain Muslim elements, but is also a product of adverse propaganda about them, some of which may be only partially true. In what follows I define this as fear. Segments of the minority group (fundamentalists) may feel hatred for the West. This hate results from present-day socio-economic injustices against them in the European countries, historical injustices and contemporary foreign policy actions. Dislike of the West manifests itself in a spectrum of activities ranging from innocuous actions, such as the expression of disagreement, to making statements of difference via the adoption of dress codes (the wearing of the hijab or head scarf, for example) which to some Westerners is an offensive rejection of Western values, to acts of vandalism, such as the riots (looting, car burning) in the suburbs of Paris, and finally to the more violent terrorist actions such as the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, or the London bombings of July 2005. The interaction between this fear of Muslims and Muslim hatred for the West might sometimes produce only a disagreeable atmosphere, but at other times, can result in fatal conflict. What transforms this latent danger into violence and terrorism?

Introduction

Civil war is a multi-faceted problem. Not only does it produce human tragedies on a colossal scale, but it creates humanitarian crises that are of concern to the international community, as well as contributing to global and regional insecurity. Civil war is also a major cause of underdevelopment, and perpetuates poverty, see Murshed (2002a; Chapter 1 of this book) and Collier et al. (2003). The number of countries embroiled in a civil war increased up to 1994, and has since declined (Hegre 2004). See Harbom et al. (2006) for an enumeration of the number of armed conflicts in the post-Second World War period. The number of new civil wars emerging also seems to have fallen in the last decade (Hegre 2004). But the average duration of civil wars, standing at 16 years in 1999, does not exhibit a downward trend (Fearon 2004). For all of these reasons ending conflict or reducing its intensity must be a very high policy imperative in the development agenda.

Civil wars are not a homogenous phenomenon. Their origins, motivations and objectives vary. A useful guide to the typology of conflict can be found in Besancon (2005). The discussion on the typology of civil war points to four broad types: genocides, revolutions or rebellions against the state, secessionist wars and internationalized wars (where adjoining states or the great powers get involved). Many examples of contemporary conflict do not always fit neatly into only one of the categories mentioned. Besides civil wars, there are other forms of largescale organized violence. Transnational terrorism is the most important ‘other’ type of collective violence, where the perpetrators have a very different motivation compared to participants of civil wars. In addition, we also have routine and sectarian violence where the state is not a direct protagonist (hence they are not civil wars).

According to the rational choice paradigm, conflict is a result of choice. This may be of a myopic nature, as negotiated settlements, which avoid the losses that ensue from war, are usually Pareto superior.

Introduction

The landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Nepal is in the grips of a Maoist insurgency. Nepal is a low-income developing country; it also ranked 129th out of 162 countries in the composite human development index (HDI) in 2001, making it a low human development nation (see UNDP 2001). Nepal is also a new democracy; prior to 1991 it was an absolute monarchy. Nepal is composed of 75 districts across five geographical areas: Eastern, Central, Western, Mid-Western and Far Western. Each of these areas is divided into three ecological zones: mountain, hill and plain (Tarai).

The Maoist insurgency in Nepal began in 1996.1 Judging by the number of casualties, it is one of the highest intensity internal conflicts in the world at present. By November 2001 the Nepalese conflict entered into a new and more intense phase. Prior to the period of the first peace talks (July‒November 2001) the total number of casualties numbered 1593 in the ‘People's War’ or first phase of the present conflict between 13 February 1996 to 26 July 2001 (see Gautam 2001). This means that it was a medium intensity conflict, with engagements taking place mainly between the police and Maoists. After the failure of peace negotiations it has assumed the character of a high intensity conflict involving the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA). See Wallensteen and Sollenberg (2000) for the definition of conflict intensity. In Nepal there were 2,046 conflict-related deaths between 23 November 2001 and 3 April 2002. This death toll continued to mount in 2002. The civil war has also led to widespread human rights abuses (see Amnesty International 2002) including the murder, rape and torture of civilians by the RNA, extortion and the use of civilians as human shields by the Maoists.

It is the contention of this work that inter-group inequality and landlessness play a central part in motivating and sustaining the conflict in Nepal. The concept of horizontal or inter-group inequality, which is highly relevant in explaining the Nepalese civil war, has both an ethnic and caste dimension.

