EUROPEAN PUBLIC
OPINION AND MIGRATION:
ACHIEVING COMMON
PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
Tamás BOROS
Marco FUNK
Hedwig GIUSTO
Oliver GRUBER
Sarah KYAMBI
Hervé LE BRAS
Lisa PELLING
Timo RINKE
Thilo SCHOLLE
Luigi TROIANI
EUROPEAN PUBLIC
OPINION AND MIGRATION:
ACHIEVING COMMON
PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
Published by:
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Website: www.fes.de/en/displacement-migration-integration/
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Copyright © 2019 by FEPS, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung,
Fondazione Pietro Nenni, Fondation Jean Jaurès
Edited by: Marco Funk, Hedwig Giusto, Timo Rinke, Olaf Bruns
English language editor: Nicole Robinson
This study was produced with the financial support of the European Parliament
Cover picture : Shutterstock
Book layout: Triptyque.be
This study does not represent the collective views of FEPS, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Fondazione
Pietro Nenni or Fondation Jean Jaurès, but only the opinion of the respective author. The responsibility of FEPS, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Fondazione Pietro Nenni and Fondation Jean Jaurès is
limited to approving its publication as worthy of consideration for the global progressive movement.
EUROPEAN PUBLIC
OPINION AND MIGRATION:
ACHIEVING COMMON
PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
Table of contents
Introduction - Marco Funk, Hedwig Giusto and Timo Rinke ........................................... 7
Hungary: A no-go zone for migrants - Tamás Boros .......................................... 15
Swimming upstream? Attitudes towards
immigration in Austria and the electoral implications
for progressive politics - Oliver Gruber .................................................................................. 35
Immigration policies and electoral
behaviour in Italy - Luigi Troiani ....................................................................................................... 59
Migration and public opinion:
The case of Germany - Thilo Scholle ........................................................................................ 77
Attitudes in France towards migration - Hervé Le Bras .............................. 101
Sweden: Give people reasons for hope - Lisa Pelling .............................. 129
The political backlash: Scotland within
the context of the United Kingdom - Sarah Kyambi ....................................... 163
Recommendations ..................................................................................................................................... 185
Contributors ........................................................................................................................................................... 191
6
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Introduction
MARCO FUNK, HEDWIG GIUSTO AND TIMO RINKE
Attitudes towards migrants are difficult to grasp – but they are less
divided than populists would have us believe. Nevertheless, an
increasing number of Europeans feel uneasy about people who
escape poverty and violence in search of a decent and safe life
far away from their home. This European uneasiness is expressed
in fears that range from unfair competition in the labour market
and reduced access to social services in the host countries to the
perceived threat posed by migrants to national identities, ethnic
homogeneity and security. The aim of this book is to try and shed
light on the paradox that the disadvantaged and marginalised represent an imminent threat to our societies. It also aims to explain
the origin of a political short circuit that is affecting public opinion
right across Europe and impacting on electoral results, political
dynamics and immigration policies in many EU member states.
This anti-migrant backlash is altering – sometimes dramatically –
the balance of power between mainstream parties and so-called
populist and extremist ones. It is even changing the face and soul
of the European Union.
Changes in people’s and governments’ attitudes towards immigration, from being (more or less) open to being (more or less) closed
and vice versa, are far from being infrequent. What is noteworthy
is the unprecedented extent to which the topic has become central in national and European debates. At international level, this
change of attitude emerged in the decision last year of five countries (three of which European) not to adopt the Global Compact
for Migration, promoted by the United Nations, disavowing two
years of negotiations and rejecting the first attempt ever to define
a common framework of reference for the international community on how to approach this complex issue of migration and
advance the establishment of a real and effective global governance of the phenomenon. At European level, we have observed a
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
7
growing inability – that indeed is tantamount to a stalemate – by
the member states to make decisive steps in the urgent reform
of the Dublin regulation, as well as in other migration and asylum
policies, except those aimed at border controls and the reduction
of irregular arrivals.
European progressive parties have been the ones hardest hit by
these developments. They are torn between their desire to stand
for their values of solidarity and respect for human rights and dignity regardless of nationality, skin colour or religion, and their mission
to stand for the rights and grievances of workers (often the social
class that feels particularly threatened by migration). The decline of
European progressive parties cannot of course be ascribed entirely to the migration issue. Indeed, their crisis started much earlier
and is connected to the broader loss of popular support for traditional parties and organisations. Yet there can be no doubt that for
the last couple of years the question of migration has dominated
headlines and debates all over Europe, has contributed to increasing polarisation in European politics and societies, has weakened
pro-European stances across the continent and has tempted many
progressive parties into adopting an increasingly restrictive attitude
towards migration in order to prevent the further alienation of their
voters and re-gain electoral support.
Against this backdrop the Foundation for European Progressive
Studies, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the Fondazione Pietro Nenni
and the Fondation Jean Jaurès have promoted the analysis of this
change of public opinion in seven EU member states: Hungary,
Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
These case studies have been selected because they offer a representation of a wide range of histories and experiences in the
field of immigration, are characterised by different national political
contexts and have been impacted in different ways and to different extents by higher levels of immigration in recent years. The
order in which the studies are presented roughly reflects the current approach of the respective governments towards migration,
8
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
from the most repressive extreme to more positive attitudes.
Starting from the analysis of how public opinion towards migration
has changed in these countries in the last five years, the aim of
this book is to provide recommendations for national progressive
parties that are struggling to find ways to deal with such a delicate
issue without betraying their basic principles and values. A further step was the identification of commonalities among the case
studies in order to define a possible joint strategy for European
progressive parties.
In the spectrum of the European countries under analysis, Hungary
certainly represents the one with the most extreme and restrictive
positions on migration; positions that have their roots in the fact
that the country and its population have so far experienced very little immigration and that Fidesz, the ruling party, has exploited and
strengthened the deep-rooted sentiments of “caution, antipathy
and occasionally outright xenophobia” of the Hungarian population by means of a relentless anti-migration propaganda campaign
(facilitated by the tight control on media exerted by the government), in fact aimed at domestic political gains. In his analysis on
developments within Hungarian public opinion, author Tamás
Boros underlines the small role played by left-wing parties that
have not developed a genuine counter narrative but have limited
their actions to highlighting the security aspects of the phenomenon and the role of the EU, while condemning the “government’s
hate-mongering”. Boros recognises that in the present circumstances, sustaining a position diametrically opposed to that of the
government and of the large majority of the population would not
produce positive effects, and he therefore underlines the fact that
offering global and European solutions to a global question would
probably be the most effective strategy.
More multifaceted is the situation in Hungary’s neighbour Austria,
where immigration is not a recent phenomenon but goes back decades and where the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) has
long struggled on how best to approach it in a context of increasingly
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
9
strong anti-immigration and xenophobic parties. In the case
of Austria, Oliver Gruber points out that the Social Democratic
Party’s temptation to follow the trend and adopt anti-immigration
stances has not paid off in political and electoral terms. Instead,
a more authentic and proactive progressive attitude, presented
as the alternative to right-wing positions, would better serve the
party’s goals.
As in Austria, the political context has changed on the other side
of the Alps, in Italy, too, under the pressure of effective anti-immigration propaganda by right-wing parties (mainly the League)
and due to a strong increase in migrant arrivals between 2015
and 2017. According to author Luigi Troiani, the lack of a coherent
and efficient immigration policy and the unpreparedness of the
centre-left government to receive such a great inflow of migrants
and refugees, coupled with the Partito Democratico’s inability to
interpret the needs and wants of its electorate, largely contributed
to a dramatic shift of views in public opinion and the overwhelming victory of populist parties in the last national election in March
2018. A precondition for the success of left-wing parties in Italy
would be a better understanding of the feelings of abandonment
and frustration that characterise their electorates, as well as a
broad campaign aimed at informing and reducing the prejudice of
Italians against foreigners.
In his chapter on Germany, a country with a longer history of immigration, Thilo Scholle argues that immigration has been and still
is an important political issue, but that it is far from being the only
one and has not been the single decisive factor in electoral campaigns. Indeed, he suggests that “the debate about immigration
is probably largely a proxy for other political questions and feelings of uncertainty about the future of society and social welfare”.
Recognising these feelings, and shifting the focus from cultural
differences framed as “us versus them” to the actual possibility of
effective integration, would help defuse the anti-migration sentiment of parts of the left-wing electorate, which is more sensitive
10
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
and more permeable to these arguments than the right-wing.
Such a communication strategy, however, must be accompanied
by concrete social and economic policies aimed at reducing the
impression that the local population and newcomers are in competition for the same scarce social and economic resources.
Like Germany, France is another EU member state that has experienced large migratory inflows since the 1950s (but, compared
to the other case studies, it experienced fewer arrivals during the
so-called refugee crisis). Its main xenophobic party is among the
oldest in Europe, as it was founded as early as 1971. Nevertheless,
the distribution of Rassemblement National voters in the country
and that of migrants show a lack of correlation between xenophobic attitudes and direct contact with immigrants. Hervé Le Bras’
chapter on France analyses these geographical distributions as
well as the fluctuations of public opinion on migration over the
last five years, and underlines that such fluctuations are often
linked to tragic or shocking events and are therefore short-term.
On this premise, the author concludes that correct information
on migration in its different forms is essential in order to allow
better understanding both of the phenomenon itself and of people’s motives for voting. Moreover, Le Bras advocates the need
for more democratic participation in the decision-making that concerns the community – both for locals and newcomers.
Polls in Sweden have also recorded a relative increase in support for an anti-immigration and xenophobic party, the Sweden
Democrats, and the relative loss of support for the Social
Democrats. In the last national elections (September 2018), the
Swedish Social Democrats obtained their lowest percentage of
votes since 1918 but nevertheless managed to form a coalition government in January 2019. Starting from the premise that Sweden,
unlike other EU member states, is doing quite well in economic
as well as social terms, that it has a relatively large foreign-born
population and that in general terms anti-immigration sentiment
has been declining despite the increase in migrants, author Lisa
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
11
Pelling tries to explain the reason for the Sweden Democrats’
electoral success. She outlines some concrete suggestions for
Social Democrats in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe, highlighting the need to avoid any temptation to adopt repressive rhetoric
and policies that clearly belong to the right. At European level she
suggests that “a progressive strategy must be based on a longterm vision of Europe as a welcoming continent, which is open to
legal, orderly and safe migration”.
The chapter on the United Kingdom authored by Sarah Kyambi
differs from the others illustrated not only because of Brexit being
imminent, but because debate in the country, unlike in the rest
of the EU, has been mostly dominated by the issue of labour
migration. This chapter focuses largely on Scotland in order to
underline the differences between it and the rest of the UK in its
approach to immigration. The political debate about migration in
Scotland tends to be more positive than elsewhere in the United
Kingdom, and the Scottish government, mostly driven by considerations about demographic decline, has successfully supported
a more open approach to immigration. This leads Kyambi to assert
that progressives should not be afraid to voice the positive impact
that immigration can have on receiving societies and economies.
In fact, they should explain that immigration can help solve some
of the challenges facing ordinary citizens.
This book concludes with a set of short recommendations to
European progressive parties that are the result of the joint work
of the authors and editors. Over the course of a year-long project,
they met several times to discuss and reflect, among themselves
and with other experts, on each of the case studies here illustrated. The recommendations reflect the commonalities between the
different cases that emerged and have been drafted keeping the
upcoming European elections in mind. However, they also strive to
be a broader point of reference that may prove to be useful beyond
the next election and provide political parties with some tools for
dealing with an issue that will remain central in the years to come.
12
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
13
14
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Hungary: A no-go zone for migrants
TAMÁS BOROS
The nature of Hungarian political and public debates about migration differs from the debates in western Europe. Hungary has
traditionally experienced low levels of immigration, and thus until
the refugee crisis of 2015, the average Hungarian citizen was only
liable to encounter a few tens of thousand Chinese immigrants
and ethnic Hungarians who moved here from the neighbouring
countries where substantial Hungarian minorities continue to live.
The lack of a colonial history, the wariness towards foreigners
stemming from the Hungarian historical experience – from the
16th century, the country was occupied by the Ottomans (Turks),
the Austrian Habsburgs, the Nazi Germans and the Soviet army,
respectively – along with the country’s linguistic isolation and
low levels of interaction with the residents of other countries, all
combine to make Hungarians think of their society as one that is
closed and rejects foreigners.
This general sense of caution, antipathy and occasionally outright
xenophobia might have been open to some degree of modulation
and change – if after 2015 there had been a discernible political will to that effect, in conjunction with a vibrant and free press,
or a pro-refugee civic organisation or church with strong social
embeddedness. But the government saw communication and
political opportunities in the refugee crisis, which it could use to
boost its own popularity. To this end, it launched an anti-immigration propaganda campaign that cost hundreds of millions of euros,
drafted and passed legal amendments aimed at debilitating the
work of NGOs that help refugees, and – exploiting the fact that
some 80% of media are dominated by the governing party – stymied any reasonable dialogue about the refugee issue, arguing
that the only split that existed in Hungarian society was the dividing line between pro-immigration traitors and patriots who want to
defend Hungary from foreigners.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
15
In this political and media environment, the Hungarian public did
not have the opportunity to genuinely weigh up what actual benefits and disadvantages the impact of migration could yield, it
did not have the option of drawing on personal experience in
deciding whether accepting refugees would indeed cause the
massive problems propagated by the government, nor was
there any opportunity to consider the various moral and international law obligations concerning refugees. These decisions
were rendered by the government instead of by the citizens.
Subsequently, a hitherto inconceivable propaganda campaign,
spanning for years, was put in motion to make the population
believe that the total rejection of refugees had in fact been its
own, that is, the public’s, decision.
As a consequence, great caution needs to be applied in juxtaposing the current attitude of the Hungarian public towards migration
with the climate of opinion that prevails on this issue in other
countries that have more pluralistic media landscapes. We must
keep in mind that the opportunities available to progressives in
Hungary differ substantially from the range of options available to
progressive parties in western European liberal democracies. At
the same time, as we look around and observe the surge in the
number of countries that follow the ‘Hungarian model’ – from Italy
to Poland – the analysis can yield important insights for the other
member states of the EU as well.
The context: Immigrants and refugees in Hungary
Compared to other EU member states, the ratio of immigrants
in Hungary is exceedingly low, less than 2% of the population
of 9.8 million. This continues to hold even though the number
of foreign citizens staying in Hungary has grown by over 21,000
persons since 2014. Back in 2014, the number of foreigners residing in Hungary stood at over 140,000. By 2018, this number had
surpassed 160,000. However, a significant portion of immigrants
were born in the neighbouring countries (most of which are in the
16
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
EU) and were ethnically Hungarian. Although their number has
dropped by 8,000 over the past four years, Romanians (who predominantly hail from the ethnic Hungarian community in Romania)
continue to make up the largest national contingent of immigrants.
While in 2014 over 30,000 Romanians resided in Hungary, by 2018
their number had dropped to slightly over 22,000. The drop in
their numbers is presumably also a result of the fact that Romanian
citizens with Hungarian ancestry can apply for dual citizenship,
and thus many have obtained Hungarian ID and no longer count
as foreigners.
In recent years, there has been substantial growth in the number of
Chinese who reside in Hungary. In 2016, they became Hungary’s
second largest foreign diaspora, after ethnic Hungarians from
Romania. Their numbers have increased by over 50% since 2014,
and today, in 2018, almost 20,000 Chinese people live in Hungary.
The Asian community, including the Chinese, boasts the biggest
growth among Hungary’s immigrant communities; their numbers
have expanded by more than 15,000 over the past four years and
there were nearly 45,000 Asians in Hungary in 2018. Germans
make up the third biggest expatriate community, but their numbers have declined somewhat and there are now 790 fewer of
them than four years ago. At the same time, roughly two-thirds of
immigrants in Hungary, some 100,000 people, are European citizens, and half came here from countries that border on Hungary.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
17
Table 1: Foreign citizens residing in Hungary (Total population of Hungary: 9 778 000)
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Total: Europe
101,538
100,501
105,825
99,194
104,254
By country: Romania
30,924
28,641
29,665
24,040
22,747
Serbia
3,051
2,430
2,426
2,312
3,356
Ukraine
8,317
6,906
6,749
5,774
10,503
Germany
18,669
18,773
19,403
18,627
17,879
Poland
1,863
1,964
2,129
2,061
1,928
Russia
3,657
4,341
4,935
4,903
4,790
Slovakia
8,275
8,744
9,393
9,519
9,652
Croatia
650
831
1,012
1,064
1,221
Austria
3,917
3,990
4,007
4,021
3,743
28,832
33,868
39,238
39,937
44,692
By country: China
12,716
16,467
19,811
19,111
19,905
Total: America
5,102
6,008
5,408
5,397
5,891
By country:
United States
3,021
3,090
3,299
3,198
3,373
Total: Africa
4,492
4,985
5,513
5,985
6,334
572
606
622
619
638
140,536
145,968
156,606
151,132
161,809
Total: Asia
Total: Australia and
Oceania
Total
Source: Hungarian Central Statistical Office, https://www.ksh.hu/stadat_eves_1, retrieved 15
September 2018.
18
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Due to the low number of immigrants in Hungary and their comparatively high level of cultural homogeneity (two-thirds hail from
a European cultural background), it was not only the sheer number
of refugees that was a novelty for Hungarian society in 2015, but
also their country of origin and their religion. In the first year of the
crisis, in 2015, over 177,000 asylum applications were submitted
in Hungary. The number of refugee seekers declined substantially
in 2016, partly as a result of the EU-Turkey agreement, and partly
because of the stricter Hungarian legislation and the border fence
erected at Hungary’s southern frontier. In 2016, the Hungarian
authorities received fewer than 30,000 such petitions, a figure
that was even lower than the pre-crisis level of 2014. In 2017, a
mere 3,397 applications were submitted, which means that the
number of asylum requests dropped back to the level experienced
in the early 2000s. In other words, Hungarians have basically not
had the opportunity to encounter refugees personally in any form
since 2015. It is almost exclusively the pro-government media,
the government propaganda, and the continuous extension of
Hungary’s state of emergency due to the ‘migration threat’, that
create the impression there is an ongoing crisis in Hungary.
This is especially seen by the fact that the numbers of refugees
whose asylum requests were granted did not even remotely
reflect the vastly increased mass of asylum seekers. In every year
investigated here, the number of those who were recognised as
refugees in Hungary ranged between 100-200 people. However,
there was a substantial rise in the number of those under subsidiary protection in 2017. Over 1,000 people were deemed eligible
for this status, which implies that even though they did not qualify
as refugees in the state’s assessment, the authorities decided that
if they were returned home they would be subject to such grave
potential harm that they should be entitled to subsidiary protection. In addition to these, between 2014 and 2016 the Hungarian
state gave 6-7 people annually a status of “tolerated”, and this
number surged to 75 in 2017. These are people who are neither
recognised as refugees nor entitled to subsidiary protection but
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
19
who nevertheless cannot be sent back to their own countries
because they might be subject to torture, inhumane treatment or
the death penalty there. As for their countries of origin, in 2014
most asylum seekers who arrived in Hungary came from Kosovo
(21,453), in 2015 the most frequent country of origin was Syria
(64,587), while in 2016 and 2017 this was Afghanistan (11,052 and
1,432 persons, respectively).
Table 2: Number of persons who arrived in Hungary as asylum seekers and
the number of those who received international protection (2014–)
Asylum seekers
Qualified for
refugee status
Qualified for
subsidiary
protection status
Qualified for
tolerated status
2014
42,777
240
236
7
2015
177,135
146
356
6
2016
29,432
154
271
7
2017
3,397
106
1 110
75
Source: Hungarian Central Statistical Office,
https://www.ksh.hu/stadat_eves_1, retrieved 15 September 2018.
This means that since the onset of the refugee crisis in 2015,
406 people have been recognised as refugees in Hungary, while
another 1,737 have received subsidiary protection and 88 have
qualified for the status of tolerated. In other words, when talking
about the government’s refugee policies, the total number of people affected is a few thousand.
In light of these figures it is hardly surprising that until as recently
as 2015 the political and public policy debates going back decades
in western Europe on the issues of immigration, the integration of
immigrants and their social situation, never took place in Hungary.
Although numerous NGOs worked and fought for the rights and
opportunities of the few thousand refugees in Hungary, until the
refugee crisis only a narrow circle of people with an interest in this
issue followed their work and the related questions. For none of
the Hungarian political parties (not even for the progressive ones)
20
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
was this issue particularly relevant, nor had they previously taken
any position on it. On the whole, therefore, the governing parties were alone in addressing this topic in 2015 and – as the next
chapter will show – this was a major factor in Hungarian society
coming to harbour the most vociferously anti-refugee attitudes in
the European Union.
The current situation: Attitudes towards immigrants in Hungary
The public perception of refugees, immigrants and the EU’s refugee policies are clearly determined by certain factors – which
were also discussed in previous sections – such as the historical
memory of Hungarians concerning their nation’s encounter with
foreign cultures and foreigners in general, the country’s linguistic
isolation, the low number of immigrants in Hungary, and the Orbán
government’s appropriation of the discourse concerning refugees
and their propagandistic use of the issue. The surveys conducted
by Eurobarometer clearly show that it is not only Hungarians who
reject migrants, but also the majority of citizens in all other eastern
European countries. An Iron Curtain still exists in this regard: the
division in the attitude towards migration can be observed even
within the former eastern and western part of Germany. There are
at least four different reasons for this phenomenon. First, none of
the eastern European countries were involved in the European colonisation between the 15th and the 20th century, and their nations
did not therefore build their economies on labour and raw materials from Africa or Asia. Second, as these countries were parts
of the Communist bloc after the second world war, they followed
a different strategy from the western European countries to deal
with the demographic challenges of the 1950s. In the communist
bloc (except the Soviet Union), no migrants from other continents
were let in to solve the problem of labour shortage, but alternative
policies were implemented, such as a ban on abortion, for example. Consequently, living and/or working together with people
from different religions, with a different skin colour and a different
culture, has been an unknown experience for most central and
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
21
eastern Europeans. Third, as poverty is still a real challenge in
this region, stability and security are more important values for
most citizens than change and freedom. And fourth, most people
in post-Communist countries believe that it is the task of the ‘rich
western Europeans’ to help refugees, not theirs.
