Protecting Us, Protecting Europe? Public Concern about Immigration and Declining Support for European Integration in Italy

Abstract

This article investigates the effect of immigration on attitudes towards Europe in Italy. This question resonates throughout the European Union (EU), but does so particularly in Italy – one of EU's most exposed external borders, especially under recent global challenges such as the economic crisis and the Arab Spring. Over the last two decades, Italy received more than four million migrants and refugees, which has put immigration on top of the political agenda ever since. Using data from the European Values Study (EVS), we find that concerns about immigration, especially in the context of the economic crisis of 2007, is a factor of declining support for European integration and that these effects vary across regions. In particular, we demonstrate the mediating effect of context by showing that the effect of being concerned about immigration is more corrosive for support in regions with higher immigration rates than in regions with lower rates.