United or divided in diversity? The heterogeneous effects of ethnic diversity on European and national identities

In this article, we argue that the size and cultural proximity of immigrant populations in people's residential surroundings shape national and European identities. This means that the type of migrant population activates cultural threat perceptions and opportunities for contact to varying degrees. Geocoded survey data from the Netherlands suggests that large non-Western immigrant shares are associated with more exclusive national identities, while mixed contexts with Western and non-Western populations show more inclusive identities. These results suggest that highly diverse areas with mixed immigrant populations hold a potential for more tolerance. In contrast, exclusive national identities become strongly pronounced under the presence of sizeable culturally distant immigrant groups.

Strategic Culture, Identity and the Shaping of Security Policy: A Comparative Study of Australia and New Zealand

<p>This thesis seeks to explain the roots of security thinking in Australia and New Zealand and what it argues has been a gradual divergence in the two countries' approaches to defence issues. Drawing upon constructivist international relations theory, it highlights the importance of ideational rather than material influences on policy formulation. It focuses on two key variables: strategic culture and identity, arguing that they provide significant clues as to the varying threat perceptions, policy preferences and the domestic values that underpin thinking on security matters in these two countries. By tracing the evolution of Australian and New Zealand defence policies over a long historical timeframe, the study identifies persistent cultural norms and preferences that explain policies seemingly difficult to reconcile with a materialist understanding of world politics. After providing a detailed comparison of the influences on defence thinking in each country, the study compares Australian and New Zealand perspectives on regional security in the Pacific and the rationales given for participating in the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2003. This thesis concludes that compared to a materialist approach, an examination which includes ideational variables such as strategic culture and identity better explains why the two countries have pursued divergent security paths and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the logic shaping thinking on defence issues in these two states.</p>

Strategic Culture, Identity and the Shaping of Security Policy: A Comparative Study of Australia and New Zealand

<p>This thesis seeks to explain the roots of security thinking in Australia and New Zealand and what it argues has been a gradual divergence in the two countries' approaches to defence issues. Drawing upon constructivist international relations theory, it highlights the importance of ideational rather than material influences on policy formulation. It focuses on two key variables: strategic culture and identity, arguing that they provide significant clues as to the varying threat perceptions, policy preferences and the domestic values that underpin thinking on security matters in these two countries. By tracing the evolution of Australian and New Zealand defence policies over a long historical timeframe, the study identifies persistent cultural norms and preferences that explain policies seemingly difficult to reconcile with a materialist understanding of world politics. After providing a detailed comparison of the influences on defence thinking in each country, the study compares Australian and New Zealand perspectives on regional security in the Pacific and the rationales given for participating in the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2003. This thesis concludes that compared to a materialist approach, an examination which includes ideational variables such as strategic culture and identity better explains why the two countries have pursued divergent security paths and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the logic shaping thinking on defence issues in these two states.</p>

Identity threats and ideas of superiority as drivers of religious violence? Evidence from a survey experiment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Religion has become increasingly contentious in recent years. Faith-based discrimination, hostility and violence seem to have increased worldwide. But how can faith lead to conflict? In this article, we test the impact of two important dimensions of religion that have been neglected in previous research: the belief in ‘one true religion’ and perceptions of threats by other religious groups. Putting these two potential drivers to the test, we conducted a representative survey experiment with 972 respondents in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Results show that one of the tested dimensions, perceptions of threats by others, increases the support to use violence to defend one’s own group. This is particularly the case for religiously intolerant respondents with characteristics such as pre-existing threat perceptions, unfavorable views on intermarriage, or belief in the superiority of their own faith. In contrast, we find relatively weak evidence that the prime of ‘one true religion’ increases the readiness to use violence. Our findings have important implications for policy: We conclude that appeals by leaders to threats by others and intolerance toward other faiths can contribute to more conflict. Political and religious leaders should refrain from capitalizing on such notions and should promote tolerance towards other faiths instead.