In light of the above, it is hardly surprising that Hungarian society
unequivocally rejects immigrants: according to a Eurobarometer
survey1 almost two-thirds of Hungarian society (63%) believe that
immigration is a problem, a fifth of Hungarian society thinks it is
as much of a problem as it is an opportunity, while fewer than
one in every ten (9%) respondents believes that it is a positive
phenomenon overall. With these figures, Hungary ranks as the
most anti-immigration country in the European Union. To put the
Hungarian figures into perspective, 38% of EU citizens overall
think of immigration as a problem, 31% believe that it is as much a
problem as an opportunity, while every fifth respondent perceived
immigration from outside the EU to be more of an advantage.
Table 3: Do you think immigration from outside the EU is more of a problem or more of
an opportunity for (our country) today?
Immigration
is more of a
problem
Immigration
is equally
a problem
and an
opportunity
HU
63%
EU28
38%
Immigration
is more of an
opportunity
Immigration
is neither
a problem
nor an
opportunity
21%
9%
6%
1%
31%
20%
8%
3%
Don’t know
Source: European Commission, Special Eurobarometer:
Integration of immigrants in the European Union,
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/82537, retrieved 10 September 2018, p. 57.
22
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Respondents in Hungary were also rather sceptical regarding the
general integration of immigrants: the majority believed that most
immigrants have not been integrated successfully. The prevailing perception in Hungary also runs counter to the EU average.
Interestingly, in the EU overall respondents divided roughly in the
same proportions as in Hungary, except the majority and minority viewpoints in Hungary and the EU were exactly the reverse.
Just behind the Bulgarians and the Estonians, the opinions of
Hungarians on this issue are the least positive in the entire
European Union.
Table 4: Generally speaking, how successful or not is the integration of
most immigrants living in (our country)
On the whole, integration
is successful
On the whole, integration
is not successful
Don’t know
HU
37
53
10
EU28
54
40
6
Source: European Commission, Special Eurobarometer:
Integration of immigrants in the European Union, p. 205.
However, a substantial majority of Hungarian society (86%) have
no personal connection whatsoever to immigrants. Only every
tenth Hungarian (9%) has friends who are immigrants, 3% have
relatives who were born outside the EU, and 2% have migrants
both in their family and among their friends. These ratios lag far
behind the EU average, where 41% have some level of personal
relationship with immigrants. Moreover, even the existing relations of Hungarians with migrants tend to involve mostly ethnic
Hungarians born outside Hungary.
Apart from Hungarians, only Romanians and Bulgarians (91% and
92%, respectively), have little personal experience with people
born outside the EU. This means that anti-immigration sentiment
is most pervasive in Hungary, even if people in Hungary also
tend to be among those who have the least personal experience
with immigrants.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
23
Table 5: Please tell me which of the following statements best applies to you?
You have
friends who
are
immigrants
You have
both friends
and family
members
who are
immigrants
You have
family
members
who are
immigrants
None of
these
Don’t know
HU
9
2
3
86
0
EU28
27
9
4
59
1
Source: European Commission, Special Eurobarometer: Integration of immigrants
in the European Union, p. 204.
In Hungary, people tend to feel uncomfortable around immigrants
in general: almost three-quarters of Hungarians (73%) would feel
uncomfortable if they were in some type of personal relationship
with immigrants, and only 17% said that such a situation would not
constitute a problem for them. It can therefore be asserted that on
the whole Hungary ranks as the second least welcoming nation
for refugees after Bulgaria. At the same time, the data also show
that when it comes to immigration, the rate of rejection is highest in Hungary, ahead of Bulgaria. Among EU citizens, roughly a
third (34%) said they would feel uncomfortable in such a situation,
whereas over half said that close contact with immigrants would
not bother them.
Table 6: Would you personally feel comfortable or uncomfortable having an immigrant as your…
Manager, Work colleague, Neighbour, Doctor, Family member (including partner), Friend?
Uncomfortable
Comfortable
HU (total)
73
17
Don’t know
9
EU28 (total)
34
57
10
Source: European Commission, Special Eurobarometer:
Integration of immigrants in the European Union, p. 197.
Hungarians are also decidedly dissatisfied with the way the
European Union has handled the refugee crisis. With respect
to common European immigration policy, two camps of roughly
the same size emerge in Hungary: according to the most recent
Eurobarometer2 survey, 48% of Hungarians support and 49%
oppose EU-level migration policies. This lags far behind the EU
24
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
average, since on the whole a common European migration policy is supported by a two-thirds majority of the public in the 28
member states of the EU, while only a quarter of the public rejects
it. Hungarians are thus among those who are most opposed to
a common migration policy, with only the Czechs, Slovaks and
Estonians being less supportive.
Hungarians’ negative attitude towards migrants is also related to
the fact that the population views Muslims unfavourably in general.
Based on a comparative opinion poll conducted by Pew Research
in 2017, 72% of Hungarians see Muslims negatively, which was the
highest number among the ten countries where the research was
conducted.3 This number is almost three times higher than the
ones in France, Germany, or the UK.
The Hungarian public is also divided on the issue of what further
measures need to be taken against illegal migration: 39% believe
that this issue should be addressed only at the EU level, while one
third (35%) think it should be handled exclusively at the national
level. A further 21% believe that it should be handled jointly by the
EU and the member states. A mere 3% of the public believe that
no further measures are necessary, which implies that there is full
consensus in Hungarian society that the measures taken thus far
are insufficient. Incidentally, the Hungarian responses in this context fall near the average of the European public’s expectations
concerning EU measures (where 60% of Hungarians want some
level of European engagement, the EU average is 61%). Apart
from the Hungarians, the ratio of those who professed satisfaction
with the prevailing measures also stands at 3% among Estonians,
Maltese and Greeks.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
25
The Eurobarometer study about Europe’s future4 clearly indicates Hungarians’ support for strengthening Europe’s external
borders: when respondents were asked to select the two factors that would be most important for the future of Europe, the
second most frequent response (39%) after uniform standards
of living was strengthening the EU’s external borders. The ratio
of Hungarians who agreed the EU’s external borders should be
strengthened was the third highest after Austrian and Greek
respondents, while the EU average was a mere 23%. Interestingly,
only 12% of Hungarian respondents mentioned a common army,
which is roughly on a par with the European average.
The southern border fence is also popular with an overwhelming majority of Hungarians. According to a 2015 survey by the
Hungarian polling company Medián,5 support for the fence that was
under construction at the time stood at two-thirds, and the Nézőpont
Institute (a think tank and pollster with close ties to the Hungarian
government), found similar results: their research showed that 82%
of Hungarians wanted the border fence, and even 70% of opposition voters agreed it was necessary.6 Moreover, the EU’s policy
on the migration quota is also overwhelmingly rejected in Hungary.
In 2016, the Hungarian government initiated a referendum on this
issue, and despite the opposition parties calling for the boycott of
the vote and the referendum campaign being biased and dominated by the anti-migration propaganda of the government, 98% of
those people who cast a valid vote (and 41% of the total population)
rejected the migration quota. Only 2% supported the EU proposal. Most Hungarians considered the EU’s idea to be a violation of
Hungarian sovereignty,7 and even those who were more open to
accepting refugees believed that their compulsory resettlement
would not be the right step to solve this crisis.
On most migration-related issues, left-wing voters – the supporters of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) and of the Democratic
Coalition (DK) – are more open-minded and accepting of foreigners
than Fidesz voters. However, despite these differences large seg26
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
ments of the left-wing base agree with Fidesz’s anti-refugee and
anti-migrant policies. As mentioned previously, four-fifths of the
Hungarian public support the border fence erected on the southern
border to keep migrants out, which is the most important symbol of
Orbán’s refugee policies. Even though it is Orbán’s signature policy,
65% of the voters who support the Democratic Coalition and 49% of
MSZP voters also support the fence. Eight out of ten people (76%) in
the Hungarian public oppose the introduction of the EU quota system. Among opposition voters, this includes 50% of DK supporters
and 46% of MSZP supporters. On the whole, a hypothetical scenario in which foreigners with a different cultural background settle
near the interviewed citizens’ place of residence evoked deep fears
in 21% of MSZP voters and in 26% of DK voters. Among Fidesz’s
supporters, this ratio stood at 38%.
This fear is due not only to western European terror attacks but also
to the one-sided and exaggerated media presentation in Hungary
of the immigration situation. Hungarians’ attitudes towards migration are pre-eminently influenced by the pro-government media. In
the last few years, 93% of the news broadcast in the public media
has included some reference to the migration crisis, and 95% of the
reports have either provided information about or identified with
the government’s anti-immigration stance. The government also
spends around €50 million each year on anti-migration billboards,
television advertisements and Facebook campaigns.
Throughout all of this, the governing party’s anti-immigrant narrative has never been countered by any opposing narrative. While
western European centre-left parties have been staking out a
position on the migration issue for at least 50 years now, and in
fact have often emerged as the most popular parties among immigrants, their Hungarian sister parties did not address this issue
prior to 2015 because it was not seen as relevant in Hungary.
When the first refugees began to arrive at the time of the refugee
crisis, the largest left-wing party, the Hungarian Socialist Party, as
well as the Democratic Coalition, which had been founded as an
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
27
MSZP split-off, unequivocally professed their solidarity with those
in need. Both parties sharply criticised Viktor Orbán’s anti-refugee
campaign, along with the fence being built in the south and the
dismal state of refugee camps. As the crisis deepened, however,
and as it emerged that refugees were arriving in Hungary by the
hundreds of thousands, with the fever pitch of the government
anti-refugee campaign rising continuously, there was a growing
uncertainty among the left-wing parties as to whether they should
stick to their principles or to their voters. Finally, the parties
involved decided to stress the importance of Hungary’s security
while condemning the government’s hate-mongering.
Consequently, the Hungarian Socialist Party published its official
programme on migration under the name of Responsibility and
Security. In this paper, the Socialist Party emphasises that Hungary
should cooperate with the European Union – especially with its
agency, FRONTEX – and NATO in strengthening the European
external borders. The Sociality Party also stresses that it is committed to maintaining security and public order, but the rights and
human dignity of asylum-seekers should also be respected, and
their applications should be examined in a professional and unbiased manner.8
However, on the whole, the vast majority of left-wing voters
– despite being somewhat more sympathetic to the plight of refugees than their right-wing counterparts – agreed more with the
prime minister’s management of this issue than with the position
held by their own parties. At the same time, it is also true that the
left did not even make an attempt to convince its own voters to
change their basic attitudes on these issues. Instead, when faced
with the government’s steamroller campaign, they ended up toning down their pro-refugee rhetoric.
28
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Recommendations for progressive parties
The issue of migration has dominated Hungarian public discourse
for years now. Fidesz effectively campaigned on this issue alone
in the parliamentary election campaign of 2018 and won the unusually high turnout election with a share of 49%. As discussed
earlier, a substantial portion of left-wing voters also supported
Fidesz’s approach to the refugee issue, and as the focus group
studies prior to the election showed, there was only one public
policy decision taken by the Orbán government that voters who
are least sympathetic to the government overwhelmingly agreed
with: the fence on the southern border of Hungary. Nevertheless,
there are still some 30% of voters in Hungary who are open to
(or at least are not rejecting of) refugees and migrants. Given the
support of left-wing parties (MSZP: 9%, DK: 4 % among the entire
electorate), these 30% could provide an opportunity to appeal to
new voters through a more open and progressive communication
on immigration policy. However, even though these voters are
theoretically more open-minded when it comes to immigration,
the issue is not a priority for them. Thus, although they might find
a more refugee-friendly narrative – which differs from that of the
governing party – more appealing, this would not in and of itself be
enough to make them turn towards the party that embraces such
an approach. Unlike the voters who professed an open-minded
approach to immigration, the voters who reject it often view this
as an issue of life or death, and thus the position of the given party
on immigration may be decisive for them.
Moreover, in this massively tabloid-dominated, simplified media
environment, moderate, temperate messages cannot be successful. Obviously, for moral reasons the left cannot spout xenophobic
messages of the kind advanced by the Hungarian right – and it
would be neither credible nor politically beneficial. However, unequivocally embracing a stance that is diametrically opposed to
that proffered by the government – ie, an emphatically welcoming, pro-immigration policy – would run so drastically counter to
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
29
the majority view among its voters that such a change in the current course would be tantamount to political suicide.
In addition, part of this story is that – unlike in the majority of
western European countries – in reality there is no immigration
issue in Hungary. As has previously been seen, there are neither
immigrants nor refugees in any substantial number in the country.
There is, however, a general sense of uncertainty about the future,
a widespread fear of the unknown and a sense of panic concerning
the continuously ongoing changes in the world. For a significant
portion of Hungarians, the immigrants living and arriving in Europe
embody these threats: they represent unknown cultures, speak
unknown languages, and appear to be changing the previously
prevailing image of Europe. The last thing needed by someone
who is fearful of becoming poor, of losing their job and their status,
and of the runaway and constantly changing world wrought by
globalisation, is the perception that their customary environment
and culture are also undergoing radical change.
In central and eastern Europe, it is therefore up to the left to offer
a policy that can address these uncertainties, help the citizens
ensure that their everyday life is not dominated by fears of unpaid
bills, redundancies, growing social inequalities and deteriorating
healthcare services. Because for the time being, these concerns
and perceptions are dominant.9 This does not imply that the left
is off the hook with respect to coming up with answers to the
refugee issue. An approach that urges a supranational pan-European solution rather than national policies, and which embodies
solidarity with refugees while at the same time also rejecting economic migrants, would be acceptable for the central and eastern
European left, both morally and in terms of public appeal.
Three recommendations can thus be made regarding a progressive but at the same time popular and feasible communication on
migration in a politically hostile environment:
30
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
• The left should be tough on the causes of migration, not on
migrants. Mass migration is usually caused by injustice, inequality, lack of jobs, wars, famines, or global warming. These problems
are exactly those the left should fight against. Progressives could
talk about how they want to deal with these issues, what visions or
policy recommendations they have regarding inequalities, global
warming and wars, so they use exclusively a progressive (and
never a radical right) communication narrative about migration.
• Everyone accepts that migration is a global issue. Progressives
should emphasise that global questions – such as climate
change – cannot be solved on a national level. One of the reasons why nationalist politicians usually deny climate change is
because such a problem can only be solved on a global level –
which contradicts their national perspective. Progressives should
stress the importance of European cooperation as opposed to
nationalist solutions. A “Success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone” kind of sentence can convey a
pro-European message against the nationalist ones.
• We must recognise that most people in central and eastern
Europe demand more protection and not more changes. Progressives should therefore not keep on telling them that “migration
is inevitable”, “people must adapt to this new world”, “change/
migration is necessary”, etc. People reject those politicians who
go with the flow and who are unable to control political and economic processes.
However, all in all, it must also be acknowledged that the migration issue is the trump card of the populist right – the longer this
issue dominates European politics, the stronger the right-wing
parties will become. It is thus in the fundamental interest of the
left to steer public discourse back to its own issues: healthcare,
education, the situation of public services, growing social inequalities and low wages. This is all the more the case as in numerous
countries – including Hungary and Austria – the intense debates
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
31
about migration deflect voters’ attention from the fact that governments are pursuing economic policies that predominantly benefit
the (upper) middle-class, while the poorer and less educated strata are increasingly falling behind compared to the wealthiest. The
debate about migration is a communication trap laid by the populist right. This is definitely the case in central and eastern Europe,
but for the most part this also applies to western Europe – and the
left should try to steer clear of this. The left needs to come up with
public policy responses to the problems stemming from and related to immigration and the refugee crisis, but it also needs to make
sure that its policies and narratives do not centre on immigration
and refugees but its own traditional issues.
32
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Notes
1
European Commission, Special Eurobarometer: Integration of immigrants in the
European Union, http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/
ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/82537, retrieved 10 September 2018.
2
European Commission, Standard Eurobarometer 89, 2018, http://ec.europa.eu/
commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/
DocumentKy/83551, retrieved 10 September 2018.
3
M. Lipka, Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world, http://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/
muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/, retrieved 14
October 2018.
4
European Commission, Future of Europe, 2017, http://ec.europa.eu/
commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/
DocumentKy/8354, retrieved 3 September 2018.
5
Source: Median poll, http://www.webaudit.hu/object.
c38fa2c9-5bc2-40c9-ae38-bab515a5f172.ivy.
6
Nézőpont Intézet poll, http://nezopontintezet.hu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/
kutat%C3%A1s2.pdf.
7
The question of the referendum on the EU quota also related to this concern of
the Hungarians: “Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the
obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the
approval of the National Assembly?”.
8
Hungarian Socialist Party, Responsibility and Security, 2016, www.mszp.hu/
dokumentumok, retrieved 14 October 2018.
9
See the study entitled The Hungarian fear, https://www.policysolutions.hu/
userfiles/elemzes/288/9_hungarian_fears_eng_v2.pdf.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
33
34
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Swimming upstream? Attitudes towards
immigration in Austria and the electoral
implications for progressive politics
OLIVER GRUBER
Immigration has become one of the most divisive issues in contemporary Europe, influencing elections and reshaping the
structure of party competition in western and eastern Europe. It
is the vehicle for a politics of identity perfected by the political
right through effectively linking the changing patterns of immigration to the emotions of dissatisfied voters who fear a decline of
their status. This formula is tied to shifts in public opinion, allowing
right-wing populist positions to enter the political mainstream and
to alter the approaches of mainstream parties on the centre-right
and centre-left.
Austria’s location at the edge of eastern and western Europe makes
it a particularly interesting case for analysis. Traditionally being one
of the more immigration-sceptic countries in western Europe, in
response to the 2015 refugee policy crisis its political environment
and public opinion have shifted further to the right. Centre-right and
radical right political parties have positioned Austria as the closest western European ally of the Visegrad group on this issue. This
development has created an increasingly unfavourable environment for progressive political actors on migration, who are forced
to swim upstream against the current trend.
This chapter takes a closer look at the evolution of public opinion
patterns on immigration in Austria and their most recent changes.
It then focuses more specifically on the opinions and motives of
different voter groups in order to identify the political opportunities
for progressive parties on the centre-left with regard to immigration positions. It finally concludes with recommendations for a
progressive policy response to the current right-wing hegemony.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
35
The origins of a controversial public debate: Public opinion
and party competition on immigration since the 1990s
Austria is no stranger to the experience of larger immigration
movements. With several larger refugee flows from eastern
Europe, with the brief episode of the so called ‘guest worker’
regime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and then especially
with the fall of the iron curtain, Austria experienced a very large
increase in immigration during the cold war period. Since then
the influx to Austria had different origins: EU-internal immigration
(following the country’s accession to the EU), third country immigration from eastern and southern Europe (especially during the
Yugoslav Wars), and increasingly after the year 2000 also refugees from Asia and Africa. In short, from 1989 there was a tripling
of the share of foreign nationals (from around 4% to around 13%)
until the refugee movements of 2015 and 2016.1
In terms of public opinion, Austrians’ scepticism towards immigrants has been above average compared to other EU member
states. Indeed, Austria’s public opinion on immigrants has been
one of the most negative in western Europe long before the 2015
events. This is confirmed by two longitudinal data sources on
European public opinion (see Table 1):
a) The European Values Study shows that, especially since
the 2000s, public opinion has turned increasingly negative
towards various categories of migrant groups, such as people
of different skin colour, Muslims, and immigrant or guest workers. However, longitudinal surveys with large gaps between
field periods always carry a bias of domestic short-term events
that distort data;
36
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
b) Yet, the European Social Survey, a more frequently conducted survey (biannually), also confirms this pattern. Since
2002, when asked whether immigrants make the country
a worse or better place to live, Austrians have responded
more negatively than the European average in every survey
regarding this question.
Table 1a: Attitutes towards immigrants across Europe – longitudinal patterns
Index of antipathy toward immigrants (0=no group rejected, 1=every group rejected)
1990
1999
2008
Austria
.142
.119
.232
Belgium
.213
.165
.087
Denmark
.113
.114
.069
Finland
.131
.145
.155
France
.132
.124
.051
Germany
.159
.087
.128
Ireland
.081
.130
.132
Italy
.133
.164
.171
Netherlands
.101
.074
.148
Portugal
.155
.056
.114
Spain
.089
.102
.069
.092
Sweden
.108
.049
United Kingdom
.118
.128
.110
Average
.129
.112
.120
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
37
Table 1b: Attitudes towards immigrants across Europe - longitudinal patters
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
14-year-avg.