Introduction

The increase in transnational crime, particularly associated with the increased drug trade, is widely recognized as part of the negative side of increased globalization. According to the UNDCP (1998) estimates, the global production of opium by volume increased by 141 per cent between 1986‒96. In the same period there was a 24 per cent rise in coca leaf output. There are several stages of processing before the final product sells in the developed North. More important, is the huge value added from the primary commodity to the final product. To give one example, the price of coca leaf was US$1 per kilogram in Colombia in 1998, but the base for cocaine was US$800. This implies an 800-fold rise in value, even before final production and shipment. Farmgate prices of opium and coca have risen, while the street value of heroin and cocaine in Europe and the USA are declining. It is clear from the volume sold that there has been a sharp rise in the demand for heroin and cocaine in the North.

Civil wars and organized crime both produce violence. The problems associated with drug production are similar to the causes of conflict, and involve the interaction of greed and grievance (Murshed 2002a, Chapter 1 in this volume; Collier & Hoeffler 2004). Poverty produces grievance which can lead to drug production, which results in violence and even more grievance. Armed political groups use drug revenues to finance their wars; alternatively simply to satisfy their greed when the political-economic reasons for war have been assuaged (Northern Ireland). Thus, grievance can easily descend into banditry. Similarly, drug-barons, whose motives are purely mercenary, use armed force to further their political and economic ambitions.

Poverty is as central to the economics of violence as greed. It produces incentives for violent acts, and lowers the costs of fighting. Most drug producing states are low-income developing countries belonging to the South. Many of the causes of poverty are domestic in nature and are associated with bad policy choices as well as historically inherited inequities in asset ownership. But there are external factors as well.

This volume is a collection of 14 of my papers in the economics, or political economy, of conflict, principally, but not exclusively concerned with civil war, with some pieces solely authored and some jointly written, spanning publication dates between 2002 and 2017. They cover a variety of topics within the ‘rational choice’ approach to conflict, including issues of conflict causation to sustaining peace agreements, how a peaceful state is made sustainable, the relationship of conflict with economic progress, the trade–conflict nexus, the effects of conflict on financial deepening and fiscal capacity, the effects of restricting international narcotics flows, aspects of the nature of transnational terrorism, and the evolution of the fear for certain immigrant groups in Western nations. The chapters cover both theoretical ideas, critical literature reviews, theory in a mathematical model, econometric empirical analysis which is cross-national, as well as sub-national econometric analyses, which can be described as country case studies. Each paper was driven by an intellectual lacunae at the time, as well as the need to inform the policy dialogue. It is my belief that these papers continue being relevant, as most of the aforementioned topics still remain unresolved, accompanied with unanswered questions in the policy realm.

Organized violence can manifest itself in wars or other forms of political action, short of war. It is my contention that armed conflict, including, civil war, which is the principal form of war nowadays in the developing world, is inseparable from inequality broadly speaking and economic development, or its absence (underdevelopment). The same argument can be made for conflict short of war, such as with recent trends in the developed Western world, where the resurgence of populism, extreme nationalism and far right politics have similar roots. Put simply, conflict or organized violence has both intrinsic and extrinsic causes, and these are explored in the various chapters of this volume. The intrinsic causes are rooted in individual and group identity, as well as the mental framing of the history of injustice or discrimination. The extrinsic causes are pecuniary. They are related to the size of the economic pie (something that is determined by growth and development), but more importantly intimately connected to how this pie is distributed, raising questions of inequality.

