Racist views in contemporary European societies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This attitudinal study examines racism – conceptualized as a general belief in a hierarchical order of racial/ethnic groups – from a comparative cross-national perspective. The study develops theoretical arguments regarding individual and country-level explanations of racist views and tests them using ESS data. It demonstrates that racist views are not rare in Europe, yet their extent varies substantially across countries. In societies with lower levels of social cohesion, citizens are more likely to adopt racist views, as compared to societies with higher levels of social cohesion. Although a country’s economic inequality is not associated with the prevalence of racist views, inequality does seem to condition the impact of gender on such views. In more economically unequal countries, the gender gap in racist views – where men express higher levels of racist views – is greater than in more economically equal countries. No association between ethnic diversity and levels of racist views was found.