SE
6.2
6.2
6.0
6.1
6.5
6.4
6.7
6.3
6.3
DK
5.7
5.5
5.5
5.8
5.8
6.1
5.7
PL
5.7
5.2
5.5
5.9
5.9
6.0
5.5
5.5
5.6
IE
5.8
5.3
5.7
5.7
5.1
5.4
5.3
6.0
5.5
FI
5.6
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.4
5.6
5.5
5.6
5.5
CH
5.5
5.3
5.1
5.3
5.5
5.4
5.4
5.5
5.4
NO
5.5
4.8
4.8
5.1
5.3
5.7
5.5
5.7
5.3
NL
5.3
4.7
4.8
5.1
5.3
5.4
5.3
5.4
5.1
ES
5.1
4.7
5.1
4.9
5.2
5.3
5.1
5.5
5.1
DE
5.1
4.8
4.6
4.5
4.9
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.0
IL
5.1
4.8
4.8
4.8
5.0
4.8
4.9
LT
4.7
4.7
5.0
5.0
4.7
4.8
GB
4.9
4.6
4.6
4.4
4.6
4.6
4.7
5.4
4.7
BE
5.0
4.3
4.5
4.7
4.7
4.7
4.8
5.1
4.7
5.7
FR
4.8
4.5
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.5
4.9
4.8
4.6
SI
4.5
4.5
4.6
4.6
4.4
4.8
4.5
4.4
4.5
SK
4.5
AT
4.2
EE
4.4
4.8
4.4
4.3
4.4
4.2
4.9
4.8
4.4
4.2
4.5
4.3
4.0
4.1
4.4
4.8
4.9
4.3
4.4
UA
4.1
4.8
4.3
4.2
4.4
PT
4.6
3.8
4.2
4.1
3.9
4.4
5.3
4.3
4.5
3.9
3.3
3.6
4.0
4.7
3.9
CY
4.7
4.2
4.1
IT
3.6
4.5
3.9
CZ
4.0
HU
3.7
4.0
4.0
4.5
4.3
4.1
4.4
3.8
4.1
4.2
3.9
3.7
4.0
4.2
4.4
4.0
3.5
3.9
Immigrants make a country a worse (0) or better (10) place - Country average.
Note: The European Values Study calculates antipathy based on attitudes towards unwelcome
neighbours. ‘Migrants’ in this survey denotes people of a different skin colour, Muslims, and immigrant
or guest workers.
The index is calculated by the number of unwelcome neighbours indicated by a respondent, and
ranges from 1 (every group being rejected) to 0 (no groups rejected).2
The European Social Survey calculates scepticism towards immigrants based on an 11-point Likert scale,
ranging from 0 (absolutely negative) to 10 (absolutely positive). Calculation is based on unweighted
data, and only countries with at least five available data points between 2002 and 2016 are considered.
38
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Political consequences of the changing migration patterns
From the 1990s, this dominance of anti-immigrant attitudes in
Austria contributed to the growth of a successful populist radical right party, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), in the Austrian
parliament. It also resulted in meandering mainstream parties,
struggling for a winning strategy in the face of the growing radical right challenger and the new importance of immigration.3 The
political result was an increasing importance of immigration as a
political issue until 2015, which led to the growing strength of both
a populist radical right party (FPÖ) and two smaller, culturally liberal parties (Greens, Liberals) at the expense of mainstream parties,
both on the centre-right (ÖVP) and centre-left (SPÖ). On the federal level, it resulted in the participation of the FPÖ (and after the
party’s collapse in 2002, in the participation of the Jörg Haider-led
split-off Union for Austria’s Future – BZÖ) in government between
2000 and 2006 until a centrist ‘grand’ coalition between the two
mainstream parties returned to power. As it approached 2015, this
grand coalition had shrivelled to a tiny majority of just eight parliamentary seats (the smallest grand coalition in Austrian post-war
history) and it was struggling with decreasing popularity. At the
same time, the FPÖ had recaptured most of its former strength
and both Greens and Liberals had stabilised as liberal opposition
parties.
The 2015 refugee policy crisis and its
consequences for Austrian politics
The events of 2015 and 2016 left a big mark on Austrian politics in
general, and on progressive political parties in particular. With about
130,000 requests for asylum in Austria in those two years alone,
the total number of foreign nationals rose to 15% at the beginning
of 2017. The political response was characterised by conflict that
reshaped the political landscape. Its main reasons were the traditional conflicts between national and provincial government levels
inherent in Austria’s federalist political system on the one hand, and
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
39
partisan politics on the other. It fuelled an ongoing struggle within
the federal government coalition of the SPÖ and ÖVP about the
right response to the refugee influx and led to the mainstream parties’ decline in the polls in favour of a growing radical right, which
surpassed the mainstream parties in opinion polls. The refugee
influx also led to the Austrian government becoming the vanguard
for a closed-borders approach and ‘asylum caps’, eventually forcing the then-chancellor and SPÖ party leader, Werner Faymann,
to resign in May 2016 over internal party pressure. This was the
first time in Austrian history that a chancellor had stumbled over
the management of immigration and asylum, and his successor,
neo-politician Christian Kern, was left with a difficult heritage.4
The current state of competition. Today, immigration has arguably
turned into one of the most decisive issues for Austrian politics. The
refugee movements since 2015 have raised public awareness of
immigration to yet another level. More strikingly, however, they have
fuelled an increasing polarisation of public opinion. This has been
reflected in, and intensified by, party political changes. In addition to
the politicisation of immigration by Austrian fringe parties both on the
left and right, within the ÖVP the refugee issue has become increasingly politicised by a party faction led by the former popular foreign
minister, Sebastian Kurz. After his takeover of party leadership and
the announcement of snap elections in spring 2017, immigration and
refugees became the party’s main campaign issue heading up to
the autumn elections. This strategy helped Kurz lead the ÖVP to first
place and to the chancellery in December 2017, after ending cooperation with the SPÖ and entering a coalition with the radical right.
The shift produced a new political conflict pattern that is now
shaping party competition:
• An anti-immigration coalition between the FPÖ and ÖVP, which
also shares a market-liberal approach to its economic and social
policy, has increasingly converged on the right, gaining a stable
parliamentary majority in the autumn 2017 elections.
40
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
• A parliamentary opposition consisting of:
o a market-liberal but immigration-friendly and pro-European
liberal party (NEOS);
o internally disintegrating Greens, who since the 2017 elections have been represented on the federal level only by
one of its spin-offs, a party (JETZT) founded by former
Green parliamentarian Peter Pilz;
o Social Democrats, who are still internally divided about the
right answer to the party’s longstanding immigration dilemma5 but who presented a migrant programme in September
2018 (unanimously with only three abstentions from the
party youth), perpetuating a mix of restrictive and liberal
positions on immigration and migrant integration.
This new government/opposition division between anti-immigrant
and more or less migration-friendly parties is one of the important
contexts influencing the upcoming strategic choices of progressive
parties in Austria. It devalues the strategic option for centre-left
parties of moving further to the right, since the restrictive spectrum of policy positions on immigration is already occupied by two
government parties on the right. With both JETZT and the Social
Democrats still in the midst of factional disputes and the internal
reorganisation of their teams, the liberal NEOS have become the
most outspoken pro-immigrant party since the last election. This
leaves the question as to where a progressive formula can fit in
between these constraints.
The current state of public opinion – from a progressive perspective. Another important factor for party strategists is the state of
public opinion, which confines the room for manoeuvre for progressive parties when dealing with the issue of immigration. While
immigration was clearly a relevant, but not the most important,
topic for Austrians prior to the 2015 events, its salience has since
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
41
dramatically increased. Despite losing some of its urgency since
2015-16, the importance of immigration and refugee politics to
public opinion is still extremely high – and is actively kept salient
by the governing parties. When asked about the two most important issues the country is currently facing, almost 30% of Austrians
named immigration as a pressing question, and it far exceeded
the next three most frequently named important issues (the economy, prices/living costs and unemployment) (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: The two most important topics the country is currently facing – 2009-2018
Eurobarometer - Autumn polls
Source: European Commission, Standard Eurobarometer 71-89,
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/, 14 November 2018.
In terms of positions, the general feeling of Austrians towards
immigrants from outside the EU in late 2017 was more negative
(56%) than positive (38%) (EB 2017). This aversion was confirmed
in a Special Eurobarometer (#469) poll on attitudes towards immigrants conducted in October 2017. Among western European
countries, Austrians (together with Italians) expressed the highest scepticism when asked whether “immigration is more of a
42
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
problem or an opportunity” (only 13% of Austrians considering it
an opportunity compared to 37% considering it a problem) and
whether they “feel comfortable having social relations with immigrants” (only 44% of Austrians feeling comfortable with all forms
of social relations, ie, at work, in the neighbourhood, in the family, etc.) (see Figure 2). Looking specifically at those respondents
who express explicit discomfort, this is most pronounced when
social relations are imagined with immigrants as their boss at work
(35%), as a family member or partner (33%), as their doctor (27%),
as a neighbour (28%), as a friend (22%) or as a colleague in the
workplace (20%).
QA6T Would you personally feel comfortable or
uncomfortable having an immigrant as your…
Feels comfortable with all the social categories
Figure 2: Attitudes towards immigrants, EU countries in comparison (2017)
100%
90%
R² = 0,7014
80%
ES
NL
70%
LU
FR
60%
BE
EU
50%
40%
IT SK
30%
20%
BG
10%
0%
AT
CZ
RO
MT
0%
5%
LVEE
UK
DK
DE
LT
HR
CY
EL
SI
SE
IE
PT
FI
PL
HU
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
QA2 Do you think immigration from outside the EU is more of a problem
or more of an opportunity for (OUR COUNTRY) today?
Immigration is more of an opportunity
Source: European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 469,
http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/, 14 November 2018.
These recent increases in antipathy might result from several factors: above all, the refugee movements have paved the way for
a more outspoken disrespect of asylum seekers and their effect
on the country’s budget. Being largely held out from the labour
market, asylum seekers in Austria are forced into job inactivity (apart from selected training programmes, such as language
courses). This, however, is regularly portrayed by populist parties
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
43
as refugees’ unwillingness to work. The same portrayal is made
by tabloid media, which consider refugees a burden on the state
budget and social system. What is more, the predominantly sensationalist framing of refugees as security threats (holding them
responsible for petty crimes, abusive behaviour and murder) further tightens a negative perception. Since most refugee-sceptic
Austrians have little personal relationship with refugees, public
communication and social media portrayals become the dominant source for Austrians’ impression of refugees, confirming the
impact of the so-called “intergroup contact hypothesis”:6 ie, aversion is higher, where there is little to no contact with refugees.
The growing role of religion is another factor in the discussion
on immigration. While immigration from within the EU is mostly
considered in economic terms, immigration from third countries
is increasingly discussed within a ‘clash of cultures’ narrative, particularly with regard to the Muslim population. Even though the
country has not experienced any serious terrorist activity and has a
share of the Muslim population similar to other western European
countries (such as Germany, France, Sweden or the UK) as well as
a long-established presence of immigrants from Turkey, the more
recent influx of immigrants from Middle Eastern and African Muslim
countries, and the growing trans-European debate on conservative/radical Islam, have meant that sensitivity has also increased
among Austrian citizens. The politicisation by political parties and
the media has played a major role in hyping this debate, and has
led commentators to talk of a recent ‘neo-conservative’ turn in
Austrian public opinion and politics, which promotes values such
as the preservation of traditions, an inwardness protected by
stronger borders and a smaller government in social or economic
relations in contrast to a stronger government in security areas.
The challenge for catch-all-parties: A segmented electorate. These
general patterns of public opinion imply different consequences
for different party-political actors. While the general tendency of
public opinion might favour anti-immigrant stances (and parties),
44
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
a closer look at the motives of different groups of the electorate
shows a more nuanced picture, especially from the viewpoint of
progressive parties.
As the 2016 ESS demonstrates, attitudes towards immigrants are
linked to different party preferences (see Figure 3). On an 11-point
Likert scale (with 0 representing absolutely negative and 11 absolutely positive opinion) respondents feeling close to the SPÖ took
an average position on immigrants’ economic (5.4) and cultural
(5.3) contribution to the country that more resembles the position
of Green voters (6.7 and 7.1 respectively) than that of FPÖ voters
(2.6 and 2.4 respectively). Moreover, the SPÖ featured the widest
variance of positions amongst its voters (Standard-Deviation: 2.6
and 2.7 respectively), putting the party under even more pressure
to seek a balanced position rather than sacrificing one group of
supporters for another. Not least, when comparing those respondents who consider themselves very or quite close to the SPÖ with
those who did not feel particularly close to the party, the former
expressed an even more pro-immigrant stance (5.7 on economic
and 5.5 on cultural contributions) than the latter (4.5 on economic
and 4.8 on cultural contributions).
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
45
by immigrants
undermined
Country's cultural life
enriched
Figure 3: Attitudes to immigrants compared among Austrian voter groups
10
8
6
SPÖ
ÖVP
4
FPÖ
Greens
2
Average
0
0
2
bad
4
6
Immigration is
for country's economy
8
10
good
Source: European Social Survey 2016.
Note: Voter groups defined by their response to “which party they feel close to”. For statistical validity,
only voter groups with a sufficient number of respondents have been considered. Calculation based
on unweighted data.
These patterns were strikingly confirmed by the last general election in autumn 2017 when the issue of immigration was held in
varying order of priority by the various groups of party supporters.
According to exit polls, prior to the election the issue of immigration was frequently discussed by 96% of FPÖ voters, by 85% of
ÖVP voters, but only by 76% of SPÖ voters.7
Those who voted for the centre-left did so much less because of
its stance on immigration than those who voted for the right. For
centre-left parties this means that abandoning progressive stances in order to re-attract voters lost to the populist radical right
bares the risk of alienating moderate centre-left voters or even
more so active progressives on the left.
A look at voter transition in the 2017 election proves the above-mentioned dilemma. In the election campaign, the centre-left SPÖ was
46
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
running with a more balanced position on immigration (called
“immigration with a sense of proportion”) including more effective
European border control, proactive development policy in cooperation with Africa, a European asylum system based on solidarity,
increased repatriation if possible and targeted information campaigns in/with countries of origin (see SPÖ election manifesto 2017)
than its markedly anti-immigrant opponents on the right. With this
electoral strategy, the SPÖ was able to attract more support from
both former Green voters (about 161,000) and from former non-voters (about 156,000) than it lost voters to the FPÖ (about 155,000).8
This underlines that – leaving aside the ideological debates on
immigration within the centre-left – even from a merely strategic
point of view the gains of a restrictive shift might be quite limited
compared to the potential losses. The gains are, in fact, also highly dependent on the remaining political parties being alternative
options for potential centre-left voters. Without the pressure from a
left-wing opponent (such as the Greens), a centre-left party (such as
the SPÖ) clearly enjoys more freedom to adapt its positions since its
location in the party spectrum is less confined. It can try to take over
some of the traditional positions of its former left-wing opponents
in order to lure them away to the centre-left, yet it can also shift its
profile further to the right and still remain the most eligible party
for voters on the left (who are then confronted with the choice of
either voting for Social Democrats or voting for pro-immigrant but
economically liberal parties – or, possibly, not voting at all).
The role of the election type – first versus second order elections.
A final, but equally crucial point is the type of election for which
electoral strategies are designed. Many of the above-mentioned
arguments are based on the conditions for first order elections on
the national level. However, among scholars of party politics there is
broad consensus that the European Parliament (EP) elections need
to be considered as second order elections in most countries. This,
however, forces national parties to take other factors into stronger
consideration when designing their EP campaign strategy.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
47
Firstly, voter turnout is usually lower in second order elections than
in national elections – thus, mobilisation costs are higher and less
promising than those in first order elections. However, if invested,
they can lead to above-average shares of the available mandates
compared to first order elections (due to the lower turnout of voters in second order elections). Secondly, the decisive cleavages
for those who actually do vote in European elections are slightly
different from those in national elections, putting a party’s stance
on the EU into stronger focus. Thirdly, EP-campaigns in domestic
policy arenas need to be in line (at least to a certain degree) with
the European party group’s overall campaign strategy, or else the
European party group loses credibility with voters and the media.
Taking these three factors into account, progressive parties should
– collectively – use the EP elections as a test run for the relaunch
of a more pronounced party profile that distinguishes progressive
parties more clearly from the reactionary Zeitgeist that has pushed
the traditional left out of many European governments.
Where to go from here? Strategies for
progressive parties on immigration policy
The patterns set out above raise the question of how to move
forward as a progressive party. There are a number of conclusions
that can be drawn from these findings:
1.
48
Weigh up your goals: Votes, office or progressive key values? As politics is the art and profession of gaining power,
the pros and cons of strategies need to be weighed up carefully by any political party: is the goal to maximise votes, is
it government-participation (even at the risk of losing votes
and entering unpleasant coalitions) or does sticking to the
party’s core positions and ideological authenticity top any
other consideration? Naturally, all of these goals usually play
together all at once, so it is a question of emphasis rather
than of absoluteness.9
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
To answer this question, issue ownership plays a key role.
As shown, the median position of the Austrian population on
immigration currently gravitates to the right. However, engaging in open competition over the most restrictive position on
immigration rather helps boost the prominence of positions
that are already owned by government parties and where
Social Democrats can hardly become more restrictive than
the right-wing parties already are (or are willing to top even
further). Even from a purely vote-centred perspective, it thus
appears doubtful whether a massive shift to the right would
pay dividends at the ballot – if at all, then the dividends
would rather be for the centre-right than for the centre-left.10
Conversely, the same is currently true for a strong shift to the
left, as it would risk losing further votes among the remaining
migrant-sceptic blue-collar base and senior supporters (who,
however, are usually less inclided to participate in second
order elections). Yet, if a topic’s current salience – such as
that of immigration – also takes off the table the option of
depoliticisation (which has not proved to be electorally successful either), the more natural response for an opposition
party competing with an already restrictive government coalition would be a liberal or – in the case of a centre-left party
– a pragmatic counter-position.
Such a position, however, would need to be politicised
actively – not passively – as the ‘moderate alternative’ to the
restrictive turn of a radicalising European right-wing coalition.11 This would also mean positioning Social Democracy as
the main protector against ideas of illiberal democracy and
those who serve as their backers. Moreover, this position
would be more in line with the progressive core beliefs of
the (Austrian) Social Democratic party, despite its long history
of anti-immigrant traces, and would thus sharpen the Social
Democratic profile at a time when many observers and even
supporters have lost a clear understanding of what 21st century Social Democracy really stands for. Ultimately, however,
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
49
this would sacrifice coalition considerations with the far right
and its equally anti-immigrant and anti-European approach.12
2. Reframe the immigration and integration issue. The current
right-wing push towards renationalisation and protectionism, its questioning of internal free movement, together
with its continuous reluctance to increase development aid
resources/programmes, are the antithesis against which a
progressive response needs to paint a positive alternative.
This alternative narrative for immigration could include the
following pillars:
• A harmonised concept of controlled, legal options for
immigration to Europe. As presented by the European Commission in September 2018, the pathways for legal migration
to Europe need to be harmonised among member states.
Without a concerted regime of legal migration to a Union that
(until now) considers free movement of people as much a
value as the movement of goods, a) nationalist egoisms will
further continue to grow and tear the European compromise
apart and b) third-country nationals will continue to take the
most dangerous risks to their life in order to arrive at Europe’s
borders anyway.
• Stronger European presence in the regions of emigration.
The European Union and its member states will have
to consider a stronger presence in those areas of the
world that are the main sources of immigration but that
are caught in the geopolitical power struggle between
the US, Russia, China and various regional hegemons.
Although Brexit delivers a blow to the EU’s capacity for
global engagement, it is crucial to move from a reactive
to a proactive strategy if Europe wants to be on the controlling end of global migration flows. Concerted (instead
of bilateral) agreements for serious European investments
in Africa and Asia are necessary to reduce the factors of
50
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
emigration (such as economic deprivation, ecological burden, etc.). As with Europe’s post-war reconstruction, there
is no alternative to implementing an honest Marshall Plan
for Africa, focusing on the establishment of stability and
basic wealth instead of the exploitation of African resources for non-African profits.
• Integration as ‘participation in diversity’. From a progressive
perspective there is only one humanist answer to the diversity that is shaping the mobile society of today: respecting
‘diversity as normality and an asset of society (both across
the EU and within EU member states) and recalling that
the elimination of diversity has always come at the price
of violence, and conflict with human rights. Any form of
politically associated population (demos) of course needs
agreements on certain common denominators, and for progressives one of these has to be ‘participation’. Diversity
must not therefore imply a mere coexistence of different
groups side by side (which is one of the main sources of
contemporary alienation) but requires active participation in
core societal institutions, social-liberal values and the social
networks of the new home country. This claim, however,
needs to be directed at ALL members of society, at those
with a long domestic family history as well as at those who
are currently immigrating. This form of mutual encounter in
diversity of course has to be learned, promoted and moderated – it rarely grows by itself. Diversity mainstreaming is
thus a crucial task for all political sectors (education, workplace, bureaucracy, media, etc.).
3. Reinforce the core principles. Forging a new progressive formula first and foremost needs to re-establish the traditional
‘unique selling point (USP)’ of the progressive party family.
As shown, progressive centre-left parties do not naturally
possess ownership of the immigration issue. Any response
to questions of immigration will therefore only be perceived
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
51
as an authentic position if it is in accordance with the party’s
core issues and positions – ie, labour interests.13 As long as
there is (legitimate) doubt among working-class voters that
PES politics will credibly protect them from the (economic,
social, etc.) disadvantages of a neoliberal, globalised world,
their turn towards nationalist parties and identity politics
will continue, and any form of progressive position will be
perceived as a betrayal of the party’s core principles. More
specifically, it is important to highlight the connection much
more strongly between migration on the one hand, and the
rising global injustice catalysed by a neoliberal global economy on the other – in other words, the material roots for global
migration patterns.14
4. Europeanise progressive claims. The current opportunity
structure for progressive parties at the European level is shaped a) by a growing populist radical right power
that is anti-integrationist both with regard to the EU as
well as to immigration, b) by a centre-right whose internal
debate between moderate (Christian-social) and restrictive
(neo-conservative) forces increasingly deprives it from its
former role as one of the most pro-European party families (at least in Austria), c) by a liberal party family that
shares many progressive stances on a socio-cultural level but envisages a completely different, neo-liberal, form
of European Integration, and d) by an economically and
socio-culturally progressive Green party family that – at
least in Austria – appears to be as much worn down by the
contemporary right-wing hegemony as Social Democrats.