Introduction

Conflict comes in multiples shapes: international wars, revolutionary civil wars, secessionist civil wars, colonial independence conflicts, separatist domestic terrorism, international terrorism, narco-guerrillas, state violence, revolutions and genocide may expectedly have specific causes, levels of belligerence, dynamics and persistence. The economics literature, however, has developed a narrower theoretical standard set-up that analyses civil conflict. For example, in Grossman (1991), a government and rebel group maximize their expected utility from states of war and peace. The government party has access to revenues and royalties, but is threatened by the excluded rebel group, which may violently overthrow it. As an extension, the government may use the fiscal system to transfer resources to rebels to ‘buy’ peace and an external third party may contribute resources and/or set incentives for the local parties to commit to peace. Recently, Murshed (2010) has argued that the dichotomy between greed (appropriation of rents, see Collier & Hoeffler 1998, 2004) and grievance (deep-rooted injustices, as expounded by Gurr 1970 and later by Stewart 2000) in this standard model to explain the origin of conflict should shift into a balance in which both co-exist. Some studies reject the inequality-grievance hypothesis (Collier & Hoeffler 1998, 2004; Fearon & Laitin 2003); others stress it (Stewart 2000; Østby 2008; Cederman, Weidmann & Gleditsch 2011). As Murshed (2010) points out, the salience of grievances emerges more in the local study of conflict, whereas greed explanations tend to dominate cross-country studies (with Østby 2008 and Cederman, Weidmann & Gleditsch 2011 being exceptions).

But what has not yet been analytically explored is an endogenous relation between greed and grievance. Murshed (2010) argues that either or both greed and grievance may explain the onset of conflict or its duration; neither, however, is sufficient in explaining the ultimate cause of conflict, something which may be attributed to the failure of the mechanisms that peacefully resolve differences (the social contract) (see also Addison & Murshed 2001). This is also related to state capacity. Besley and Persson (2008) argue that external wars may promote the development of state capacity on behalf of a common interest externally threatened. Instead, prospects of internal conflict may de-incentivize a government from investing in state capacity.

Introduction

Usually when conflicts break out in the developing world attempts are made to mediate between the warring parties by outside powers. These often result in peace agreements. Why is it so difficult to sustain peace agreements following civil wars in developing countries? Well-known examples of broken peace agreements are the Addis Ababa Agreement (Sudan 1972); the Arusha Agreement (Rwanda 1993); and the Angola Peace Agreements (1991 and 1994). Not only do peace treaties need to be brokered by outside powers (Nordic countries or United Nations agencies, for example), but their continued engagement as financiers and enforcers of the peace is required if the negotiated settlement that is mediated is to last. In other words, most peace agreements between warring factions in contemporary developingcountry civil wars are not self-enforcing. Walter (2002) points out the empirical regularity with which peace deals break down, and civil war resumes. She also points out to the fact that it is much more likely that belligerents will agree to a deal if they are able to share power following the agreement, and when a third-party guarantees the peace arrangement. Similarly, Fortna (2004) extends the analysis as to why some peace treaties endure while others flounder. Hastily cobbled power sharing deals, in particular, do not always ensure that the peace will last because of various temptations to renege on current undertakings in the future, see Rothchild (2005). And, in many instances this future period may not be too far away, as is often the case when valuable resource rents are at stake, or if long-standing collective grievances exist, calling into question the credibility of the peace agreement in the first place.

Arguably, therefore, the greatest impediment to sustaining peace agreements is the imperfect or insincere nature of the commitment to peace. The theme of commitment in the context of modern conflict can be traced back to the work of Schelling (1960). More generally, a costly commitment problem arises when an agreement or contract may be reneged upon, usually because the undertaking cannot be enforced by a third party or court of law; see, Hart (1995) on commercial applications of contracts that require re-negotiation. If breaches of contract cannot be remedied, the credibility of the agreement is questionable.

Conflict is a feature of human society since time immemorial. Disputes that arise may be organized around social class, ethnicity, religion, region, or some combination of these factors. The struggle can be over economic opportunities, as well as political and civil rights, among other contestable factors. In peaceful societies, conflict is channelled into non-violent means and institutions for both its expression and resolution. Economic and human development cannot occur without a large measure of social stability, which in turn requires the nurturing of institutions for non-violent conflict resolution. Conflict in lowincome countries makes the objective of poverty reduction all the more difficult, since not only is growth retarded, public money is taken for military spending from basic social services, and the poor are themselves disproportionately the victims of conflict. Economists are increasingly concerned with how badly designed economic policy raises the vulnerability of low-income developing countries to conflict, and how economic policy reinforces, or weakens, the social contract that underpins peace. Fundamentally, violent internal conflict is a symptom of the absence or breakdown of the implicit or explicit social contract that sustains peace.

