scholarly journals How public opinion steers national immigration policies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Böhmelt
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Combine Information ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Significant Support ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Previous research suggests that client politics shape national migration laws in that they converge toward more liberal regulations. An examination of recently released cross-country data suggests, however, that there is little support for either convergence or generally more open policies. Trying to shed light on this empirical puzzle, I argue that democratic policymakers have incentives to listen to, and pursue policies that are favored by, the ‘unorganized’ electorate as well, since this maximizes their chances of staying in power. However, due to the influence of client interests that work against the public’s view on migration, a positive effect should only materialize under more salient circumstances, that is, when the inflow of foreign-born individuals is high. I analyze these expectations quantitatively using data that combine information on national migration policies with all European Social Survey rounds in 2002–2016. I find robust and significant support for public opinion influencing domestic immigration laws, but this effect only emerges with rather large migrant and refugee populations in the country.

The (Non)Impact of the 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks on Political Attitudes

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 838-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Castanho Silva
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Opinion Change ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

Previous research has consistently found widespread attitudinal impacts of terrorist attacks. Using data from the European Social Survey, which was conducting interviews in 11 countries when the Charlie Hebdo attacks happened in January 2015, I compare respondents from before and after the shootings to test whether the event shifted public opinion on several topics. There is no evidence of average impacts across a range of issues, from xenophobia to ideological self-placement and immigration policy preferences. Data collected when the Paris November 2015 shootings happened also present no evidence of public opinion change on immigration and refugee policy matters in France, but there appears to be an effect in other countries—which varies according to contextual vulnerability. Results suggest that views on immigration and immigrants have, to a certain extent, stabilized in Europe and are less susceptible to shifts from dramatic events.

scholarly journals Social Investment, Redistribution or Basic Income? Exploring the Association Between Automation Risk and Welfare State Attitudes in Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
MARIUS R. BUSEMEYER ◽  
ALEXANDER H. J. SAHM
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Rapid technological change – the digitalization and automation of work – is challenging contemporary welfare states. Most of the existing research, however, focuses on its effect on labor market outcomes, such as employment or wage levels. In contrast, this paper studies the implications of technological change for welfare state attitudes and preferences. Compared to previous work on this topic, this paper adopts a much broader perspective regarding different kinds of social policy. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find that individual automation risk is positively associated with support for redistribution, but negatively with support for social investment policies (partly depending on the specific measure of automation risk that is used), while there is no statistically significant association with support for basic income. We also find a moderating effect of the overall size of the welfare state on the micro-level association between risk and preferences.

Educational Homogamy Among Married and Unmarried Couples in Europe

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Hamplova
Keyword(s):  
Linear Models ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Educational Homogamy ◽  
Educational Barriers ◽  
Educational Groups ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Log Linear

In this article, educational homogamy among married and cohabiting couples in selected European countries is examined. Using data from two waves (2002 and 2004) of the European Social Survey, this article compares three cultural and institutional contexts that differ in terms of institutionalization of cohabitation. Evidence from log-linear models yields two main conclusions. First, as cohabitation becomes more common in society, marriage and cohabitation become more similar with respect to partner selection. Second, where married and unmarried unions differ in terms of educational homogamy, married couples have higher odds of overcoming educational barriers (i.e., intermarrying with other educational groups).

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Age and Happiness Varies by Income

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimiter Toshkov
Keyword(s):  
Income Distribution ◽  
Old Age ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe link between age and happiness has been the subject of numerous studies. It is still a matter of controversy whether the relationship is U-shaped, with happiness declining after youth before bouncing back in old age, or not. While the effect of age has been examined conditional on income and other socio-demographic variables, so far, the interactions between age and income have remained insufficiently explored. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article shows that the nature of the relationship between age and happiness varies strongly with different levels of relative income. People in the lowest decile of the income distribution experience a ‘hockey stick’: a deep decline in self-reported happiness until around age 50–55 and a small bounce back in old age. The classic U-curve is found mostly in the middle-income ranks. For people at the top of the income distribution, average happiness does not vary much with age. These results demonstrate the important role of income in moderating the relationship between age and happiness.

scholarly journals LEFT, RIGHT, AND ANTISEMITISM IN EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-371
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Е. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
European Public ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Antisemitism has long been found on both the political far-right and farleft. The recent rise in antisemitism worldwide raises the question of whether current antisemitism is found more with the far-right or far-left, the former a function of right-wing populism and the latter with what has been termed the new antisemitism. This paper uses data from the 2014 round of the European Social Survey in 20 nations to test for the connection between ideological selfplacement and antisemitic attitudes in mass publics. Analysis finds greater levels of antisemitism with the extreme far-right compared to the far-left, but extreme leftists appear slightly more antisemitic than moderate leftist. Further, there is less antisemitism than anti-Muslim and anti-Roma (Gypsy) attitudes at all positions on the left-right continuum. The conclusion puts the findings into context and suggests directions for future research.

scholarly journals Patterns of Trust and Subjective Well-Being Across Europe: New Insights from Repeated Cross-Sectional Analyses Based on the European Social Survey 2002–2016

2019 ◽  
Vol 148 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Glatz ◽  
Anja Eder
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Well Being ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Institutional Trust ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Positive Effect