This provides the window for a radical pro-European push
for stronger harmonisation in policy areas such as social and
welfare systems, finance, etc. Indeed this appears to be the
only plausible and credible position for the progressive centre-left that can be occupied in a positive (not defensive) way.
Being on the decline both on national and European levels
allows centre-left parties finally to relieve themselves from
52
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
backing the consequences of globalised neo-liberalism, and
to sharpen their profile as the inter- and supranational (not
merely national) protector of workers’ rights (after all it was
Socialism that promoted the idea of an International) and
to depict the European Union as a vehicle (not an obstacle) to these goals. A strong pro-European perspective is no
longer owned by the centre-right alone, which gives room
for a stronger reframing of the European integration project,
especially considering that renationalisation would further
weaken Europe’s position in global economic competition
with the US, China, Russia, etc.
5. Actively portray the consequences of a reactionary turn. In the
context of the European Parliament election, a progressive
formula needs to emphasise the historic parallels between
current political development and the early 20th century (to
which the creation of the European Union has been an explicit response). The explicit goal of the rising radical right to
gradually weaken European compromise in favour of national
self-interest was the formula for two world wars. Indeed, this
national self-interest catalyses competition between nations
instead of cooperation with each other for the greater good.
At a time when global political and economic unities are
increasing, nationalism suggests a return to small and narrow
units. However, almost all of today’s pressing problems (climate change, migration, social inequality, radicalisation, etc.)
are challenges that can be met only with a transnational, joint
effort, not with a competitive approach. Yet, since domestic politicians are democratically accountable only to their
own constituency, they are intrinsically motivated to favour
their own interests over those of the whole. If this self-centric tendency of nation state politics merges with a populist,
anti-intellectual party rhetoric that is also willing to sacrifice
the long-term for the short-term profit, then the post-war stability in western Europe (and later in eastern Europe) could
become increasingly endangered.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
53
Conclusion
Various European democracies are currently experiencing a
hegemony shift to the right regarding the question of immigration
and migrant integration. This obviously puts progressive parties
in a difficult strategic position, as they appear to be swimming
upstream against the current trend in public opinion. It has led
many within the centre-left spectrum across Europe to consider
a departure from key progressive claims in order to catch up with
the momentum-swing that has cost them at recent elections. In
this regard, Austria provides a very interesting example because
the strategic dilemma for the centre-left has haunted Austria’s
centre-left Social Democrats for over three decades but has now
caught up with the party to the full extent.
It is against this background that this chapter has analysed the current conditions for progressive Social Democrats on the centre-left
in Austria when confronted with the issue of immigration. It has
also considered the strategic options of response, and has shown
that in light of a right-wing coalition establishing a new hegemony
and colonising the restrictive spectrum on immigration, there is
little to gain for centre-lefts from chasing this trend – especially
since among their current voter base the issue of immigration is
less important and more positively regarded than it is among the
conservative or far right electorate (as demonstrated by opinion
polls). Conversely, although committing to a more liberal approach
might be the ideologically more authentic progressive option, this
would clash with the protectionist blue-collar factions within the
centre-left – a segment in which the Austrian Social Democrats
have lost the most voters in recent decades.
What remains in the short term is the focus on a pragmatic position
that needs to be actively politicised as the moderate alternative to
a radicalising right-wing approach. This is the price for the traditional claim of being a mainstream party that aims to catch diverse
voter segments and integrate conflicting interests. As long as this
54
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
claim shows the courage to pursue a proactive progressive stance
on cultural issues and diversity, a moderate alternative approach –
including better legal pathways for immigration, a more proactive
European foreign policy and a participatory yet demanding concept of integration – is the only viable short-term answer that will
not tear the party apart. In the long term, however, the main goal
for a progressive party has to be the redirection of public opinion
towards a forward- not backward-oriented perception of diversity
and mixed society in a globalised world.
However, as other recent examples – in Austria and beyond – have
shown, electoral success is not only a result of strategic positions
on sensitive policy choices, but also a question of candidates’ personal appeal and authenticity regarding the messages presented.
Apart from all strategic decisions on issues, what is imperative is
a rejuvenation of the image of a set and immobile party run by old
officials and the creation, instead, of an authentic combination of
candidate and message that is able to be a convincing alternative for voters. Ultimately, as long as there is (legitimate) doubt
among voters that the centre-left is successfully going to protect
them from the downside of neoliberalism, it does not even matter
which approach to immigration the party is taking. The need for
a renewal is therefore obvious – and this awareness becoming
prevalent in the party will decide the fate of Social Democracy’s
progressive heritage – and of the party family as a whole – in the
years to come.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
55
Notes
1
H. Fassmann, H.-M. Fenzl, Asyl und Flucht, in H. Fassmann, I. Stacher (Eds.),
Österreichicher Migrations- und Integrationsbericht. Demographische
Entwicklungen - Sozioökonomische Strukturen - Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen,
Klagenfurt/Celovec 2003, pp. 284-304. R. Münz, P. Zuser, J. Kytir,
Grenzüberschreitende Wanderungen und ausländische Wohnbevölkerung.
Struktur und Entwicklung, in H. Fassmann, I. Stacher (Eds.), Österreichischer
Migrations- und Integrationsbericht. Demographische Entwicklungen
– sozio-ökonomische Strukturen – rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen, Klagenfurt/
Celovec 2003, pp. 20-61.
2
S. Rosenberger, G. Seeber, Kritische Einstellungen: BürgerInnen zu Demokratie,
Politik, Migration, in R. Polak (Ed.), Zukunft. Werte. Europa. Die Europäische
Wertestudie 1990-2010: Österreich im Vergleich, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2011,
pp. 165-190.
3
O. Gruber, Campaigning in Radical Right Heartland. The electoral politicization of
immigration and ethnic relations in Austrian general elections, 1971-2013, Münster
2014.
4
O. Gruber, “Refugees (no longer) welcome”. Asylum discourse and policy in
Austria in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis, in M. Barlai, B. Fähnrich, C.
Griessler, M. Rhomberg, The Migrant Crisis: European Perspectives and National
Discourses, Zurich 2017, pp. 39-57.
5
O. Gruber, The centre-left and migration in Austria, in E. Stetter, T. Boros, “The
Flexible Solidarity”. How Progressive Parties handled the Migration Crisis in
Central Europe, Brussels 2017, pp. 11-30; O. Gruber, More than just the economy,
stupid! – Austria’s Social Democrats and Their Ambivalent Relationship to
Migration, in M. Bröning, C. Mohr, The Politics of Migration and the Future of the
European Left, Brussels 2018, pp. 81-98.
6
G. W. Allport, The nature of prejudice, Cambridge/Reading, MA, 1954.
7
M. Zandonella, F. Perlot, Wahltagsbefragung und Wählerstromanalyse.
Nationalratswahl 2017, Vienna 2017, https://www.sora.at/fileadmin/downloads/
wahlen/2017_NRW_Grafiken-Wahltagsbefragung.pdf.
8
Ibid.
9
W. C. Müller, K. Strøm, Policy, office, or votes? How political parties in Western
Europe make hard decisions, Cambridge 1999.
10 O. Gruber, T. Bale, And it’s good night Vienna. How (not) to deal with the populist
radical right: The conservatives, UKIP and some lessons from the heartland,
British Politics, 9(3), 2014, 237-254.
11
56
T. Bale, The right side of the argument? The centre-left’s response to migration
and multiculturalism. in M. McTernan (Ed.), Exploring the cultural challenges to
social democracy. Anti-migration populism, identity and community in an age of
insecurity, London 2011, pp. 9-14.
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
12 To qualify: If the priority is joining majority-coalitions, in electoral systems with
proportional representation other strategies would gain more plausibility,
depending on the coalition options. In Austria’s party system, only once in the
post-war-era has there been a viable majority on the left (ie, in the Social
Democrats’ absolute majority rule from 1971 to 1983, under the very specific and
bygone conditions of a two-and-a-half-party-system). From a coalition
perspective, this has forced Austrian Social Democrats into repeated grand
coalitions with the centre-right (see: W. C. Müller, Zur (angeblichen)
Alternativlosigkeit der großen Koalition in Österreich: koalitionstheoretische und
politisch-historische Perspektiven, in F. Schausberger, Festschrift für Robert
Kriechbaumer, Vienna 2008, pp. 301-324) and fuelled the internal debate over
opening up to the radical right in order to increase coalition options (see: O.
Gruber, The centre-left and migration in Austria, in E. Stetter, T. Boros, “The
Flexible Solidarity”. How Progressive Parties handled the Migration Crisis in
Central Europe, Brussels 2017, pp. 11-30). In such a setting, shifting further to the
right could make short-term sense even if it meant abandoning progressive core
principles and losing votes on the party’s left flank. On the one hand, it would
allow a second coalition option with the radical right. On the other hand, it could
increase majorities from a centre-to-left coalition if other parties succeeded in
filling the void left by the SPÖ. Whether the party would survive such a tensile
test, whether the radical-right indeed would prefer non-proximal coalitions with
the centre-left over those with the centre-right, and whether leftist parties would
indeed enter coalitions with a more restrictive Social Democracy are big
questions in considering whether this move is viable. In a European electoral
setting, considerations for Social Democrats obviously look different, as
cooperation with the radical-right party group in the EP is not a serious option for
most European parliamentary groups. The consideration of progressives would
rather then need to focus on other potential alliances, thus making the
progressives more independent from coalition pressures and free to focus on
electorally successful winning formulas.
13 W. Merkel, C. Egle, C. Henkes, T. Ostheim, A. Petring, Die Reformfähigkeit der
Sozialdemokratie. Herausforderungen und Bilanz der Regierungspolitik in
Westeuropa, Wiesbaden 2006.
14 M. Elchardus, An electorate set free: Culture, symbolism and social democracy, in
M. McTernan (Ed.), Exploring the cultural challenges to social democracy.
Anti-migration populism, identity and community in an age of insecurity, London
2011, pp. 31-36.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
57
58
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Immigration policies and electoral
behaviour in Italy
LUIGI TROIANI
The March 2018 parliamentary election gave Italy the first fully-fledged populist government in western Europe. During the
campaign both the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League,
led respectively by Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, future allies
in government, singled out the centre left government’s policies
on immigration as one of the targets to win people’s vote. They
succeeded.
The current government is reversing the previous Italian immigration policy. In September 2018, it approved the so-called “security
decree” ensuring a stricter juridical framework for immigrants and
asylum seekers. It abolished the humanitarian residence permit,
and set new limits for the acquisition of citizenship and for the
functioning of reception centres.
The interior minister, Matteo Salvini, had already adopted severe
measures to seal Italy’s southern borders, making it almost impossible for seekers of asylum and international protection to land in
Italian ports. In the first nine months of 2018 more than 34,000
people landed in Spain and more than 22,000 in Greece. Only a
few more than 21,000 people reached Italy by sea, 81% fewer than
the number reached for the same period in 2017.
This reduction in numbers is also the effect of the agreements
signed in 2017 between Italy and the Libyan Government of National
Accord. Italian patrol boats and financial resources were assigned
to the Libyan coastguard to ensure it intercepts those seeking to
reach Europe at sea. At the same time, limits were imposed on the
search and rescue activities of the Italian coastguard and international NGOs.1 One of the consequences is that the number of people
dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean has increased.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
59
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM),
1,728 migrants died in the Mediterranean between January
and September 2018: 1,260 of them while trying to reach Italy.
Those who survived were taken by the Libyans to their harsh
detention centres.
The Italian legal framework
During the first 120 years of its existence, Italy produced 29 million emigrants. Despite the large number of returns, from 1861
until 1980, the years considered by National Statistics as the historical Italian migration period, the balance of Italian migrants
was -18,761,000. Even though Italy became an immigration country in the following four decades, the current number of Italian
emigrants stands at 5,114,000,2 a number which seems to be very
similar to that of foreigners living in Italy, 5,144,000. According to
the OECD’s International Migration Outlook 2017, the country is
the only G7 member to be on the list of the top ten sources of
migration to OECD countries.3
When immigration became an issue, Italians were not yet ready
for the consequences that were going to unfold from losing their
country’s ‘emigration only’ label.
Suddenly, on a cultural, political and administrative level,
Italy had to ‘invent’ itself as an immigration country. The first
national law dealing with immigrants, the so-called Martelli Law
(law no. 39, 28 February 1990) named after the then socialist interior minister, appeared in February 1990, as essentially
an emergency law aimed at governing the flux of immigrants4
generated mostly by the collapsing communist system in central and eastern Europe. Two other laws went on to complete
the Italian legal framework for immigration and asylum seekers. On 6 March 1998, the so-called Turco-Napolitano Law was
approved to govern immigration after the emergency measures
of the previous legislation.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
In July 2002, the Bossi-Fini Law modified the Turco-Napolitano Law.
This new law, promoted by the centre-right government led by Silvio
Berlusconi, on the one hand provided rights to health, education
and welfare, and to family reunification for regular migrants (while a
decree regularised the position of immigrant workers employed as
domestic workers and caregivers), and on the other hand introduced
entry quotas and criminal sanctions for irregular migrants. The law
punished those entering the country without a due permit and a job
contract through measures like expulsion after being escorted to the
Italian border, permission to reside only after obtaining an effective
job contract, repression of immigrant smugglers and traffickers by
means that included the Italian Navy. The rules were very strict, setting the conditions for more irregular immigration.
None of the three laws dealing with immigrants dealt in depth with
asylum rights. At the same time, the three laws established one of
Europe’s most restrictive legal frameworks on migration, as confirmed by the multiplicity of cases at the European Court of Justice
and at the Council of Europe.
There is particular criticism of the following rules:
• residence permits are granted only to immigrants with a work
contract that is in force, with the obligation to be fingerprinted;
• immigrants without a residence permit holding ID or a passport
(ie, irregular immigrants) will be escorted to the frontier and
expelled;
• immigrants without identity papers will be forced to stay for up to
two months in Centres for Identification and Expulsion;
• foreigners who have been expelled and return to Italy without a
residence permit, commit a crime and will be detained.
The above-mentioned laws allowed the refusal of entry into the
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
61
country in extraterritorial waters, in accordance with bilateral
agreements defining cooperation between police forces to fight
human trafficking. In practice the procedure is open to abuse, as
it may prevent the protection of asylum seekers and refugees,
in violation of international and EU laws. Moreover, under these
Italian laws, many citizens have been and are being charged for
abetting irregular immigration, even though they acted in accordance with the 1979 International Convention on Maritime Search
and Rescue (SAR).
How immigration became a key issue in Italian politics
During the present decade, the centre left governments5 have not
substantially modified the rules described above, despite these
governments being confronted with cycles of unexpected waves
of refugees from theatres of war, which produced a large number
of foreigners entering the country in irregular conditions. While
economic6 immigration has diminished since 2013 (see Table 1),
the areas suffering the consequences of wars generated uncontrolled landings at Sicilian and other Southern Italian coastal areas.
To prevent death at sea, NGOs and the Italian coastguard have
carried out wide search and rescue operations along the Central
Mediterranean route.
It is important to note that while a remarkable share of Italian
public opinion has accepted immigrants with jobs, families and
residence permits, the flux of ‘new’ foreigners arriving through the
Mediterranean is viewed with concern.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Table 1: Inflows of permanent immigrants to Italy, 2007-2015
2007
571,900
2008
490,400
2009
390,300
2010
355,700
2011
317,300
2012
274,400
2013
251,400
2014
204,100
2015
160,900
Source: OECD, International Migration Outlook 2017, p. 17.
Table 2 shows that the applications of asylum seekers in Italy grew
remarkably between 2014 and 2016. Within the EU only Germany
received more applications.
Table 2: Asylum seeker applications in the European Union, top seven countries, 2012-2016
2012-2014
(average)
2015
2016
Countries of origin (top 3)
Germany
115,540
441,900
722,360
Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq
Italy
35,370
83,240
122,120
Nigeria, Pakistan, Gambia
France
58,040
74,300
77,890
Sudan, Afghanistan, Haiti
Austria
20,000
85,620
39,950
Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq
UK
29,550
39,970
38,380
Iran, Pakistan, Iraq
Hungary
20,550
174,430
28,070
Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan
Source, OECD, International Migration Outlook 2017, p. 29.
In 2018 the number of immigrants residing in Italy stabilised at
about 8.5% of the total population. At the end of 2017 there were
5,144,000 foreign residents, in absolute numbers about five times
the number of foreigners living in Italy 25 years before and 97,000
more than in 2016. Foreign residents come from almost 200 different countries, half of them from another European country,
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
63
30% from within the European Union. There are about 1 million
Africans, and a few less Asians. About 370,000 Americans reside
in Italy, the very large majority of them from Latin America (6.9%
of the total).
Lack of listening by government, wrong
perception in public opinion
As mentioned above, the centre left governments did not remove
the strict legal conditions that in fact are pushing immigrants to
search for illegal entrance. At the same time, these governments
kept Italy open to refugees and asylum seekers, in compliance
with Italy’s international obligations. These two facts together
spawned the Italian electorate’s broad rejection of government
immigration policies and its popular support for the anti-immigration approach of the present governments. The latter, in particular,
can be better understood in the light of three elements, which
also explain the motivations behind the electorate’s enthusiastic
support for Matteo Salvini’s rigid refusal of entry to refugees and
asylum seekers.7
The first element is that the Italian electorate, rightly or wrongly, felt that Renzi’s government had failed to manage the issue
of immigration appropriately: in those years, in fact, Italian opinion on migration and immigrants became increasingly negative
(more so than the European average) as shown by the data
below (see Table 3).
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Table 3: Italian and EU perception of immigration, 2017: three cases
“Immigrants make the criminality pressure worsen”
I agree
I disagree
I don’t know
EU 28
57%
35.7%
7.3%
Italy
74%
21.3%
4.8%
“Immigrants steal the jobs of our workers” 8
I agree
I disagree
EU 28
40.9%
55.1%
I don’t know
4%
Italy
58%
37.9%
4.1%
“Immigrants are a burden on our welfare”
I agree
I disagree
I don’t know
EU 28
59%
35.4%
5.6%
Italy
62%
30.2%
7.8%
Source: Istituto Cattaneo and Eurobarometer no. 28080 (EU); no. 1025 (Italy).
Through the action of the interior minister, Marco Minniti, the centre left government led by Paolo Gentiloni adopted measures to
reduce migrants’ entry to Italy (see Table 4). Despite these measures, according to the UNHCR and IOM, in 2017 64% of the 172,000
migrants arriving in Europe by sea nevertheless landed in Italy.9
Table 4: Landing of immigrants in Italy, 2016-2018 (first semester)
Year
Term
Absolute numbers
Variation with
respect to the same
semester of the
previous year
2017
First semester
79,154
+36.3%
2018
First semester
16,566
-79.07%
Source: Ministry of Interior of Italy.
In relation to public opinion and voters’ intent, the Democrats’ new
approach to migration came too late. At the end of October 2017,
research showed that, from 2014 to date, the fear of immigration
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
65
doubled among voters and activists of the Democratic Party and
M5S, respectively from 10% to 20% and from 17% to 34%, while
League supporters’ fear rose from 17% to 72%.10
The second element relates to the fact that the centre left governments, with few exceptions, failed to make the link clear between
the flows of economic immigrants and economic cycles. The
need to restore legal migration paths and promote immigration
in relation to the availability of regular jobs was not acknowledged, despite the fact that increasing legal channels would
have restricted illegality and the trafficking of humans through the
Mediterranean.
The third element shows that the Italian centre left governments were perceived by Italian public opinion as being unable
to receive solidarity from the majority of EU member countries
and the European Commission. The confrontation between the
Commission and some member states with regard to the relocation of refugees was not enough to convince an important share
of Italian voters that the centre left governments were being heard
in Brussels. On the one hand, the European Union appeared unable to turn the continuous arrivals of people in need of help on
the Italian shores into a European issue; and on the other hand,
the Italian centre left governments seemed unable to convince
partners and the Commission of the need to have an active
European policy of redistribution together with revision of the
Dublin regulation.
Last but not least, the centre left seemed incapable of perceiving
how big and soaring popular discontent was over its immigration
policy. The climax of this misperception was evident when, on the
eve of the campaign for the 2018 political election, the Democratic
Party proposed to Parliament to amend the law on the so-called
ius sanguinis.11 Experienced leadership never raises controversial
issues when the vote is near. It was a strategic mistake for the
Democratic Party to commit to such a controversial issue right
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
before the national elections – a mistake that played into the
hands of the populist parties.
The ‘scale’ of the phenomenon also mattered. In fact, any phenomenon is acceptable up to a certain limit. As for the immigrants
entering Italy, the negative perception of the scale of immigration
started in 2007 and grew during the long decade of social and
economic crisis. It exploded after 2014, when the M5S opposition
to the government and to the Democratic Party also took advantage of its ability to mobilise consensus through the web.12
Scale operated as a twofold factor, the real and perceived figures.