Traditionally war has been viewed as an irrational act, brought about by misunderstanding and coordination failure, and primarily a breakdown in relations between nation states. Today most armed conflicts occur between groups within the same nation state, and in the developing world. A common view is that civil war is fundamentally irrational, and therefore not amenable to the techniques of economics or rational-choice political science. But is this so? Once the interests of belligerents are taken into account, conflict may be the product of rational decisions, even if it is only of a bounded or myopic rational choice variety. Even a terrible genocide, as in Rwanda for instance, is often planned well in advance in a cold, pre-meditated manner and carried out to meet a well-defined objective. Furthermore, evidence is accumulating that socio-economic variables, such as the desire to control natural resource rents, social fragmentation, poverty, inequality, and institutional breakdown, all play a role in contemporary civil wars. Economic analysis, particularly fields dealing with endogenous public choice, has much to say about these matters.

Introduction

The attacks on September 11th 2001 have focused our minds on the dangers of transnational terrorism. Conflicts in far-flung places can now impact on ordinary citizens of countries that are seemingly unconnected with the quarrels that motivate such violence. The intention of such indirect attacks is to affect people who have influence over the powers directly involved in the dispute. It also serves to attract attention to a conflict neglected by the media and government in influential nations. Consequently, while bombings, hijackings, and kidnapping cause death and injury, they are usually intended to have a psychological impact that goes beyond the numbers killed, and therefore measuring their intensity in terms of the number of fatalities, as is done with other types of conflict, is problematic.

A transnational terrorist act is one that impacts on the citizenry or interests of a country not directly part of the conflict in question. It can occur anywhere, both in the country where the conflict is occurring or elsewhere. Thus, for example, if the USA or the West is a target, then its citizens may be attacked in countries where the attackers are fighting the state, such as by Jihad in Egypt or Moro separatists (Abu Sayyaf) in the Philippines. Mainland France may be subject to attacks by the Algerian FIS. Attacks, kidnappings and bombings can also occur in third countries, such as Malaysia, Bali (Indonesia) and Saudi Arabia; attacks on US interests can take place in the USA (such as against the Twin Towers), or elsewhere as with the US embassy bombings in East Africa.

In an influential paper, Doran (2002) points out that transnational terrorism really reflects a civil war taking place elsewhere. The ultimate objective of the terrorists is to induce a backlash that will cause the masses in the country with the domestic dispute to rise against their oppressive state. A further implication of that paper, and one that has considerable intuitive appeal, is that the nationals or interests of the country subjected to terrorism also represent something that is in some way a patron or ally of the real enemy of the terrorists. Thus, when Westerners are kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia, or the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, the political aim of the kidnappers is to target the policy of support by the West for the government that the terrorists wish to overthrow.

Introduction

Social conflict and violence has entered the development discourse in Indonesia. The country's deep economic crisis and the subsequent democratic transition in late 1990s were marked by a significant eruption of violent conflict of various types. Deep social divisions within Indonesian society have been an inseparable part of the crisis and transition itself. In this regard, rebuilding the economy and restoring people's welfare has to be multi-faceted in nature. Therefore, economic development is required not only for its own sake, but also as a tool for preventing and reducing social violence. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the link between violent social conflict and socio-economic variables to get a better understanding of socio-economic explanations for conflict. However, it seems that the empirical literature on the socio-economic determinants of violent conflict are dominated by studies which focus on the most high profile form of violence, i.e., civil war, and most of them apply a cross-country type of analysis. Only a few studies examine civil war by employing cross-sectional analysis within a single country. However, recent developments in this area of research show the emergence of new studies that employ cross-section empirical analysis within a single country, not only on civil war, but on other forms of social violence, such as civil unrest, ethno-communal violence, etc.

This study deals with the socio-economic origins of a low profile form of violence in Java, Indonesia. It is referred to as ‘everyday’ or ‘routine’ social violence, centred on vigilante violence/popular justice and inter-group/neighbourhood brawls. Routine violence covers group or collective violence, and it is different from individual violence, domestic violence, or homicide – which can simply be labelled as crime. So far, the focus on conflict and violence in Indonesia has been disproportionately directed to higher profile episodic kinds of incidents, which exclusively take place in the form of ethno-communal and separatist violence. There is, however, another form of social violence, a low profile routine kind that rarely produces headlines. These are not reported beyond the local newspapers, unless they turn ugly. If the ‘episodic’ violence is highly concentrated in few regions outside Java, the ‘routine’ type is common to almost all districts in the island of Java.