Integration policies and threat perceptions following the European migration crisis: New insights into the policy-threat nexus

The link between integration policies and intergroup attitudes or threat perceptions has received considerable attention. However, no studies so far have been able to explore how this relationship changed following the European migration crisis due to a lack of recent comparative policy data. Using new MIPEX data, this is the first study to examine mechanisms underlying the policy-threat nexus following the European migration crisis, distinguishing between several strands of integration policies, and realistic and symbolic threat. To do so, we combine 2017 Eurobarometer data with 2017 Migrant Integration Policy data, resulting in a sample of 28,080 respondents nested in 28 countries. The analyses also control for economic conditions, outgroup size, and media freedom. Multilevel analyses indicate that respondents living in countries with more inclusive integration policies in general report lower realistic and symbolic threat. When investigating different policy strands, we find that inclusive policies regarding political participation and access to nationality for immigrants are associated with lower realistic and symbolic threat. We compare our findings to those from prior to the European migration crisis and discuss the potential role of this crisis in the policy-threat nexus.

The dynamics of attitudes toward immigrants: Cohort analyses for Western EU member states

Public opinion climates on immigrants are subject to certain dynamics. This study examines two mechanisms for such dynamics in Western EU member states for the 2002–2018 period. First, the impact of cohort replacement and, second, the impact of periodic threat perceptions, namely, changing macroeconomic conditions and shifts in immigration rates. To date, empirical research on anti-immigrant sentiments rarely combines these two concepts simultaneously to disentangle the interplay of period and cohort effects and determine the factors for long- and short-term attitude changes in societies. Motivated by this gap in the literature, I conduct multiple linear regression analyses of pooled data from all waves of the European Social Survey to show that the process of cohort replacement has led to a substantially more positive opinion climate toward immigrants since the 2000s. However, results indicate that in the future, this positive development is likely to come to a halt since younger cohorts no longer hold significantly more immigrant-friendly attitudes than their immediate predecessors. Furthermore, we observe different period effects to impact cohorts’ attitudes. Fixed-effects panel analyses show that the effect of changing macroeconomic conditions on cohorts’ attitudes is low. Changes in immigration rates, however, lead to significantly more dismissive attitudes when immigrants originate from the Global South as opposed to when they enter from EU countries. These insights suggest that it is less economic or cultural threat perceptions, but ethnic prejudice that plays a key role for natives to oppose immigration. Overall, findings suggest that it is not either cohort or period effects driving large-scale attitude changes, but rather we observe an interplay of both.

The East–West Divide Revisited 30 Years On

Thirty years after the end of the Cold War and the division of the continent, are we witnessing a renewed east–west divide in Europe? Fifteen years following the enlargement of the European Union to countries of central and eastern Europe, are we witnessing mere political differences or is there an emerging divergence between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU member states on issues as fundamental as democracy and the rule of law? The triggering of Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty against Poland and Hungary suggests the latter. This is the interpretation favoured in the media or in declarations of political figures on both sides of a newly restored dividing line. In the west, it tends to be perceived as a challenge to the European project and sometimes even as a justification for reservations regarding the very idea of the EU’s eastward expansion. In the Visegrád Group, there are claims of being treated as second-class members of the EU and resentment of alleged double standards and interference from Brussels, sometimes compared to pre-1989 control from Moscow. How can this triple divide on democracy, migration, and societal issues—three aspects of European liberalism—be accounted for after a quarter-century of unprecedented economic, political, and institutional convergence? One place to start is the misunderstandings concerning the process and meaning given to the post-1989 EU integration process (‘enlargement to the east’ or ‘European unification’). Different security concerns and threat perceptions (east versus south) also remain an obstacle in shaping a Common Foreign and Security Policy. There are deeper historical and cultural differences, the understanding of which is important to avoid recent divisions becoming fault lines. Finally these trends should be understood not as irreconcilable differences, but as a specific and acute version of a transeuropean crisis of democracy.