In 2007 Italy registered 571,900 immigrants, after which there
was a deceleration in following years (490,400 in 2008; 390,300
in 2009; below 300,000 from 2012, and below 200,000 from
2015).13 The deceleration was not recognised and, in the people’s
perception, the scale of immigration continued to be as high as
in 2007 and in 2008. The flow of refugees and people claiming
international protection was perceived as a surge of continuous
dramatic arrivals from the Mediterranean, which, in four years,
reached a total of 625,000 people, but which in fact was continuously decelerating.
A specific scale effect came from the reaction to the increasing
number of two groups of immigrants considered by the prejudice
of common people as ‘sensitive’: Muslims and blacks. Every 20
years, the number of Muslims entering Italy has practically doubled: 858,000 in 1990, 1,583,000 in 2010 and 3,199,000 in 2030
(the last is the projection of the Pew Institute, 2011). At present,
foreigners of Islamic religion number 1,683,000 (ie, 32.7% of total
immigrants). The percentage of Black Africans tripled in each of
the last three decades of the 20th century: from 3.3% in 1970 to
10% in 1980, and 30.5% in 1990, to remain stable at a little over
20% after the turn of the new century. Opinion polls, however,
showed that these figures were perceived as being higher than
in reality.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
67
The scale effect contributed to generating a wrong perception
about immigrants and gave the nationalistic populist parties an
additional weapon to cash the effect of discontent at the election.
Before the international immigration upsurge, Italy had experienced
similar trends in the public opinion of northern regions affected by
internal migration from southern Italy. The manipulation of local public opinion and voters against immigrants from southern Italy made
the Northern League party locally strong, and it then built its power
on this issue in northern Italy. The paradox is that Italian nationalistic
populism cashed consensus on its immigration menu in 2018, after
five consecutive years of stable numbers of immigrants.
Perception and reality of Italian immigration
Voters express their preferences on the basis of their beliefs, which
do not necessarily reflect the reality or the truth of a phenomenon.
The Italian perception of migration and asylum seekers is certainly
wrong for at least four reasons. In quantitative terms, the true number of immigrants is much lower than the common people perceive.
In dynamic terms, the number of immigrants has been stable for the
last five years.
In structural terms, the number of immigrants produces positive
effects and shows a positive trend with regard to the future. Italian
citizens are getting older (one-quarter of the population is over 65)
and have fewer children than foreigners (1.27 children per fertile
Italian woman against 1.97 per fertile foreign woman). In refusing
the present level of immigrants, in 30 years’ time Italy may become
a country of less than 47 million people, with an average age of
49. Without the contribution of foreigners, Italy will lose population
even in the most optimistic forecast: in 2050 it will have a population of less than 55 million. In this scenario, the south will suffer
particularly: the decrease in population and climate change will be
pushing this part of Italy to a concrete risk of depopulation and distress. In Table 5 the positive effects of immigrants’ contribution to
the Italian demography is evident.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Table 5: Population growth in Italy with and without immigrants (in millions), 2006-2050
2006
2050
highest value
hypothesis
(hs, superior)
average value
hypothesis
(hm, median)
lowest value
hypothesis
(hi, inferior)14
59.1
67.3
61.6
55.6
of whom, Italians
56.2
54.9
50.9
46.7
of whom, foreigners
2,939
12.4
10.7
9
2006
2050 (hs)
39
(or 66% of the
total)
35.8
(or 53.2% of the
total)
Over 65 years
old
11.8
22.2
Average age
42.8
48.9
Italians and
foreigners
15-64 years old
Source: Caritas and Migrantes, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione, 2017.
The majority of immigrants live in conditions of integration and
legality. The number of holders of non-EU residence permits is
high, 3,715,000, which is an explicit sign of their willingness to
stay, and possibly of their desire to be integrated and for legality.
Moreover two-thirds of them, 2,390,000, hold a permanent residence permit, which is evidence of settlement and a long-term
relationship with the country where they live. The rest, 1,325,000,
have a fixed-term permit based on family (39.3%) or work (35.2%).
Less than one-fifth (239,000, one in every 16 non-EU immigrants)
is an asylum or protection permit holder.
The fact that the populist and rightist opposition to the Democratic
Party government successfully took advantage of the migration
issue despite the above-mentioned elements clearly shows that
perception counted more than reality.
Using the previously mentioned Eurostat data and polls conducted at the end of 2017, the Istituto Cattaneo published research on
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
69
the impact of immigration on Italian public opinion and the electorate.15 The question put to those interviewed dealt, among other
issues, with their knowledge of the percentage of immigrants16 in
the Italian population. While, at the end of 2017, immigrants made
up 7.2% of the total EU population, the average European citizen believed that they represented 16.7% of the total population.
Italians, with an astonishing 25%, are the least well informed. Even
though the percentage of immigrants in Italy is less than the EU
average, 7%, Italians think that one-quarter of the population is
composed of people born outside EU, a deviation from the reality
of +17.4%.
Recommendations
The first recommendation to the Italian progressive forces is that
they should re-establish the truth in national public opinion of the
numbers relating to immigration.
The second argument that progressives should use to rectify the
judgement on how they handled the migration issue is that Italy
needs immigrants to guarantee the demographic equilibrium necessary for a working and productive country.
The third recommendation has its roots in the sociological analysis of the nature of the Italian culture and electorate. Following the
indications of the Pew Research Centre’s NIM index,17 the Istituto
Cattaneo reports that Italy appears to be the most nationalistic
country among the 15 western European states under scrutiny,
adding that part of the wrong perception of immigrants and asylum seekers was irrationally generated by Italian nationalism
and an “instinctive” rejection of religious and ethnic minorities.
Progressive forces should also note what the Istituto Cattaneo’s
research highlighted in the Italian left versus right perception of
immigration: the former declared a percentage of immigrants
equal to 18.5%, the latter equal to 32.4%. Progressive forces
should launch a long-term campaign to fight Italians’ deep prej70
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
udice against the ‘different’, remaining vigilant with regard to
resurging nationalism. The quantitative perception of immigrants
in the rightist ranks (four times the truth) suggests that the political
offensive of progressive forces against the right now in government has to be strong, as the rightist position is based on evident
emotional and ideological faults.
The fourth recommendation is that the dialogue progressive forces need to open with Italian society on immigration should be
multifaceted. This is based on the fact that, in accordance with the
previously mentioned research of the Istituto Cattaneo, the quantitative and qualitative perception of immigrants varies in relation
to factors such as the level of education, social and work conditions, and regional environments. The gulf between the real and
perceived level of immigration widens from graduates (+10.9%) to
secondary school diploma holders (+18.6%) to the citizens with
only compulsory schooling (+21.1%). As for work and social conditions, the gulf widens from +12.3% in the upper classes to 13% in
the middle class, to 14.8% among small entrepreneurs, to 21.4%
among skilled workers and 21.8% among non-skilled workers. As
for the regional perception, the gulf is 14.2% in the north-west of
Italy and 13.1% in the north-east, whereas it is +18.9% in the centre
and 20.5% in the southern regions.
The strategy of the progressive forces, in terms of content and
language, needs to be tailored differently, taking account of the
above segmentation of the electorate. The exercise needs special
application for the so-called ‘red regions’ – ie, the regions that
traditionally expressed support for the Communist and Socialist
parties (Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, Marche, Umbria). In the Istituto
Cattaneo/Eurobarometer analysis, the red regions recorded the
largest gulf between real and perceived immigration, with a surprising +20.9%. This means that the inhabitants of these regions
believed that Italy was experiencing four times more immigration
than in reality, which certainly contributed to their refusal to vote
for the Democratic Party in March 2018.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
71
As a general conclusion, it seems that the idealism of the left
should be moderated with a due sense of realism. A better understanding of common people’s opinion, feelings and needs has to
be part of a progressive strategy. The issue of immigration and
international protection of people in need should be illustrated
through a bottom-up process involving people and their interest: for instance, the demographic evolution of the country, the
segmentation of the labour market, the positive influence of immigrants on the public accounts and pension schemes are good
arguments to be advanced.
The enforcement of law and order does not run counter to a ‘just’
policy on immigrants. The repression of criminal activities committed by immigrants and asylum seekers and by those exploiting their
needs is an obvious part of a progressive agenda on migration.
No Italian in need should feel abandoned by a state helping a foreigner in need: this is part of the discourse on identity, which the
nationalistic populist forces are using and which the left must not
leave in their hands. To prevent the feeling of abandonment that
a number of Italian citizens are experiencing, progressive forces
should promote policies that target vulnerable people in general,
irrespective of their status, with the aim of fostering inclusion and
preventing inequalities.
There are things that are not negotiable. Italian civil and military
vessels must save people in danger when they are in territorial
waters. After a reasonable period, the rights of citizenship must
be granted to immigrants and their children who have demonstrated respect for the constitution and Italian laws, and who want
to become Italians. Exploitation of immigrants is unacceptable:
criminal organisations and business activities taking illicit advantage of desperate immigrated people must be eradicated. The
legal labour market for foreigners should be reopened as much
as possible. Salaries and social rights should not be subject to
discrimination.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
The information given by the Istituto Cattaneo and Eurobarometer
provides the very unfortunate proof that Italians share the highest
European rejection of minorities in terms of prejudice, cultivating
an instinctive hatred for immigrants. An appropriate communication strategy needs to be tailored: a more ‘simple’ language is
needed, distances between leaders and people have to be cut,
absolute consistency between public speech and private behaviour needs to be reached, an inclusive definition of national identity
needs to be proposed. The latter should include the enlargement
of integration policies to anyone residing on the national territory.
As the first necessary step for any project of inclusion, job creation
should be part of those policies, with reference to the need for
both nationals and foreigners.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
73
Notes
1
Information comes from Idos, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione 2018, October
2018, which is also the source for other last-minute data in the text. Dossier states
that, according to the IOM, “since 2000, out of the 40,000 migrants who died at
sea throughout the world, those who died on the route between Italy and Libya
were as many as 22,400”, p. 12.
2
According to Fondazione Migrantes, Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo 2018, 2018,
Italian emigrants number 5,114,469: 16% of them in Argentina, 14.5% in Germany,
12% in Switzerland, 8.1% in Brazil, 8% in France.
3
The OECD Outlook 2017 states that between 2005 and 2014, the average annual
number of emigrants from Italy to OECD countries was 87,000 (ranking 8th after
China, Romania, Poland, India, Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam). The emigrants to
OECD countries from Italy numbered 154,000 in 2014 and 171,000 in 2015.
According to National Statistics, there were about 115,000 Italians who emigrated
in 2017. During the same year, Italian expatriates registered at AIRE (the State
register of Italian residents abroad) numbered 128,193. See also ISTAT, Rapporto
BES 2017, https://www.istat.it/it/files/2017/12/Bes_2017.pdf.
4
According to Migrantes, Dossier Statistico 1992, p. 53, from 1986 until 1991, the
presence of immigrants in Italy increased from 450,227 to 859,571.
5
Here the definition ‘centre left’ rather than ‘centre-left’ has been chosen on
purpose to underline the composition of the governments that came in
succession from 2013 to June 2018, and that were formed by coalitions between
the Democratic Party (centre-left) and other centre or centre-right parties. The
three governments to which the text refers were the Letta government: April 2013
– February 2014; Renzi government: February 2014-December 2016; and
Gentiloni government: December 2016- June 2018.
6
The source of the data in Table 1 is the OECD and, in accordance with OECD
methodology, the data refer only to regular entries.
7
On 10 November 2018, Italian newspaper La Repubblica published a poll
conducted by Demos&Pi on 29-31 October regarding the position of Italian public
opinion on the ships with immigrants and refugees wishing to dock in Italian
ports. 52% were for refusal (44% in 2017), 40% for reception (49% in 2017). The
refusal was approved by 84% of the League supporters, 66% of M5S and 16% of
Democratic Party supporters.
8
In this respect it is interesting what IDOS, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione 2018
writes, p. 12: “(…) of the 2,423,000 foreign workers in 2017, as many as two-thirds
carry out low-skilled professions or blue-collar jobs (…). In particular 71% of
domestic workers and carers are foreigners (a sector that employs 43.2% of
foreign women workers) as are almost half of all street vendors, more than
one-third of porters, 18.5% of workers in hotels and restaurants (mostly cleaners
and waiters), one-sixth of all construction workers and farmers. Those jobs are
usually hard, precarious, low paid and often seasonal, with little or no contractual
guarantees and sometimes with exploitation, and are therefore unattractive to
Italians. In addition, the low occupational mobility of foreign workers leads them
to a subordinate condition, which is reflected in the pay gap: on average, an
Italian employee earns 25.5% more than a foreigner, while foreign women earn
on average 25.4% less than their male counterparts”.
9
IDOS, p. 11.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
10 Demos & Pi, Survey “La percezione degli immigrati”, http://www.demos.it/a01453.
php.
11
A new-born traditionally acquires citizenship either through having one or both
parents who are citizens of the state (ius sanguinis) or on the basis of where the
birth takes place (ius soli).
12 M5S’s ideology and action have strong structural links with the web. Before being
in power, the movement produced its fundamental choices by web ‘referendum’.
Digital democracy and digital political engagement are part of the model that
M5S practises, the final goal being the abolition of representative democracy and
parliament in a not too distant future and their substitution with digital agora.
13 OECD, International Migration Outlook 2017, p. 17.
14 Accordingly, the scenarios result in more or less population, more or fewer grey
people.
15 Istituto Cattaneo, Immigrazione in Italia: tra realtà e percezione, August 2018. See
www.cattaneo.org.
16 Here “immigrant” refers to a person born outside the EU’s borders and legally
resident in Italy.
17 The centre developed a scale to measure the extent of nationalist, anti-immigrant
and anti-religious minority (NIM) sentiment. Pew states that the NIM scale
combines answers to 22 survey questions on a wide range of issues including
immigration policy. The countries examined are enlisted as follows in terms of the
NIM index, from the most nationalistic and anti-minority to the least: Italy, Portugal,
Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Belgium,
Denmark, France, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden. The reference of the Istituto
Cattaneo is to J. Diamant, K. J. Starr, Western Europeans vary in their nationalist,
anti-immigrant and anti-religious minority attitudes, 19 June 2018. See http://www.
pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/19/
western-europeans-vary-in-their-nationalist-anti-immigrant-and-anti-religious-minority-attitudes/.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
75
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Migration and public opinion:
The case of Germany
THILO SCHOLLE
Germany has been a country of immigrants and of immigration
since at least the late 19th century. During industrialisation, several hundred thousand Poles migrated to the Ruhr valley. After the
second world war, millions of Germans who had fled from Russian
and Polish occupied areas settled in the western part of Germany.
Memoirs show that during the first years, they were often treated
with open hostility by the local population – either because they
happened to belong to the wrong faith (Catholic in Protestant,
Protestant in Catholic areas) or because they were simply refugees and poor. And from the middle of the 1950s onwards, several
hundred thousand workers, first from Italy and then from Spain,
Morocco, Tunisia, Yugoslavia and especially from Turkey were
recruited to fill vacancies in West German manufacturing industries
– the so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers). In the eastern part of
Germany, the situation was different. The number of migrant workers was nowhere near as high as in the west, and the recruited
workers, mainly from Vietnam and Mozambique, were mostly kept
apart from the rest of the population.
Even though many people living in (West) Germany were exposed
to migration and to migrants, public sentiment at large never
caught up with this reality. The official discourse concerning the
Gastarbeiter followed the idea that they would return to their
native countries after a few years – and many of the Gastarbeiter
themselves thought that, too. Reality was different, though: children were born and families settled in Germany for good. Several
million inhabitants of Germany can trace their roots back to the
Gastarbeiter-generation and are now living in Germany in the third
or even fourth generation. The early 1990s saw a large rise in refugees coming to Germany, fleeing wars in Africa and the Middle
East, or the civil war in Yugoslavia. After the experiences of Nazi
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
77
devastation, Germany had not only signed the international refugee
conventions but included a right to asylum in the German constitution. Soon, a rather nasty political debate developed as to whether
the country could ‘bear the burden’ of so many refugees, and the
governing CDU/CSU-FDP coalition and the then opposition Social
Democrats agreed to alter the constitution and restrict access to
the asylum process. During the same months of 1993, Germany saw
a surge in right-wing violence, culminating in several racist murders,
most noticeably the setting fire to a house inhabited by a Turkish
family in Solingen, killing five people and injuring more. The situation calmed down eventually, but it remained possible to mobilise
xenophobic sentiment, as the successful campaign by the CDU
and CSU against the introduction of regular dual citizenship in 1999
showed. The discovery of the NSU (National Socialist Underground)
terror group in 2013, which is alleged to have murdered at least 11
people (ten of them because of their alleged Turkish background),
gave many immigrants the feeling of not being secure any more.
Most of Germany’s non-immigrant population has never really
understood the impact this racist violence had on many immigrants,
who no longer felt secure or accepted as part of German society.
In contrast to the lack of interest concerning questions of migration
and integration shown in public debate, progress ‘on the ground’
has been quite good. Even though unemployment among foreigners and Germans of migration background remains above average,
it is far from being endemic. And each successive generation has
seen rising levels of education, as well as work place integration.
More and more migrants or their children are seen in all positions
of society. There are writers, actors and scientists, as well as skilled
workers, teachers and doctors – many of them the first in their
families to have a university degree or even any formal education.
The years saw advancement in social interactions as well, either at
school, in civil society organisations or in friendships and marriages.
This success was not only incremental but was brought about by
public policies as well – for example, inclusive schooling, vocation78
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
al training and financial and organisational support for civil society
by public institutions. From the 1980s onwards, cities as well as
administrations of the Länder (states) started to introduce specialised departments to deal with integration not only as a question
of policing foreigners, but also as a field of social policy and with
the clear objective of empowering migrants as well. The public
took only superficial notice; to many people it seemed that there
would be only the enthusiasts of multiculturalism on the one side,
and law-and-order-people on the other. That many practitioners did
not fit these caricatures and did a lot of idealistic and at the same
time pragmatic work for the advancement of equality was largely ignored. This could clearly be seen during the debate about a
book on integration in 20101 by a former senator in Berlin, in which
he assembled many alleged statistics to prove that migrants with
a Muslim background were a burden to German society and could
not be integrated. The book turned out to be the largest non-fiction
sales success on bookshelves since the war and loomed heavily
above the public debate. While to many of the readers the author
was the first to pronounce the ‘truth’ about the Muslims they had
long suspected, many migrants felt deeply insulted. Although public debate surrounding the book saw nuanced statements as well,
a great deal of emphasis was placed on the question of so-called
“parallel societies” among Muslims and the problems of integrating
them into society. It became obvious that the fairly successful reality of migration and integration only played a minor role compared
to a public debate largely fuelled by sentiment. Nevertheless, the
success of integration ‘on the ground’ continued. More migrants
were elected to the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, and state
parliaments, more migrants entered journalism or achieved other
positions of public status. Grasped neither really by close followers of integration debates nor by only superficial followers, the gap
between a public debate centred on supposed deficits and fairly
promising developments ‘on the ground’ did not close.
It is against this background that the heated political debates in
Germany concerning questions of migration in the past two years
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
79
have to be considered. In the media, questions of migration and
integration have been dominant, especially in evening talk show
programmes. Nevertheless, migration is not the only topic of political debate, and has not been the only or even a decisive point
for the political success of the Social Democratic Party in past
elections – either on the federal or on the regional level (where
questions including employment, security and pensions have also
played a role).
The so-called “refugee crisis” of summer 2015 initially saw an
unprecedented example of civil society’s ability to welcome refugees (Willkommenskultur). Thousands volunteered at train stations
and housing centres, and later with language courses and assistance for the migrants’ first steps in Germany. Government agencies
that had not been prepared for such a great influx of people in
such a short period of time slowly adapted to the task, and in the
end mastered the situation quite well. At the same time, xenophobic sentiment, open hostility and acts of racist violence remained
a problem (for example, the Pegida movement in Dresden or the
events in Chemnitz in September 2018).
Public sentiment started to shift after the events in Cologne on New
Year’s Eve 2015-16, when the perception grew stronger that too
many of the migrants who had come could not be integrated into
German society.2 Three debates came to the fore in the following
weeks: firstly, about how many ‘criminal’ migrants had really come
and how to deal with them; secondly, the older debate about whether the integration of the Gastarbeiter and their children had been
a success, and, thirdly, the debate about whether belonging to the
Islamic faith posed a problem to integration into German society.
An important debate among third-generation migrants, grandchildren of the former Gastarbeiter, as well as among part of the public
sphere, had until then been about identity and new ways of being
‘German’. With regard to policies, this debate led more towards
questions of upward social mobility, anti-discrimination and to the
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
question of whether ‘integration’ was something to be demanded
from people who had lived all their life in Germany. The ambition
to convince the public of the new realities of a post-Gastarbeiter
generation of Germans with a migration background was confronted with a public debate that only concentrated on how to integrate
the new incoming refugees (or migrants in general), and in the end
led to misunderstandings and disappointments among this group of
ambitious Germans who also had a migration background.
Status quo
In 2015, 17.1 million inhabitants had a migration background
(Migrationshintergrund), 21% of the total population (Mikrozensus
2015). In 2016, 745,545 requests for asylum were recorded (this fell
to 142,167 requests in January to September 2018).
In terms of legal as well as actual integration, Germany has been
fairly successful in recent years. The old ius sanguinis was complemented by ius soli elements – and the possibility for dual citizenship
was made available to more people than before, even though this
was not completely accepted. After 2015, it was widely agreed that
the new immigrants should have access to the labour market as
well as to language and training programmes. In most cases this is
now possible after three months of stay in Germany – which was
unthinkable before.