Introduction

One characteristic of developing countries is low fiscal capacity and smaller government relative to the size of the economy, compared to that of richer developed countries and emerging economies (Brazil); see Table 7.1. Low fiscal capabilities constrain state capacity: the manifold functions of the state in terms of guaranteeing security, social protection, economic management and the provision of a host of other public goods. It has been argued by Tilly (1992) that for Europe, historically, state building and war making were inseparable, leading ultimately to enhanced state capacity amidst widening spheres of government activity. The purpose of this work is to empirically analyse the relationship between war, particularly in its dominant form civil war, and the fiscal capacity of the state for contemporary developing countries.

The functions of the state are important in maintaining the cohesiveness of society, and sustaining the social contract between rulers and the ruled, and different factions within society. Besides a legitimate Weberian monopoly over violence, a functioning state must be able to enforce laws, property rights and contracts, as well as have the fiscal capacity to raise revenues and provide public goods (Mill 1848). A modern state must also be able to provide a wider range of public goods (e.g., health and education), in addition to a capacity to regulate and manage markets. Economic decline in ‘failing’ states severely undermines the state's fiscal capacity, something which can make it heavily aid dependent (Ghani & Lockhart 2008). Aid dependence, in turn, can further diminish state capacity. Furthermore, a ‘failing’ state's ability to guarantee personal security, property rights and laws is often compromised, leading to the gradual privatization of violence between predatory and defensive elements within society. Individuals rely on kinship-based groups and local warlords for security and public good provision; this in turn heightens the risk of civil war as society descends towards an anarchical, Hobbesian, state of nature. In the contemporary developing world the lack of fiscal/state capacity enhances civil war risk as demonstrated by Fearon and Laitin (2003); civil war, in turn, may further attenuate fiscal capacity by destroying pre-existing fiscal institutions that used to garner revenues for the state. Thus, the lack of state capacity increases the risk of civil war.

Over a few days this past summer, as I was putting the finishing touches to this book, my daughter developed a pain in her left foot after having twisted her ankle. As the pain persisted we went to see a doctor. In the waiting room at the local clinic I took note of the fact that seven of the ten doctors in the corridor had foreign names, three of which were Muslim. I have seen doctors from both Iraq and Romania at this clinic, which was no coincidence given that Iraqi and Romanian doctors make up two of the largest groups within the cohort of foreign-born doctors in Sweden. More than 30 per cent of all doctors in Sweden are born abroad, and in the case of Iraqi doctors most of them arrived as refugees in the noughties. My daughter was examined by a doctor from Germany – another major sending country – who swiftly referred her to the main hospital for an X-ray.

We took a taxi to the hospital, and here as well the person servicing us was foreign-born, maybe from Syria. Around a half of Sweden's taxi drivers are foreign-born and the great majority have come as refugees. The driver dropped us off at the emergency room entrance, and from there we had to ask for directions to the X-ray department. We were helped by a doctor and nurse who came walking our way. Judging from their ID badges it seemed as if the doctor was from an African country and the nurse from a Middle Eastern country. In all likelihood, the nurse who took care of my daughter in the X-ray department was also from a country in the Middle East.

Luckily, the X-ray indicated no fracture (a couple of days later the pain was gone), and so we headed for the bus stop to go home. There was a bus sitting at the kerb, but the driver told us that it would take a while before it would depart. With my daughter in some pain we decided to take a taxi again. This time our driver might have been from Somalia; the same probably applied to the bus driver.

In a European survey conducted by the French think tank Fondapol in 2017, respondents were asked to consider the following statement: “It is our duty to welcome in our country refugees fleeing war and poverty.” Sixty-four per cent of those surveyed “agreed with or strongly agreed with” this statement. Given the anti-immigration climate following in the wake of the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, this should strike the reader as surprisingly high. But the survey also included another statement: “We cannot let in more refugees because that would harm the country's economy.” Curiously, 61 per cent of the survey respondents also “agreed with or strongly agreed with” this statement (Fondapol 2017).

