Social Trust and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Europe: A Longitudinal Multi-Level Analysis.

Jeffrey Mitchell

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2021.604884

Abstract

Research investigating how social conditions influence attitudes about immigrants has focused primarily on demographic and economic factors as potential threat inducing contexts that lead to anti-immigrant sentiment. However, the empirical evidence supporting this link is mixed, while social cohesion indicators such as the influence of social trust, have largely been left unexamined. This article uses the European Social Survey (2002–2016) to test how differences in social trust, both within and between countries influence attitudes about immigrants. Results from longitudinal analyses show that countries with higher levels of social trust have more favorable attitudes toward immigrants, and while changes in social trust over time are small, they result in comparably large changes in anti-immigrant attitudes, even when controlling for other social factors. These results are robust across different model specifications and data sources.

Highlights

There has been a considerable amount of literature dedicated to attitudes about immigrants, often looking for relationships between different social contexts and differences in attitudes in societies
It is becoming more common to apply trust at the country level to test associations with other aspects of society including environmental attitudes (Fairbrother, 2016), support for the welfare state (Edlund, 2006), and health (Kim et al, 2011). Both the importance that the threat literature places on non-material contexts, and the import role societal trust plays in relation to other aspects of society leads to the question: Are more trusting societies more welcoming toward immigrants? do changes in the level of trust within societies translate to more or less friendly attitudes toward immigrants? This study addresses these questions by analyzing macro-level generalized trust indicators both within and between societies using multi-level analysis of eight waves of the European Social Survey between 2002 and 2016
This is a confirmation of hypothesis one, which is to say that people who are more trusting than their peers in their country, during the time of survey report less prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants

Summary

Introduction

There has been a considerable amount of literature dedicated to attitudes about immigrants, often looking for relationships between different social contexts and differences in attitudes in societies. Much of this attention is guided by what has grown to be known as group threat or realistic conflict theory. Few articles have analyzed how changes in non-material contexts might increase threat, and as the theory suggests, prejudice. This article advocates for a return to Blumer’s writing on prejudice, and makes a case for a dynamic interpretation of the theory that focuses on how non-material contexts such as social trust, and changes in those contexts, influence prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants in society

Methods

Results

Conclusion