The success of the children of the Gastarbeiter has also been growing. Still not equal to Germans without a migration background in
terms of success in education and employment, the number of
highly qualified students and employees is still on the rise. Contrary
to sentiment held by the public at large and also by some third-generation migrants, the economic and legal situation for migrants in
Germany has generally improved over the past decades.
Despite this development, mainstream political parties, especially
on the left, appeared unable to build on this trend. In fact, social
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
81
democracy in Germany has not succeeded in developing its own
clear message on migration in recent years. Even if SPD party members seem to be more open to migration and to equality for migrants
in Germany, the party has failed to develop its own clear message
on migration and translate this attitude into a clear political agenda.
Currently, publicists and politicians debate whether the left has
been too cosmopolitan and too little communitarian – thus losing
the working-class vote. In this view, concentrating too much on foreigners’ rights and gender issues has alienated the core electorate.
I do not support this view. Studies point to a social democratic electorate that is in general open to inclusive and solidary politics, to
equal rights for migrants, and to a more equal distribution of wealth.
And a study of voting patterns of workers, which will be discussed
in more depth later, shows that more relevant than income for
Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) voters is the
question of the presumed control and influence over one`s own life:
workers in jobs with good union organisation, strong works councils and a good relationship between unions/works councils and
employer tend to vote less for the AfD than those who express the
sentiment that “someone else is deciding about my future” (indeed
the SPD suffered large electoral defeats even before the debate
about refugees started).
According to Eurobarometer,3
• 54% of respondents in Germany feel well informed about immigration and related matters. Maybe corresponding to this, 52% of
Germans estimate that there are more immigrants staying legally
than illegally in the country – while 24% estimate that there are
more irregular than regular immigrants.
• 60% of Germans have at least weekly interaction with migrants
(42% daily); 22% daily in the neighbourhood, 25% daily at the
workplace (with a surprisingly high 41% stating “less often or
never”); 48% interact at least once a month using public services;
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
only 28% state they interact at least once a month at a childcare
centre, school or university, while 56% state “less often or never”
(one reserve is that all those who do not attend any of these institutions seem to have been included in the figures), and 31% of the
Germans surveyed interact at least once a month during sport,
voluntary work or cultural activities.
• While 57% of all European respondents state they would feel
comfortable having all kinds of social relations with immigrants
in general, 55% of Germans state the same. 81% of the European
respondents are comfortable with a migrant as a friend (QA6,
p. 37) (Germans: 84%), 70% with a migrant as a family member
(Germans 72%), and 68% with a migrant as a manager (same for
Germans, QA6.1, p. 44).
• Regarding actual personal relations, 27% of Europeans state they
have friends who are immigrants (Germans 26%).
Impressions about migration in general are also mixed:
• 38% of Europeans state immigration is more of a problem (Germany 35%). And 54% of Europeans (50% of Germans) agree that
integration is successful in their local area or country (48% of
Germans say it is unsuccessful).
• Interestingly, when asked if integration in the city or area where
they live is successful, only 46% of Germans answer affirmatively,
and 43% negatively. This picture becomes even more complicated when Germans are asked how successful the integration of
most immigrants living in their country is perceived to be. Here,
the response is 31% successful, 63% unsuccessful.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
83
Figure 1: Views regarding the impact of immigrants in society in Germany and the EU
Source: European Commission, Integration of Immigrants in the European Union,
Special Eurobarometer 469.
Source: European Commission, Integration of Immigrants in the European Union, Special
Eurobarometer 469.
Figure 2: Views on the meaning of being well-integrated into a society in Germany and the EU.
Figure 2: Views on the meaning of being well-integrated into a society in Germany and the
EU.
Source: European Commission, Integration of Immigrants in the European Union,
Special Eurobarometer 469.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
• 71% of Germans agree that difficulties finding a job are a major
obstacle to integration, and 65% consider discrimination as an
obstacle, 63% difficulties in accessing long-term residence permits and 58% limited interaction between migrants and citizens,
while 55% agree that difficulties in bringing family members might
be an obstacle to integration.
• 80% of the Germans surveyed agree it is necessary to invest in
integrating immigrants in the long run. 89% of Germans agree or
tend to agree that promoting the intermingling of citizens from
the host country and immigrants in schools and neighbourhoods
is important.
• 93% of Germans think establishing common EU policies and
measures on integration is important (EU average 82%). 98%
of Germans consider the immigrants themselves important for
integration, while there is broad consensus that educational and
administrative institutions also play an important role. Only 50%
of the Germans surveyed state that their government is doing
enough to foster the integration of immigrants (44% disagree).
The Integrationsbaromenter of the Sachverständigenrat deutscher
Stiftungen für Migration und Integration (SVR) roughly points in the
same direction. Since 2015, the SVR’s Integrationsbarometer has
measured the perceived degree of integration4 in four fields (neighbourhood, work, social relations and education) and summarises its
findings as an index.
The majority of people surveyed who did not have a migration
background gave a fairly positive outlook in 2017-18:
• Germans tend to be slightly less pessimistic than in 2015. Factors
for a positive outlook, according to the researchers, are the level
of education, experienced discrimination and experience of cultural diversity.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
85
• Across all groups, most scepticism exists concerning integration
and education, and the fear of a loss of quality in educational
institutions with a high number of migrants. Men are more pessimistic than women in all areas. Men also make up the majority of
the AfD electorate. There is a noticeable difference between east
and west: inhabitants in the east are considerably more sceptical
than their counterparts in the west
• Another figure is also interesting: when asked whether the new
incoming refugees might lead to rising criminality, about half think
they might, half think not. Asked if the immigrants of past decades
have led to rising crime rates, seven out of ten respondents with
a background of migration rejected this notion.
Figure 3: German people’s view on refugees’ future contribution to Germany’s economic development
"The admitted Refugees will make a positive contribution to
Germany's economic development"
24,3%
21,9%
28,4%
Agree completely
39,4%
40,4%
23,3%
13,0%
Turkey
26,0%
11,7%
EU
21,6%
42,9%
Agree somewhat
without migration
background
Late Emigrants
15,9%
31,8%
37,4%
15,0%
7,8%
21,7%
46,3%
24,3%
Don't really agree
7,0%
Rest of the world
Disagree
Source: Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Migration und Integration, Stabiles Klima in der
Integrationsrepublik Deutschland, SVR-Integrationsbarometer 2018.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 4: German people’s view on migrants’ contribution to Germany’s economic development.
"Migrants have made a positive contribution to Germany's
economic development"
37,0
42,3
39,9
39,3%
50,0%
34,8%
14,7%
33,4%
44,2%
39,6%
Agree completely
Don't really agree
6,0%
11,5% 5,1%
10,6%
45,5%
Agree somewhat
without migration
background
15,9
10,5%
11,0%
Late Emigrants
Turkey
EU
Rest of the world
Disagree
Source: Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Migration und Integration, Stabiles Klima in der
Integrationsrepublik Deutschland, SVR-Integrationsbarometer 2018.
• 80% of Germans with a migration background believe that
migrants who have been living in Germany for a long time have
contributed to economic prosperity, and 70% expect the same
from the current migrants. Meanwhile more than two-thirds of
Germans without a migration background do not follow the
thesis that the number of refugees admitted is a threat for prosperity in Germany – almost the same level as in 2015 (p. 16.).
Almost 60% would continue to accept refugees even if all other
EU countries did not. A rather diverse picture can be seen when
looking at the level of contentment with how the authorities
have managed the housing of refugees. In rural areas, 81.7%
have a positive impression. In densely populated areas, this level falls to 60.7%. One explanation might be the already difficult
housing situation for all the population in those areas.
What we can see here is that the general impression drawn from
Eurobarometer is confirmed. We can also clearly see that the perception of how integration works is divided between large cities
and rural areas, and most noticeably between west and east. A
public debate that was largely centred on the supposed deficits
of integration did not turn the whole population into defeatists.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
87
But what is striking again is that past experiences with (successful) migration do not automatically lead to positive perceptions:
having the impression that migration did not cause a rise in crime
rates in the past does not necessarily lead to a more relaxed perception in the present.
This study is one of the few that tries to differentiate between those
with and those without a migration background. The political attitudes
of German citizens who either themselves came from other countries,
or whose parents did, are almost never surveyed. This is especially
problematic as around 10.2% of voters have just such a background.
Until now, they have tended to have a much lower turnout at federal
elections than those without such a background (82.6% turnout without a migration background, 57.8% with).5 For a long time migrants
in Germany had a strong tendency to vote for the Social Democratic
Party (if given the right to vote). A study by the Sachverständigenrat in
2016 came up with a survey about party preferences: CDU/ CSU 27.6
%, SPD 40.1%, Greens 13.2%, the left 11.3%, others 7.7%.6 According to
new data, this tendency seems to be eroding.7 The follow-up study
by the Sachverständigenrat in 2018 showed that 43.2% of those surveyed preferred the CDU/ CSU, and only 25 % the SPD. The SPD
remained in the lead among those with Turkish background (37.0%
SPD compared to 32.9% CDU/ CSU), but fell from a 69.8% preference
in 2016. The study does not offer any conclusive reasoning for this
decline, but the researchers of the study tend to attribute the rise
of the CDU/CSU largely to the popularity of Angela Merkel among
migrants. Even though the SPD is more progressive than the CDU/
CSU in terms of policy, the survey shows that the SPD can no longer
feel confident in keeping its edge concerning the votes of those with
a migration background.
Behind the public debate on migration looms a much larger debate
about the reasons for the recent rise of the AfD party. At the 2017
federal election, the AfD received 12.6% of the vote and more than
30% in some regions in eastern Germany, even winning some seats
previously held by Christian democrats.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
How does the debate about immigration correspond to political
power shifts? Is discontent with the way migration is handled a trigger for voting right wing?
According to Kohlrausch et al,8 the main trigger for an inclination to
vote AfD is discontent with one’s own life. This does not necessarily
refer to an objective social status, but rather to a subjective impression. The study was conducted between January and February
2017, after the events in Cologne but before last year’s federal elections. The main trigger here is the perception of being personally
set back.
• AfD voters rank themselves lower in society regardless of their
real income and seem to experience a social decline compared
to their parents. At the same time, they experience a three-fold
sense of loss of control: personally, regarding technological
changes and the fear of not being able to adapt; politically, with
the perception that politics and institutions are distant and keep
ignoring their expectations; and with regard to a national state
that is not able to fulfil the task of protecting its own population,
for example in the case of an influx of refugees.
The situation in the workplace seems to be very important. Here,
not only is the actual situation significant, but also the fear of one’s
own future failures.
• Loss of control, for example due to digitalised controls at the
workplace, may lead to a vote for the AfD. The mere existence
of union representation or collective bargaining agreements
seems not to alter this trend. The group most at risk of voting
right wing seems to be male middle-income, middle professional training, who argue that what happens to them is decided
somewhere in the outside world, beyond their influence. If they
are at a workplace without collective bargaining agreement and
on a temporary contract, their inclination to vote right-wing is
much higher.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
89
Public sentiment seems to be inconsistent. Fairly broad contentment with the current life situation and scepticism concerning future
developments are sometimes voiced by the same people. With
regard to identities, religion seems to be eroding, while national
identity is gaining in importance. This is not so much with regard to
German history but to the economic achievements of companies
and employees, as well as to political achievements like democracy, gender equality and the social state.
Solidarity, too, seems to be still a strong value:
Figure 5: Perception of social cohesion in German society
Source: R. Hilmer, B. Kohlrausch, R. Müller-Hilmer, J. Gagné, Einstellung und soziale Lebenslage. Eine
Spurensuche nach Gründen für rechtspopulistische Orientierung, auch unter Gewerkschaftsmitgliedern,
Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Working Paper Forschungsförderung, N. 044, August 2017.
• According to Kohlrausch, 53% agree with the thesis that society is
increasingly drifting apart. 49% agree with the thesis that “for people
like me the political leaders do less than for other groups in society”.
• 68% still agree that freedom of speech exists in practice, and 67%
agree that the country is generally democratic.
• At the same time, 69% of respondents agree that the leading
people in politics and the media “live in their own world”, and
56% agree that it does not matter for which party one votes.
90
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
• 57% agree that politicians are only pretending to act, while vested
interest groups pull the triggers. Workers do not have enough to
say (63% agree), but the collective bargaining system produces
good results (55%).
• Worries or great worries include the spread of terrorism (78%),
rise of crime (72%), number of immigrants (62%) and the fate of
refugees (39%). It is interesting that only 23% of respondents
share the view that it should be possible to live “other cultures”
in Germany, while 60% agree that foreigners should adapt to the
German culture. The special responsibility of Germany to welcome refugees is shared by 25% (opposed by 56%), while 56%
agree that the state should prohibit the influx of immigrants in
order to protect the social security systems.
• On the other hand, 48% agree that legal immigrants should have
the same rights as Germans (31% oppose this), and that it is better if people from different parts of the world live together (47%
agree, 27% disagree). 36% consider immigration as a gain for the
country, while 44 % feel alien in their own country.
• When looking at the future, voters of the AfD are far more pessimistic (67%, 46% overall), while only 33% of AfD voters are
optimistic (54% overall). 45% overall are pessimistic about the
future of their children as opposed to 60% of AfD voters. While
38% of all respondents are afraid of crime and violence in their
living environment, this rises to 62% for AfD voters.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
91
t the same time, 69 of respondents agree that the leading people in politics and the
media li e in their own world , and 6 agree that it does not matter for which party one
otes.
agree that politicians are only pretending to act, while ested interest groups pull the
triggers. or ers do not ha e enough to say 6
agree , but the collecti e bargaining
system produces good results
.
orries or great worries include the spread of terrorism
, rise of crime
, number
of immigrants 6
and the fate of refugees 9 . t is interesting that only
of
respondents share the iew that it should be possible to li e other cultures in Germany,
while 6
agree that foreigners should adapt to the German culture. he special
responsibility of Germany to welcome refugees is shared by
opposed by 6 , while
6 agree that the state should prohibit the influ of immigrants in order to protect the
social security systems.
n the other hand, 4
agree that legal immigrants should ha e the same rights as Germans
oppose this , and that it is better if people from different parts of the world li e
together 4
agree,
disagree . 6 consider immigration as a gain for the country,
while 44 feel alien in their own country.
hen loo ing at the future, oters of the f are far more pessimistic 6 , 46 o erall ,
while only
of f oters are optimistic 4 o erall . 4
o erall are pessimistic about
the future of their children as opposed to 6
of f oters. hile
of all respondents
are afraid of crime and iolence in their li ing en ironment, this rises to 6 for f oters.
n general, the trust of f
oters in their fellow human beings is lower:
In general, the trust of AfD voters in their fellow human beings is
lower:
Figure
: erception of f oters ersus all oters
Figure 6: Perception of AfD voters versus all voters
Source: Kohlrausch et al.
Kohlrausch
Source:
ohlrausch etand
al. others conclude that the main driver for voting AfD
is insecurity at the workplace and the general fear of no longer
being able to direct one’s own life. The debate about migration is
perhaps therefore just a superficial sign for something even more
profound – a general uncertainty about the future. There are several other recent studies that also point in this direction: people feel
well currently, but harbour fears about the future, either for themselves or their children. Klaus Dörre developed the idea that over
recent years political impression has shifted from “class” to “nation”,
meaning that entitlement may no longer be derived from being a
good worker, but from being a good German.9
A recent study for the German insurance industry found that a
majority considers its own material situation positive, while only 13%
think it is negative.10
• 79% of the “middle generation” (30 to 59 years old) are happy
with their quality of life. 40% state their quality of life has risen
over the past five years, 41% state it has remained the same and
only 17% state it has declined. Weaknesses of Germany are said
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
to be the distribution of income and wealth (77%), the care system for the elderly (66%), the responsiveness of politics (64%),
the integration of immigration (62%), the pension system (59%),
the balance between family and work (56%), and the income of
employees (55%). People thus worry about many different topics,
and integration is only one of several important factors.
• According to this study, the major tasks for any German government should be to provide an affordable and secure public health
system (84%), to narrow the gap between rich and poor (79%),
to fight terrorism and criminality (78%), to secure the pension
system (76%) and to fight the root-causes of the refugee crises
(76%). Asked if they trust politics to look after the interests of their
generation, 33% of all the 30-59 year olds surveyed state they
do, while 41% state they do not. People with “low socio-economic
status” were even more clear: 54% no, 23% yes, in the middle
income-group it was about average, while at the top, 44% stated
they would trust politics (27% not).
A study carried out in 2016 by the political consultancy company
Polytix for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung points in a similar direction. The
researchers conclude that there is a danger of a new cleavage developing between those who are content and those who are discontent,
those who are more active and those who are more passive.11 On
the positive side, the researchers see a growing re-politicisation of
the population. They detect a strong demand for more participation,
social cohesion, solidarity and consciousness for inequality. The challenge for democratic parties is to stand up for a common base of
values that as many people as possible can identify with – and to
improve or secure the living conditions for various groups in society.
Sticking to traditional values and the fear of social change or progress are considered to be linked to the fear of losing security. These
fears need to be taken seriously by proposing concrete solutions to
hard problems. People are in search of political orientation and direction. The interviews conducted for this study show a strong wish to
have political representatives with steady views.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
93
The alienation of many people from traditional politics is immense.
Trust in the ability of politics to really change things in a positive
manner has decreased. Unfortunately, the only two examples
in the past decade when politics seemed to act quickly and by
spending a reasonably high amount of money in a rather short
period of time were the bailout of banks after 2008, and after the
arrival of the refugees in 2015. Many people might have ended up
perceiving that quick reaction by politics is possible – but only for
‘them’, not for ‘us’. People think they have something to lose and
want to have a secure perspective for their life (and for the life of
their children).
Very recently, the Bertelsmann Stiftung pointed to the rise of
populist inclinations among voters.12 According to a survey,
30.4% of the participants check all eight questions relevant to
populist voting, 32.8% do not share populist tendencies, and
36.8% have a mixed result. In general, populist leanings seem
to be higher with less formal education and less income and
among non-voters. The items to define populist voting included
agreement that “the people often share the same position, but
politicians follow other goals”, that “political parties are only
interested in votes, not in intentions of the voters” and that
“compromise is in reality betrayal”.
The (declining) electorate of the SPD is averagely populist, so the
party needs to balance its political approach somehow between
populist and non-populist voters. Regarding the position of a fictive
political candidate on migration, the opinion that receiving more
refugees may produce a negative reaction is widely shared among
participants in the survey. Among populist voters this rejection of
refugees is even stronger, while non-populist voters see the intake
of a few new refugees as positive. Asked about other policy areas, the field of social housing is one of the few topics frequently
mentioned by both populist and non-populist voters. Support for a
fictive political candidate in favour of doing more in this field rises
among populist as well as among non-populist voters.
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Recommendations (Dos and Don’ts)
One should not be drawn to the conclusion that all politics is immigration, as this is not the case. The debate about immigration is
probably largely a proxy for other political questions and feelings of
uncertainty about the future of society and social welfare.
To be clear, many people seem to share a feeling that not all goes
well regarding migration and integration. Talking about other policy areas might be perceived as an attempt to escape from talking
about the problems of immigration. This should not be the case – it
is not about avoiding this topic, but about putting migration into
perspective.
It is important to know that there are people in Germany who have
a ‘consistent’ racist world view that has nothing to do with outside
reasons but with ideological convictions. And these people will perhaps refrain from voting right-wing because other issues seem to be
more important at the moment, but not because of any migration/
integration policy that would be possible for progressive parties.
The interesting group for the political left is those who vote or tend
to vote right-wing (or who do not vote at all at the moment) and who
are not convinced racists. Here, the feeling of uncertainty perhaps
needs to be recognised and politicised, shifting the debate away
from an ‘us – them’ cleavage in terms of ethnic or other background
and concentrating it on social cleavages.
So don’t panic and don’t be afraid of your own electorate. Integration
is possible; communicating about it, too.
The studies cited above show that too many Germans feel ill-informed about migration, and that roughly half of those surveyed
have a rather bad picture of how integration seems to fail. This
might explain why books such as the one described above led to
such success. And many people seem to be unable to relate fairly
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
95
good personal experiences to a general debate that suggests
integration does not work. By contrast, we can see a majority that
would have no problem accepting migrants in all kinds of social
relations – even though far fewer than that number do actually have
such relations. More and better information about the current state
of affairs concerning migration and integration is thus necessary.
The questions concerning the importance of language and work
point to a picture of integration that puts heavy emphasis on integration via the workplace. This is a point that is not only correct
– integration functions largely through the workplace – but also
that can really be put into policy, compared to much more vague
demands for ‘cultural integration’ or suchlike. In the end it therefore
seems possible to obtain majorities in favour of integration policies
that centre on the workplace – and that include active programmes
as well as anti-discrimination work. And it should be possible to
develop and frame a coherent integration policy centred on language skills and workplace integration, and that reconciles worries
about the impact of migration on employment and the future of
social security with humanitarian demands.
So don’t dig too much on the cultural side. The political message
is simple: criminal behaviour will be tolerated by no one. Neither
will racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism, or religious extremism. Debates about which religious texts can be (mis)used for which
type of extremism is something for academia. What counts for a
society to function is how people behave in their everyday lives.
Being able to show that by working migrants can be as successful
as anybody else is important. And reality is on the progressive side
here… Plus, the workplace is one of the main places for social interaction. And vice-versa, employment is the main (not only economic)
prerequisite for the empowerment of migrants themselves.