In this book, I argue that we must come to terms with this contradiction if we are to gain a proper understanding of the so-called refugee crisis in 2015– 16 and the persistence of the migration issue's political explosiveness in Europe. For one, it seems safe to say that the future existence of international protection in the European Union will come to hinge on the resolution of what we may call a clash of moral and fiscal imperatives. That is to say, although many people still think that we have a moral duty to protect “refugees fleeing war and poverty”, the majority are also convinced that society cannot afford to realize this duty. Were we to leave out the part about refugees “harm[ing] the country's economy” and instead simply ask people whether they agree or disagree with a statement such as “Refugees and refugee reception constitute a net cost, at least in the short term”, then I am certain that close to 100 per cent of respondents would agree.

The reason I feel confident of such an outcome is that practically all politicians, news media outlets and scholars subscribe to the view that refugees constitute a net cost or a fiscal burden. This does not mean that they necessarily have anything against refugees or migration in general. It just means that they are all convinced that certain types of migrants weigh on the public purse, at least initially.

In the previous chapter I sketched the broad contours of the European Union's approach to external labour migration. In this chapter I will provide a more detailed description and analysis of the EU's legislation and actually existing policy in the area. As already clarified, the EU's supranational influence on external labour migration policy is very limited. Nevertheless, over the past couple of decades the European Commission has managed to get concrete policy on the ground, backed by a set of binding EU directives. These directives are the fruits of drawn-out negotiations and compromises between member states and EU institutions. As such, they help us ascertain the common denominators and conceptions underwriting the Union's external labour migration policy. Indirectly, they also help us get a sense of the stakes involved in national policy-making on labour migration.

Rather than following the common approach of mainly attending to the many and deep disagreements within the European Union on external labour migration, what I will do here is to look for the common ground. In other words, I try and answer the question: what are the consensual views that have made the actually existing common policy possible in the first place? Instead of getting stuck on the obstacles to common policies, then, I will focus on the enablers. I will do that not only to understand the dynamic and logic of the EU's ELM policy but also because I am convinced that these enablers offer us important clues as to what it is that disables the EU from working out an asylum policy focused on reception rather than prevention.

Of great significance, too, is the fact that the EU policy package contains both extremes in labour migration policy, as described in Chapter 4. That is to say, the EU has adopted policies covering both highly skilled (Blue Card) and unskilled labour migration (as part of a directive on seasonal migration). Consequently, a study of the EU's ELM directives also offers us the opportunity to analyse the differences with regard to the rights of welfare and residence that exist between the various categories of labour migrants.

No one can have failed to take note of the public debate and political manoeuvring over the fiscal impact of migration, in general, and of refugee migration, in particular. As one author puts it, “Fiscal impacts of immigration are one of the hottest and most controversial topics in recent debate on migration” (Kaczmarczyk 2015). “Objections to the perceived burden placed by immigrants on public finances,” another author observes, “seem to motivate much popular opposition to immigration” (Preston 2014: 569). “Is migration good for the economy?” is the title of an OECD paper that goes on to ask: “Benefit or burden – what's the reality” (OECD 2014: 1). Under the title “Are migrants good for the host country's economy?” yet another scholar observes: “Indeed, the impact of migration on the host country's economy is possibly the most crucial question that policy-makers have to answer. Furthermore, it is a question that can drive changes in immigration policies as well as ignite fervent debates in the media and other forms of public discourse” (Ratna 2016: 75; see also Vargas-Silva 2015).

According to Dustmann and Frattini (2014: 593), moreover, the public concern over “whether immigrants contribute their fair share to the tax and welfare systems […] is more important for individuals’ assessment of immigration policies than concerns about wages or employment”. As already noted, numerous surveys confirm this, with public attitudes heavily in favour of the notion that migrants burden the public purse and that they receive more welfare benefits than they help to finance (Dustmann & Frattini 2014: 593– 4; Preston 2014). In the Fondapol (2017) survey that I referred to in the previous chapter, an overwhelming majority of the respondents were not only of the opinion that refugees harm the economy; almost 90 per cent also said they were “worried” or “very worried” about “funding for social programs”. In addition, 77 per cent expressed these same sentiments over “government debt and deficits”.