Faculty Publications

East Is West? National Feelings And Anti-Immigrant Sentiment In Europe

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Anti-immigrant sentiment, Civic-ethnic dichotomy, Cross-regional comparison, Eastern Europe, Exclusionary attitudes, Hierarchical linear modeling, National feelings, Western Europe

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Social Science Research

Volume

37

Issue

4

First Page

1147

Last Page

1170

Abstract

This article challenges the conventional dichotomy between the civic-Western and ethnic-Eastern forms of national attachments and empirically explores the link between national feelings and anti-immigrant sentiment, as expressed by European publics. We use data from the 1995 and 2003 ISSP modules to: (1) expose the multidimensional nature of national feelings, and (2) investigate the cross-country variation in mean levels and inter-regional heterogeneity in the severity of effects on anti-immigrant sentiment for four dimensions of national feelings. The results show that there are important regional differences in the mean levels and effects exerted by the civic and ethnic national feelings at both points in time. Overall, these findings point to the limited relevance of the conceptual demarcation between the Western-civic and Eastern-ethnic types, as a trend of cross-regional convergence is rather strongly supported. We discuss the implications of the results within the broader context of post-communist transition and eastward enlargement of the European Union. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

Original Publication Date

12-1-2008

DOI of published version

10.1016/j.ssresearch.2008.01.002

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