Take into account that even though many possible SPD voters
share doubts about the current handling of migration, there are also
many who do not. A restrictive migration policy might alienate a
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
part of the electorate without gaining many other voters. And take
into account that there are over 20% of people with a migration
background who make up about 10% of voters: they need to be
addressed and activated by progressive parties as well.
Develop political proposals for a decent and secure future. Shift the
debate: it is the social question, stupid!
Social democracy needs to prove that it can act quickly and boldly.
What alienates people is the impression that after 20 years or so
of fiscal austerity, suddenly money is there although it is not spent
on issues of common concern but on refugees. Therefore, do fund
public services and public administration. Make the state work again
for the people (kindergartens, schools, universities, health, care for
the elderly). People also care about housing. Pushing new migrants
and established Germans (and “old” migrants as well) to compete
for housing and good schools needs to be stopped. And as the
above-mentioned study by Bertelsmann shows, both the populist
as well as the non-populist portion of the Social Democratic electorate is in favour of much more spending on social housing and
of finding solutions for housing for middle-income families as well.
People need to see that politics can deliver for them: by really
seeing the new kindergarten in their city, by experiencing better
funding for schools, maybe even by seeing the construction of new
housing by a public housing company. And if this cannot be implemented due to a lack of political majorities, it needs at least to be
hammered out as part of social democratic policy proposals for the
next elections.
Make work secure again: stop alienation at the workplace by raising
the minimum wage, helping unions expand, levelling the playing
field between employees and employers, reforming social security
to take away the fears of losing everything just a few years after
losing a job. Propose policies that turn the debate about the digitalisation of work into a new debate about the humanisation of work!
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
97
Renew the promise that those who work hard and try to contribute
to society have the chance of a secure and fulfilled life. Help rebuild
confidence that a solidary society can be achieved.
Build alliances: all those interested in a solidary society are in!
Unions, social organisations, migrant organisations, other minorities.
Make Europe work again, maybe even with alliances of the willing (governments) and the use of financial as well as legal force.
End social dumping and introduce a set of (relative) minimum social
standards across all member states.
Migration does not need to be a political issue to be afraid of. It
needs to be put into perspective with other issues. It can work if it is
part of a general and coherent political concept that tries to “bring
the good life for the many, not the few”.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Notes
1
T. Sarrazin, Deutschland schafft sich ab, Munich 2010.
2
That night groups of young men mainly from North African descent harassed
women who were on their way back to Cologne’s main train station. The
behaviour of the young men was attributed to misogynist attitudes due to their
Arab and Muslim background.
3
The data presented below can be found in European Commission, Integration of
Immigrants in the European Union, Special Eurobarometer 469, https://ec.europa.
eu/home-affairs/news/
results-special-eurobarometer-integration-immigrants-european-union_en.
4
Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Migration und Integration, Stabiles
Klima in der Integrationsrepublik Deutschland, SVR-Integrationsbarometer 2018.
5
A. M. Wüst, T. Faas, Politische Einstellungen von Menschen mit
Migrationshintergrund, Berlin 2018.
6
Sachverständigenrat, Stabiles Klima in der Integrationsrepublik Deutschland.
7
Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Migration und Integration,
Parteipräferenzen von Zuwanderinnen und Zuwanderern: Abschied von alten
Mustern, Kurzinformation des Forschungsbereichs 2018-2, Berlin 2018.
8
R. Hilmer, B. Kohlrausch, R. Müller-Hilmer, J. Gagné, Einstellung und soziale
Lebenslage. Eine Spurensuche nach Gründen für rechtspopulistische
Orientierung, auch unter Gewerkschaftsmitgliedern, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung,
Working Paper Forschungsförderung, N. 044, August 2017.
9
K. Dörre, S. Bosse, J. Lütten, J. Köster, Arbeiterbewegung von rechts? Motive und
Grenzen einer imaginären Revolte, in Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 22 May
2018.
10 Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, Generation Mitte 2017 – Bilanz und
Erwartungen am Beginn der neuen Legislaturperiode, https://www.gdv.de/de/
medien/aktuell/die--generation-mitte--2018--35798.
11
J. Faus, R. Faus, A. Gloger, Kartografie der politischen Landschaft in Deutschland,
Berlin 2016, p. 78ff.
12 R. Vehkamp, W. Merkel, Populismusbarometer 2018. Populistische Einstellungen
bei Wählern und Nichtwählern in Deutschland, Gütersloh 2018.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
99
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Attitudes in France towards migration
HERVÉ LE BRAS
The French context
In a cross-sectional perspective, what happens in a country is
influenced by what happens in other countries at the same time.
For example, the populism of Erdogan, Trump, Putin and Orbán
has boosted the electoral victories of François Legault in Quebec,
Matteo Salvini in Italy and Jaire Balsonero in Brazil. We can speak
of an epidemic or, according to Gabriel Tarde,1 of the laws of
imitation. The other perspective is longitudinal: we can expect
populism and the anti-migration climate to follow a historical path
and develop independently of their departure in space and time.
In this second respect, France is an interesting case, as it has
quite a long history of immigration and a well-established xenophobic political party, the Front National (FN), which has been in
existence much longer than similar xenophobic parties in many
other European states. A study of the development of immigration
and its causes in France can provide an understanding about the
future of immigration in other countries where this issue is more
recent. The same can be said for the development of xenophobic
political parties, as the FN managed to capture a large share of the
vote in France as early as 1984.
Immigration in France: A moderate inflow for 40 years
During the post-war period of rapid economic growth, a huge
appeal was made in France for international manpower. Between
1955 and 1974, average annual net migration stood at 175,000
persons. This figure corresponds to 3.6 per thousand of the total
population per year. During the following 44 years, from 1975 to
2017, when the economy did not do as well as before, average
annual net migration stood at 61,000 persons or 1.1 per thousand.2
In the last ten years, from 2008 to 2017, these figures have been
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
101
about the same (67,000 persons and 1.0 per thousand). The relation between net migration and the economy can be illustrated
more precisely by comparing net migration year on year (black
sticks) and the rate of GNP increase (blue curve), as shown on
Figure 1:3
Figure 1: Net migration and economic growth in France since 1950
Net migration
(thousands)
Rate of increase
GNP
850
400
300
200
8%
5%
100
2%
0%
1950
1960
1970
1980
Years
1990
2000
2010
Source : INSEE
Source: Adaptation of figure 6-3 in H. Le Bras, L’âge des migrations.
The downward trend of economic growth is clear, but after 1974
the trend of immigration is stable with a large semi-periodic
fluctuation. Fluctuations of the economy and net migration are
interwoven. When the economy recovers, one or two years later
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
net migration increases too, and when the economy declines so
does net migration, again with one or two years’ delay. The same
trend was observed throughout the 19th century for transatlantic
migration (as illustrated by Brinley Thomas in his book on Atlantic
economy4).
Immigration was perceived more negatively after 1974 even
though it was at a much lower level than before (the net migration
rate was 3.5 times lower after 1974). Among the numerous explanations for this paradox are:
1) Prior to 1974, migration was largely circular. After that, family
reunifications gained momentum.
2) During the 1950s and ‘60s, migrants were mostly European
(from Spain, Italy and Portugal). Later on, increasing numbers
came from the Maghreb, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa.
3) Local people are more sensitive to stock than to fluxes, and
the stock was necessarily increasing due to the positive fluxes
throughout the period after 1974.
Some parts of these hypotheses are relevant, but no precise work
has yet been carried out to measure their magnitude or exact
explanatory power.
Xenophobia: The rise of the FN
The Front National was founded in 1971 by Jean-Marie Le Pen. For
years, its electoral results were very low (0.75% at the 1975 presidential election, 0.23% at the 1978 parliamentary election). However, at
the European election of 1984, the party suddenly won 11% of the
vote. Since that time, the FN has never fallen below 5% of the vote
at national level. Its best score (28%) was obtained at the regional
election of 2015 (but with a low turnout rate). As Figure 2 shows, the
FN’s results have fluctuated greatly since 1984.5
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
103
Figure 2: FN’s scores at the European and presidential elections since 1984
Votes FN
European election
Presidential election
35 %
30 %
25 %
20 %
15 %
10 %
Years
7
20
09
20
12
20
14
20
17
20
0
02
04
20
20
95
99
19
19
89
94
19
19
84
19
19
88
5%
Source : French Home Office
Source: Designed by the author with data from the French Home Office.
The general trend is quite slow, and if the same trend continues
the score will reach 21.2% in 2030. A dominant position is therefore not at stake although the scant number of data does not allow
firm conclusions. The fluctuation is smaller if the results of just the
presidential elections are retained. These are the most important
elections in France, but the trend is actually still about the same
(ie, a slow rise).
In fact, changes have occurred outside the FN, in what is called
the ‘strong’ right. At the second round of the 2002 election, JeanMarie Le Pen increased his first-round score by only one point,
whereas in 2017, his daughter Marine gained 12.5 points between
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
the first and second rounds. What is emerging, not only in France,
is a fast-spreading hold on the centre-right electorate by the
extreme right.6
How can the FN’s sudden surge in 1984, jumping from 0.2% to
11%, be explained? Some have highlighted the parallel decline of
the Communist Party (PC), which fell from 18% in 1978 to 11% in
1984. However, the geographies of the two parties did not coincide as the PC was strong in the north, centre and south of France,
while the FN succeeded in the east, south and centre-east.
Another explanation is the disappointment of left-wing voters after
Mitterrand’s political turn in 1983 with his austerity policy. Yet there
is no formal proof of either of these explanations.
Migration and FN votes
The geographical distribution of FN votes in relation to that of
migrants varies strongly depending on the scale chosen and the
time. On the broad scale of big regions, the correlation between
the two factors has been high since the beginning. On the small
scale, the correlation is inverted. In between, on the medium scale
(the 96 French départements), the correlation has greatly changed
with time. In 1984, the geographical distribution of FN votes by
département was closely correlated to that of immigrants from
Muslim countries. But with successive elections, the correlation
became weaker until it vanished altogether in the latest presidential election. The following table shows the correlation between
the percentage of FN votes and the percentage of immigrés7 born
in Muslim countries. The fact that this correlation is no longer
pertinent means that voters’ direct encounters with immigrants
from Muslim countries are no longer a direct cause of xenophobia. Xenophobia is thus no longer rooted in direct encounters, but
rather in voters’ perception. And unfortunately, it is more difficult
to change perception than to change reality.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
105
Table 1: Correlations at different dates between percentage of FN votes and percentage of immigrés
from Maghreb and Turkey, at the department’s level
Census year
1982
1990
1999
2008
106
Election year
Correlation coefficient
1984
0.85
1986
0.79
1988
0.79
1989
0.75
1992
0.67
1995
0.67
1997
0.55
1998
0.6
2002
0.46
2004
0.45
2004
0.46
2007
0.19
2010
0.15
2012
0.1
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
At the local level, an inverse correlation exists, meaning that everyday life in contact with immigrés is not a problem. However, those
who do not interact frequently with immigrés tend to fear them,
largely for irrational reasons. They rely on media-information and
on narratives, which are largely rumours, told by those closest
to them. Figure 3 illustrates this by comparing the proportion of
immigrés and the FN votes in more than 2,000 communes in the
Paris region. The further voters are from the centre, the more they
vote FN, but inversely, in areas where there are more immigrés,
the less the FN wins ballots.
Figure 3: Comparison between the distribution of FN’ votes and proportion of ‘immigrés’ in Paris
region: the two are in an inverse relationship8
% votes FN
Source : French Home office
% ‘immigrés’
12 %
20 %
20 %
15 %
26 %
10 %
32 %
6%
40 %
Source : INSEE (census 2011)
3%
Source: Adaptation of figure III-2 in H. Le Bras, Le pari du FN, Paris 2015.
To pursue this further, the set of communes needs to be split
according to their size (number of inhabitants) and their distance
from the closest big cities (in this case, the 40 cities with more
than 75,000 inhabitants). Figure 4 shows the percentage of votes
for the FN relative to these two factors. Irrespective of the size of
the commune, the curves show the same features: a low percentACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
107
age of votes for the FN at the centre of the big cities, an increase
in the percentage until it plateaus at a distance of approximately
40km from the city, and then with further increasing distance, a
slow decrease until the percentage of FN voters again reaches the
same low level observed in the city centres. As regards the size of
the communes, the correlation is simpler: the less populated the
commune, the higher the FN’s share of the vote, irrespective of
the proportion of immigrés (although they are far less prevalent in
these communes).
Figure 4: Percentage of votes for Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election according to
the distance from the nearest metropole and the size of the cities
30 %
Number of
inhabitants
of the cities
(’communes’)
25 %
< 1000
1000 - 3000
20 %
3000 -10000
15 %
10 %
10000 - 30000
20
40
60
80
100
Distance from the nearest metropole
kilometres
Source : French Home office
Source: Designed by the author with data from the France Home Office.
While the contrast between rural and urban settings or between
so-called metropoles and their hinterland is an oversimplification
of some sociologists who do not pay too much attention to data,
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
a possible explanation of the up-and-down shape of the curves
may perhaps be found in the anthropological concept of ‘neither too close, nor too far’. Those living a medium distance from
the metropole frequently commute to the centre. They encounter immigrés without entering into contact with them. The fear
of these medium-distance voters is induced by these passive
encounters, whereas if they knew the immigrés better they would
probably adopt the same attitude as those living in the city centre. Nevertheless, although this argument may contribute to the
explanation, it does not consider the inverse relationship between
the size of the commune and the percentage of votes for the FN.
On the broad scale, the correlation between FN votes and people
coming from Muslim countries remains high and has been fairly
stable since 1984. The regional distribution of votes for the FN
is simple: high percentages of votes in the north east, north of
the River Seine and in a large zone close to the Mediterranean
coast; low percentages of votes in the west and south-west. This
distribution has remained stable since the FN’s first leap forwards
in 1984.
A particular feature of France’s diversity dating back to at least
the early Middle Ages is the contrast of areas where people either
lived clustered in villages or towns (the north-east and close to the
Mediterranean coast) or where they inhabited the territory sparsely in small secluded hamlets or farms (the rest of the country).
The social life and history of these ‘two Frances’ are in contrast.
Where the population traditionally lived in clusters, contact with
neighbours was daily and work was largely in common. However,
where the population was scattered, people had few contacts
and work was predominantly a family business.9 Modern lifestyle
had a very different impact on these two Frances. In the regions
of clustered population, life in common disappeared. Work was
no longer in common but outside the local community, and small
shops closed their doors. Social links and thus social cohesion
became weaker. By contrast, in the parts of France where peoACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
109
ple were scattered, the improved road network and generalised
use of cars made people come closer together, reinforcing social
links and cohesion. Moreover, in the clustered areas, people left
agriculture quickly and the resulting great leap in social mobility
is now historically behind them, even forgotten. In the scattered
areas, traditional agriculture continued longer and decreased only
one generation ago. The memory of their past misery is still vivid and the improvement in lifestyle is greatly appreciated. Many
social and economic indicators point in the same direction.
Ceteris paribus, the same process took place between small and
large communes. Villages and small towns have seen public and
private services disappear. Small shops are replaced by huge
shopping malls. Small hospital units, small law courts and local
police stations have been relocated inside larger ones in the big
cities. Not only has this been a blow to social links but it is also felt
as a threat to security. Surveys show that the smaller a place is,
the more its inhabitants fear for their security, despite the fact that
criminal rates are generally low in remote areas.
Current state of affairs
What is the impact of the worldwide rise in populism and the
recent inflows of refugees on the complex pattern of interrelation
between migration and xenophobic political parties in France?
A moderate inflow of refugees in recent years
France experienced an inflow of refugees mainly by proxy. Figure
5 shows the monthly number of asylum seekers in France and
Germany from January 2014 to July 2018. The difference between
the two countries is striking. Germany experienced a wave that
peaked at around 100,000 people in August 2016, whereas France
saw a slow and regular monthly increase from 6,000 to 10,000.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 5: Monthly number of asylum seekers in France (blue) and Germany (red) since January 2014
Monthly number
of asylum seekers
100 000
80 000
60 000
40 000
20 000
01 04 07 10 01 04 07
2014
10 01 04 07 10 01 04 07 10 01 04 07
2015
2016
Germany
2017
2018
Month
Year
France
Source: Designed by the author with data from Eurostat.
Source : Eurostat
What is more, the origins of asylum seekers in France did not
reflect the crisis in the Middle East.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
111
Table 2: Nationality of asylum seekers in France in 2016 and 2017, by rank order in 2017
Country
2016
2017
Albania
4601
7633
Afghanistan
5646
5989
Haïti
4927
4939
Sudan
5897
4488
Guinea
2336
3781
Syria
3615
3319
Ivory Coast
1531
3246
Dem. Rep. of Congo
2551
2942
Algeria
1972
2459
Bangladesh
2276
2411
In 2017, Syria ranked sixth among the countries of origin of asylum
seekers, whereas Albania was first. These data do not corroborate
the talk about a ‘refugee crisis’. Even if the annual total number of
asylum applications grew from 60,000 ten years ago, their maximum of 99,000 in 2017 is far from the number of regular residence
permits issued the same year (260,000).
Shocking events
When there is a gap between reality and perception, as in the
‘refugee-crisis’, emotions generated by particular events tend
to take over. Yet their effect does not last long. This was clearly
illustrated in France by the monthly surveys asking the question:
“Are you in favour or against dispatching migrants who arrive by
tens of thousands on the coasts of Greece and Italy, between all
EU-countries, including France?” In June 2016, 64% were against.
In September, after the pictures of the young drowned Syrian boy,
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Aylan Kurdi, were widely publicised by the media, the percentage fell to 51%. It rose again to 62% after the terrorist attack on
the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, and dropped to 58% two months
later (Figure 6). This suggests that shocking events do not build
attitudes, but fluctuations around them, because the effects of the
events are short-lived.
Figure 6: Answers at the question: “Are you in favour or against dispatching migrants who arrive by
tens of thousands on the coasts of Greece and Italy between all EU-countries including France?”10
Bataclan
attack
Aylan
drowned
Köln
Calais
evacuation
68 %
64
62
60
59 58 %
51 52 53
49 48
47
38
36
40
41 42 %
In favour
Against
1-3 March
2016
8-9 March
2016
19-21 January
2016
15-16 Novembre
2015
3-4 September
2015
16-21 September
2015
14-16 Oktober
2015
25 June-2 July
2015
24-27 April
2015
32 %
Source: Adapted from Note for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Fondation Jean Jaurès
concerning attitudes toward migrants in the EU, May 2017.
Class identification
France does not differ much from neighbouring countries regarding the socio-political structure of those who have voted for far-right
parties. During the first round of the 2017 French presidential elections, 43% of workers voted for the FN candidate Marine le Pen,
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
113
but only 12% of professionals. Meanwhile, 41 % of those without
any qualifications voted FN, but only 8% of those with a university
degree. Age groups are another salient feature: 21% of those aged
less than 25 voted for the FN, 27% of those aged 25 to 55, and
only 15% of those older than 65. However, these data do not tell
us the reasons for voters’ anti-migrant sentiment. Nationalism and
populism are not sufficiently precise motives.
Economic problems
Retired people usually fear for their security more than younger
people. It therefore follows that retired people should be more
receptive to far-right propaganda that insists on security and the
establishment of a link between immigration and insecurity. This
is the case in Germany, or in the UK among Brexit supporters, but,
as shown above, not in France, where the working-age population is the most prone to vote for the FN. If not for their security
in general, these French people’s vote may be for the security of
their job, or out of their fear of unemployment. The geographical
distribution of social problems in France (ie, unemployment rate,
poverty rate, proportion of young people not in education, inequality, single-parent families) can be seen on the following five
maps of Figure 7a.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 7a: Intensity of five difficulties met by the French population (census 2011)
% without education
aged 25-34 years
% Unemployed
aged 18-24 years
35 %
18 %
29 %
12 %
25 %
10 %
21 %
8%
15 %
4%
Yearly income
of the first decile
% single parent
household
18 %
9500 euros
15 %
7500
13 %
6250
11 %
5500
7%
4000
Ratio of the eigth decile
on the second decile
3,5
3,1
2,7
2,3
1,9
Source: Adaptation of Figures VI-2 and VI-3 in H. Le Bras, Le pari du FN.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
115
A synthesis of these five distributions is close to the distribution of
FN votes (Figure 7b).
Figure 7b: Synthesis of the five maps of Figure 7a, compared to the distribution of FN’s votes in 2014
Source: Adaptation of Figures VI-2 and VI-3 in H. Le Bras, Le pari du FN.
Although the general shape of these two maps is very similar,
showing that the FN feeds on social problems, there is an important difference: the votes for the FN are lower in cities, particularly
in the largest ones, despite the five above-mentioned social problems being more prevalent in these large cities. The explanation
lies with politics rather than with economics. People living far from
the city feel they take no part in decisions. The so-called principle
of affected interests (PAI) is behind this: in a democracy, when people are concerned by an action, they must be part of the decision.11
In this case, those people left out in remote parts of the country,
in villages and with a low level of education, express a democratic
claim in voting for the far right, not a fascination with authoritarian personalities. The same is even truer in the populism of the
left, as clearly demonstrated by such authors as Ernesto Laclau or
Chantal Mouffe.12
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Integration
Immigrés are increasingly accused of not being ‘integrated’.13 Yet
what is the exact meaning of integration? Nobody can define it
precisely, beyond being familiar with the French language and
respecting the laws of the Republic. Some comparisons can nevertheless be made between immigrés and ‘non-immigrés’, as the
French National Institute of Statistics (INSEE) calls them. One survey has compared the shares of the children of both groups who
are in formal education – in other words, the share of the children
of immigrés from outside the EU and the share of the children
of non-immigrés. The former are less educated. However, if the
comparison is drawn at the same social level of these children
when they become parents, the result is reversed. The children
of immigré workers are then slightly more educated than those of
non-immigré workers, as are the children of middle class immigré
parents. The results of the survey are displayed on Figure 8.14
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
117
Figure 8: Level of education of the children of parents foreign-born (out of the EU) and not foreign-born according to the social class of their parents
Social status of the parents
Total
working class
middle class
Highest degree
obtained by
the children
90 %
80 %
70 %
More than 2
years college
60 %
Two years college
50 %
High school
diploma
40 %
No degree at all
30 %
20 %
10 %
rn
.