Abstract This paper offers elaborate analyses regarding the effects of social- as well as institutional trust as parts of social capital on subjective well-being (SWB) by using data from the European Social Survey, including 36 countries and eight time-points between 2002 and 2016. We analyze (1) The development of trust and SWB on the aggregate level; (2) The effect of trust on SWB on the individual cross-sectional level; and (3) The longitudinal and cross-sectional effect of trust on SWB on the aggregate level while considering control variables based on previous research. We observe a weak positive trend regarding social trust as well as SWB over time, but no significant change in institutional trust. However, trends are far from homogeneous across countries. In accordance to previous studies, we find a positive effect of social trust on SWB. This effect holds on the individual cross-sectional level for every participating country, but also on the longitudinal level. In view of institutional trust, we see a positive effect on SWB on the individual and aggregate cross-sectional level, but not over time. Thus, this study particularly sheds new light on this relation, indicating that it´s cross-sectional relation is due to confounding variables. Moreover, we observe no relation between economic growth and SWB after controlling for unemployment, but a positive effect of decreasing unemployment and inflation on SWB. Our data suggests that establishing an environment with high social trust across Europe would be rewarded with a happy society.

scholarly journals Conservation motivation, social equality and left-right ideological preferences in Western and Eastern Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Márton Hadarics
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Great Part ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

We investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between conservation motivation (or openness) and personal ideological preferences on the left-right dimension, and how this relationship pattern differs between Western and Central & Eastern European (CEE) respondents. Using data from the European Social Survey (2012) we found that individual-level of conservation motivation reduces cultural egalitarianism in both the Western European and the CEE regions, but its connection with economic egalitarianism is only relevant in the CEE region where it fosters economic egalitarianism. Since both forms of egalitarianism were related to leftist ideological preferences in Western Europe, but in the CEE region only economic egalitarianism was ideologically relevant, we concluded that the classic “rigidity of the right” phenomenon is strongly related to cultural (anti)egalitarianism in Western Europe. At the same time, conservation motivation serves as a basis for the “rigidity of the left” in the post-socialist CEE region, in a great part due to the conventional egalitarian economic views.

scholarly journals Height is associated with more self-serving beliefs about wealth redistribution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Positive Association ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Upper Body ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Body Strength ◽  
Wealth Redistribution ◽  
Upper Body Strength ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Post Hoc

People vary widely in their attitudes towards how much their government should redistribute wealth. Evolutionary theory may shed light on why this variation occurs. Numerous studies have established an association between upper body strength and attitudes towards equality and wealth redistribution in males, showing that physically stronger men are more likely to hold self-serving beliefs on these issues. This effect is typically weaker or absent in women. A question that has received little attention is whether there are similar associations between other aspects of formidability and attitudes towards wealth redistribution. One such aspect is height. I tested this prediction using data from the European Social Survey, in a sample of 27031 people from 20 European countries. Results show that taller people are more likely to have self-serving attitudes towards government redistribution of wealth. The result was robust to numerous control variables and alternative model specifications, but the direct effects of height were small. Taller individuals were less supportive of government wealth redistribution overall, but were especially averse if they were also wealthier. Post-hoc analyses suggested that for lower income deciles, the association was reversed. For these people, there was a positive association between height and support for wealth redistribution. However, effects were equally strong in males and females, and so are not fully consistent with current evolutionary psychological theories of resource distribution.

scholarly journals Leftists possess more national consensus in Europe in one of two datasets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark John Brandt ◽  
Anthony Aron ◽  
Megan Parker ◽  
Cristina Rodas ◽  
Megan Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Politics ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Ideological Differences ◽  
National Consensus ◽  
Using Data

A regularity in US American politics is that liberals have more policy consensus than do conservatives, and both ideological groups have more consensus than moderates (Ondish & Stern, 2018). The idea is that conservatives’ local conformity paradoxically results in less consensus than liberals at the national level. If this is the case, then the liberal consensus effect should also be observed in other countries. We test this using data from Europe. In the European Social Survey (Country N = 38, N = 376,129) we find that on average leftists have more consensus than do rightists; however, we do not find this using the Eurobarometer (Country N = 18, N = 375,830). In both data sources we also observe variation in ideological differences between countries. These results suggest that there is a liberal/leftist consensus effect that can be found in Europe and the United States, but there are also exceptions.

scholarly journals Immigration attitudes in the wake of the 2015 migration crisis in the Visegrád Group countries

Intersections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Cichocki ◽  
Piotr Jabkowski
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Visegrad Group

In the summer of 2015 the tensions over managing external immigration into the European Union morphed into a full-blown crisis. Political and social reactions towards the Balkan Route emergency exposed major divisions between EU member states. Notably, the Visegrád Group (V4) countries, i.e. Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, stood out as a block united by governmental opposition to immigration. This political unity of countries should not be interpreted, however, as certain proof for an underlying convergence of social attitudes to migration. This paper examines the impact of the crisis on the V4 public opinion on the basis of cross-country surveys, with special attention afforded to a comparative analysis of European Social Survey waves 7 (2014) and 8 (2016). General Linear Modelling is used to test two hypotheses concerning the linkage between opposition to immigration and normative orientations in Czechia, Hungary and Poland (with Slovakia missing from ESS7 and ESS8). We demonstrate that adherence to the values of Universalism corelates with lower levels of opposition to immigration, which had been the case prior to the 2015 crisis and has mostly remained true thereafter. When it comes to respondents expressing value-based concerns with Security, they are more likely to voice more negative opinions about immigration after the crisis, although no such association held in 2014 measurements. We postulate that this public opinion shift should be interpreted as an effect of the strong securitisation of the immigration debate in the V4 countries.

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