.
.U
.U
tE
no
bo
n-
rn
.
.U
tE
no
bo
rn
bo
ig
re
n-
fo
ig
re
ot
N
fo
n-
rn
bo
ig
re
n-
fo
ig
re
fo
ot
N
rn
tE
no
bo
n-
rn
bo
ig
re
n-
fo
ig
re
ot
N
fo
Migratory
status of
the parents
Source: Designed by the author with data from Institut National de la Statistique et des
Etudes Economiques, Immigrés et descendants d’immigrés, 2012, p. 167.
At the level of education, integration does therefore work in
France. The problem arises after educations is completed. With
the same degree, immigrés are more often unemployed and
suffer discrimination. The problem of integration is largely a
problem of inclusion. This should be addressed not on the side
of the immigrés, but on the side of the non-immigrés. Immigrés
and their children hope degrees will protect them from unemployment. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The unemployment rate
of immigrés decreases with their education, but that decrease
is slower for them than for the non-immigrés, so the ratio of the
unemployment of immigrés to that of non-immigrés increases with
their education, as shown on the Figure 9.15
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 9: Ratio of unemployment rate of foreign-born, to that of the not-foreign-born in the working
population, according to age and level of education
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
55-65
45-55
35-45
25-35
18-25
College, university
High school
Technical school
4 years secondary school
No degree
Age (years)
Education
Source: Adaptation of figure 7-4 from H. Le Bras, Anatomie sociale de la France, Paris 2016.
Much care should therefore be taken when alluding to integration.
It is frequently a means of creating distance between immigrés
and non-immigrés.
Recommendations
Attention to vocabulary
Many important words used in the field of migration are inaccurate.
Their blurred signification opens the door to inappropriate interpretations. We should demand that those using these words give
exact definitions. As seen above, ‘integration’ is one such word.
Another is ‘national identity’. Nations, states and nation-states
exist and are precisely defined by laws and identity documents.
National identity is vague and equivocal. It suggests there is a
difference between identity and the nation-state, something more,
something added to citizenship, or that some citizens are lesser
citizens than others. In 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy opened a
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
119
“great debate on national identity” which ended in total confusion.
When people speak of national identity, they should be asked to
provide the definition.
Avoiding generalisations
In his Ethics, Spinoza criticises universal terms (II, 40). Because
we are limited in conceiving multiple images, we confuse them in
our mind under one attribute of the being or of the thing. The term
used for naming these confused ideas is ‘universals’. For example,
we speak of a man, of a dog or of a horse. The distinctive features
of each man, each dog or each horse are subsumed under a common element that affects these entities. Moreover, the common
element is not the same for different observers. For example, a
human is said to be a standing animal or an animal capable of
laughing or of reason.
This description also fits the term ‘migration’ well. In surveys, the
term is used as a universal, but is likely understood differently by
each person interviewed. To fight false ideas about migration, it is
necessary to specify the different types of migration clearly rather
than to rely on general statistics or to appeal immediately to human
rights. Indeed, migration covers very different situations. To begin
with, we have to distinguish between refugees, regular migration
and irregular migration. Within each of these categories, the variety is large. For example, among the 260,000 permits issued by
France in 2017, 88,000 were given to students, 90,000 for family reunification, 33,000 to asylum seekers, 28,000 for economic
reasons, and 30,000 for diverse reasons. Within each category
the diversity still remains great. For example, family reunification
concerns 50,000 French families: many of these reunifications
involved a foreign spouse of a French person, but 14,000 involved
foreign spouses of foreign residents, 10,000 involved children of
foreign residents and 16,000 involved people with “personal and
family links with France”, which were, in fact, mostly regularisations of people working in France for a long time without a permit.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Cases concerning a limit on migration vary greatly according to
the category.
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights concerns
the reunification of couples, and of children with their parents.
The freedom of marriage concerns mixed-nationality couples and
its prohibition can be assimilated to a eugenic, or even racist,
measure. Not performing regularisations leads to other problems,
namely of public order.
To speak of ‘migrants’ confuses these issues. It is not only regular
migration that involves a large variety of situations, but also refugees. Some come from countries devastated by civil war (Syria,
Afghanistan), some from totalitarian countries (Eritrea), and some
from partly safer countries (Nigeria, Guinea) or even safe ones
(Albania). The level of persecution and the risk of losing one’s
life, as well as the level of ethnic, religious and gender discrimination, varies greatly. As put forward by political philosophers,
the alternatives to asylum should also be promoted. For example,
refugees leaving Guinea can go freely to any other state of the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as there is
free movement within this community. If other choices are offered,
there is no necessity to opt for asylum in Europe.
Taking clear positions on the processes of migration
One good example concerns asylum applications. Their handling
raises two problems. First, some asylum applications are made by
people whose life is not in danger, but who do not find a place in
their own society for various reasons. Over the last ten years, the
French asylum authority (OFPRA) has on average dismissed around
60% of these applications. A great contrast appears according to
the country of origin, as shown on the Figure 10 for year 2017:16
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
121
Figure 10: Asylum requests and acceptances in 2017 in France, by nationality
Number of
asylum seekers
7 500
Requests
5 000
Acceptances
né
a
S
D
em Ivo yria
r
.R yC
ep
o
. o ast
fC
on
go
Al
Ba gér
ng ia
la
de
sh
G
ui
ti
Su
d
H
aï
ist
an
gh
Af
Al
ba
ni
a
an
0
an
2 500
Source : OFPRA
Source: Designed by the author with data from Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA), A l’écoute du monde : rapport d’activité 2017, Paris 2018.
Two kinds of countries are clearly visible: those where a civil war
is raging (people from Afghanistan, Syria, and Sudan have a high
rate of approval for their asylum applications); and countries where
problems are less serious (people from Albania, Algeria, Ivory Coast
or Bangladesh have a very low rate of approval for their asylum
applications). The distinction between the two groups is not totally
clear-cut, but it cannot be ignored. The life of people from the second group of countries is less at stake. Improperly, but not wrongly,
a distinction is thus made between asylum and work migration.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
This last point is highlighted by the quasi-simultaneous growth of
the yearly number of people from Syria, Eritrea and Nigeria seeking asylum in the European Union in recent years, as seen on the
Figure 11.17
Figure 11: Yearly asylum requests in the EU (all countries) by Syrians, Eritreans and Nigerians
Yearly asylum
demands in the E.U
(thousands)
Syria
330
120
Nigeria
42
Eritrea
15
5.5
20
06
20
07
20
08
20
09
20
10
20
11
20
12
20
13
20
14
20
15
20
16
2
Years
Source : OCDE (SOPEMI)
Source: Designed by the author with data from SOPEMI,
Perspectives des migrations internationales, Paris 2018.
Before the beginning of the civil war in Syria, the number of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Nigeria was around 5,000 per year,
and the number of those from Syria around 2,000. In 2012, asylum
seekers from Syria grew to 20,000, but those from the other two
countries remained at their usual number. One year later, asylum
seekers from Eritrea and Nigeria then began to grow, reaching
40,000 in 2016. No reason can explain this fast growth except
the opportunity to mix with the Syrian asylum seekers. Although
it cannot be said that Eritreans and Nigerians have no good reasons to escape their countries, it can be supposed that their lives
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
123
were on the average less in peril than the lives of Syrians. In other
words, the asylum seekers from Eritrea and Nigeria took advantage of the Syrian crisis. Asylum was refused to most of them, but
they remained in the EU. A report in 2015 from the French Cour
des comptes (Court of Auditors), the highest body in France evaluating the government’s action, found that only 1% of those whose
asylum was not granted had left France. The others became irregular migrants. This means that the work of OFPRA, which advises
asylum seekers, is quite useless. It does not deal with real migration but with granting or refusing refugee status – a status which
is more appealing than that of being irregular.
The issue of dealing with the rejected asylum seekers is difficult.
When the decision to reject their application is made, they have
already been in France for many months. Furthermore, the consulates of their country of origin do not recognise some of them,
thus preventing their repatriation. If we want to fight populist arguments, we must clearly address this problem as populists say that
all the people who enter the country, whether real or pseudo-refugees, then remain. The state must learn to make distinctions and
close the door when this is necessary.
Distinguishing macro- and micro-level
Like macro- and micro-economics, there are two different levels
for tackling migration – the state and EU level on the one hand,
and the local level on the other. At the state level, the long-term
consequences of migration and the impact on the lifestyle of the
local population are taken into account. At the local level, hospitality is provided on a short-term basis and in consideration of
local needs (eg, maintaining business or schools). Nowadays, all
decisions pertain to the macro-level. Yet more freedom is needed:
freedom for the local population to choose whether to welcome
migrants or not, freedom for migrants to choose their location
inside France. In short, more democracy is needed. These remarks
relate to the principle of affected interests (PAI) mentioned earlier.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Movement
Until the end of 1973, people from Africa and the Maghreb could
move freely between France and their own countries, but they
could not work in France without a permit. Migrant workers from
the Maghreb stayed for several years and then went back to their
country, being replaced by people from their family or village for
a similar medium-term stay. This system was called the noria – a
reference to the water wheel used in northern Africa for irrigation.
At the end of 1973, President Giscard closed the French borders
and the migrants residing in France were trapped because they
could no longer be replaced. They also had interest to stay for
reasons of comparative advantage as they now owned something
their fellow citizens in their country of origin had not and could no
longer obtain – the possibility to reside in France.
The same is true for present day refugees or irregular migrants. It
has taken them much money and risk to reach France. If they go
back, this investment will be lost and if, after going back to their
country, they want to return to France, a new costly investment
has to be made. Restoring movement will help people move and
not to stay if they do not find a decent life and work. Things are
beginning to evolve in this direction. Of the 3 million visas issued
by France in 2016, one-third, that is a million, were multi-entry.
Conclusion: The insider’s point of view
We have to weigh up the individual interests of migrating and the
collective interests of receiving migrants. While the second part of
this equation is often ignored by those promoting human rights,
the first part is often ignored by populists from the far right. We
must tackle the second part seriously and find simple answers. It is
not an easy job. Three types of argument are usually put forward:
• Communitarianism: Immigrants can be refused because they
threaten the freedom and justice of the national community
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
125
(Michael Walzer in his soft version18). The counterargument is to
underline the impossible definition of the national community
beyond laws and formal rules. We have to fight such inexpressible
concepts as ‘national identity’. Nations and moreover nationstates are well defined entities.
• Contractualism: In France, this is illustrated by the “contract of
reception and integration (CAI)” introduced by President Chirac
in 2002. In this view, one of the parties can reject the contract.
The counterargument is to go back to the definition of a contract
which postulates the equality of the two parties. But, clearly, the
migrant and the French state are not on an equal footing.
• Institutionalism: This refers to the freedom of association. The
nation is compared to a club whose members can reject the
application of a new member. To challenge their right to do so is
a violation of the freedom of association. The counterargument
is that nations are not clubs and that most of their members are
recruited at birth without an approval procedure by the citizens.
Of course, popular arguments are often cruder – competition
on the job market, the cost of migrants, and illegal migrants, for
example. Statistical or economic arguments have proved ineffective against such fancies. But we have no miracle solution to fight
them. More work is needed.
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Notes
1
G. Tarde, Les lois de l’imitation, Paris 1890.
2
Ministère de l’Intérieur, Les étrangers en France, 2016, rapport au Parlement,
Paris 2018; Ministère de l’intérieur, EM2018-17. La délivrance des premiers titres
de séjour en 2017, Paris 2018.
3
H. Le Bras, L’âge des migrations, Paris 2017, p. 224.
4
B. Thomas, Migration and economic growth: A study of Great Britain and the
Atlantic economy, Cambridge 1973.
5
H. Le Bras, Le pari du FN, Paris 2015.
6
H. Le Bras and J. Fourquet, Le puzzle français. Un nouveau partage électoral,
Paris 2017, p. 182.
7
The French definition of immigré is somebody residing in France, born a foreigner
and abroad.
8
H. Le Bras, Le pari du FN, op. cit.
9
M. Bloch, Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française, Paris 1932.
10 IFOP, Note for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Fondation Jean Jaurès
concerning attitudes toward migrants in the EU, May 2017.
11
See for example John Dewey, The political writings, D. Morris, I. Shapiro (eds),
Indianapolis/Cambridge 1993.
12 E. Laclau, C. Mouffe, Populisme i hegemonia, Buenos Aires 1985.
13 Assemblée nationale, avis 275 : Immigration, asile, intégration, rapporteur P.H.
Dumont, 12 octobre 2017.
14 INSEE, Immigrés et descendants d’immigrés, INSEE, 2012, p.167.
15 H. Le Bras, Anatomie sociale de la France, Paris 2016.
16 OFPRA, A l’écoute du monde : rapport d’activité 2017, Paris 2018.
17 SOPEMI, Perspectives des migrations internationales, Paris 2018.
18 M. Walzer, Thinking politically. Essays in political theory, New Haven 2007.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
127
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Sweden: Give people reasons for hope
LISA PELLING
The Swedish context: A long-term trend
of decreasing xenophobia
The Swedish election on 9 September 2018 resulted in a
significant loss for the Social Democratic Party, which had been
in government under Prime Minister Stefan Löfven together with
the Green Party since 2014. The Social Democrats received
28.3% of the vote, their lowest share since the introduction of
universal suffrage in 1918, while the Sweden Democrats, an
openly xenophobic radical right-wing party increased their
share from 12.8% in 2014 to 17.5%. They did this even though
immigration is at a record low.
At the moment of writing (early December 2018), Stefan Lövfen
is leading a transitional government while negotiations to form a
coalition government are still ongoing.
This contribution on the Swedish case explores the link between
migration and public opinion in Sweden and draws some conclusions for Swedish social democracy as well as for progressive
parties in Europe at large.
High levels of immigration
Today, Sweden stands out among other EU countries with a relatively large foreign-born population: in 2017, 18.5 % of the Swedish
population had immigrated (Statistics Sweden 2018).1 1,877,050
were registered as born abroad, out of a population of 10,120,242).
In the EU, the average share of foreign born was 7.2%.2
The relatively large share of foreign-born population is due both
to substantial labour immigration (from the Nordic countries, from
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
129
other EU countries as well as from third countries), and to relatively large asylum immigration.
The figure below shows how asylum-related immigration peaked
at the beginning of the 1990s, after which it decreased dramatically, to then increase continuously until 2015.
Figure 1: Residence permits granted for refugees and relatives of refugees 1990–2017, residence
permits granted to labour migrants 2000–2017
Source: Swedish Migration Board 2018.
In 2014, Sweden received over 80,000 asylum applicants, the
largest number since the previous peak during the Yugoslav
civil wars in the 1990s. The following year, the number doubled
and Sweden received the highest number of asylum seekers per
capita of all EU countries (alongside Hungary)3 in 2015. In total,
Sweden received 163,000 asylum applicants in 2015, most of
them over a period of a few months in the autumn of 2015. The
top three countries of origin were Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. 70%
of the applicants came from these three countries.
But towards the end of 2015, Swedish asylum policy changed
abruptly and dramatically. In November 2015, the red-green government announced it would change Sweden’s asylum policy
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
to the strictest possible (that is, to the European minimum level)
through a temporary law. The temporary law came into effect on
21 July 2016 but was used retroactively on all asylum applications
made after 27 November 2015.
In addition to the temporary restriction of asylum legislation, in
January 2016, Sweden introduced border controls on the border
with Denmark. The introduction of border controls was a dramatic
break not only with the principle of free cross-border movements
under Schengen, but also a break with the principles of the Nordic
passport-free union from 1953, a union that has in many ways
defined the Nordic region. After these two changes, the number
of asylum seekers dropped dramatically – from 163,000 in 2015 to
29,000 in 2016, and in 2018 the number will not exceed 23,000
according to the forecast of the Swedish Migration Board.
Figure 2: Number of asylum seekers 2014–2018
Source: Swedish Migration Board, October 2018.
Parallel to the restrictive turn in asylum policy, there has been
an intensification of the debate on labour migration particularly
from other EU states (most controversially, in the form of posted workers) but also from third countries. Since 2008, Sweden
has had the most liberal legislation on labour migration from third
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
131
countries of all EU member states, with no restrictions in terms of
numbers or level of qualification: Swedish employers are entitled
to recruit ‘competence’ from abroad as long as they can guarantee the labour immigrants conditions that are equivalent to the
conditions set in collective bargaining agreements in the relevant
branch of the economy. This policy has worked reasonably well
for highly qualified workers but has proven to offer too little protection to low-skilled workers.
A long-term trend of decreasing levels
of xenophobia might have ended
In European comparison, Sweden stands out as a country with
exceptionally low anti-immigration attitudes. According to the
Special Eurobarometer 469 on Integration of immigrants in the
European Union, Sweden has the highest proportion of respondents who have generally positive perceptions about the impact
of immigrants on society (76%). For instance, in Sweden the share
of respondents who say they feel comfortable with having social
relations with immigrants is 83% and higher than in all other countries (except Spain, which has the same share).4
The high level of welcoming attitudes towards migrants in Sweden
(and the low level of hostile attitudes) can be attributed to a number of factors. Messing and Ságvári show in their analysis of data
from the European Social Survey, that there are several factors
that generally tend to be correlated with welcoming attitudes
towards migrants.5 On a macro level, these factors include high
GDP per capita, high general levels of interpersonal trust and trust
in institutions, as well as low levels of corruption.6 On all these
indicators, Sweden has a high score.
Anti-immigration sentiment has decreased over time in Sweden.
An often-used long-term measurement of anti-immigration sentiment is the answer to the question “Should Sweden accept fewer
refugees?”, which has been asked in a survey carried out annually
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
by the Institute of Government of Gothenburg University (SOMinstitutet) for almost 30 years. When measurements began in
1990, the share of respondents who answered that it would be
a good idea for Sweden to accept fewer refugees was over 60%.
This share fell to a low of 40% in the spring of 2015, that is, after
a record number of asylum seekers were received in Sweden in
2014. However, over the past three years, the share of people who
think it would be a good idea for Sweden to receive fewer refugees has again increased to 53% (see illustration below).
Figure 3: Percentage who think ”it would be a good idea for Sweden to receive fewer refugees”
(blue) and percentage who think ”it would be a bad idea for Sweden to receive fewer refugees” (red).
Source: M. Demker, Opinion om migration och religion, SOM-institutet, 2018.
For a long time, the dominating issue in the study of public opinion
on migration in Sweden was to try and explain why public opinion became less and less antagonistic towards immigration, even
though immigration increased.7
Over the last 15 years, low and decreasing levels of xenophobia
have also been at odds with the steady rise in electoral support
for the anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats. In 2002,
the Sweden Democrats received only 1.4% of the vote in the parliamentary elections. But they more than doubled their support in
the 2006 elections to 2.9%, and then doubled their percentage
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
133
again in 2010 when they entered parliament with 5.7% of the vote.
In 2014, they received 12.9% of the vote, and in September 2018
they obtained 17.5%. For a long time, the levels of xenophobia
were therefore decreasing but electoral support for the xenophobic party was increasing. How can this paradox be explained?
Figure 4: Support for Swedish political parties according to opinion polls 2007–2018 (September)
Red line: Social Democrats; light blue: Conservatives (member of EPP); yellow: Sweden Democrats;light
green: Green Party; dark green: Centre Party (liberal); dark blue: Liberal; purple: Christian Democrats.
Source: DN/Ipsos 2018-09-06.
Current state of affairs: The surge of the Sweden Democrats
Decline of class identification and decline of
the left-wing dimension in politics
Fifteen years ago, Sweden was still an exceptional case: in contrast to the other Nordic countries, in Sweden there was no
successful radical right-wing party. At that time, Jens Rydgren,
a leading expert on right-wing political parties (eg, Editor of The
Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right published in 2018) argued
that this was due to four main factors:
1) Social class still mattered more in Sweden than elsewhere.
Working-class voters identified fairly strongly with their
social class and with the Social Democratic Party, making
them largely unavailable to radical right-wing mobilisation.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
2) Partly as a result of this, socio-economic issues still structured most politics in Sweden, and issues belonging to the
sociocultural dimension – most importantly immigration –
were of low salience to voters.
3) There was a relatively low degree of convergence between
the major mainstream parties, and voters still perceived
clear policy alternatives across the left-right divide.
4) The leading radical right-wing alternative, the Sweden
Democrats, was perceived as being too extreme.
Fifteen years later, Rydgren has returned to these factors. In a
paper published in 2018, Rydgren and van der Meiden argue that
a change in precisely these four factors can explain why Swedish
‘exceptionalism’ has now come to an end.8
Class politics in Sweden has declined, that is the tendency to vote
according to class interests. An example of this tendency is declining support for the Social Democratic Party among members of
trade unions belonging to the blue-collar trade union confederation LO. According to data from exit polls at the national elections,
support for the Social Democrats among LO-affiliated trade union
members decreased from 80% in 1956 to 52% in 2010.9 In this
election, it reached a new low with only 41%.10 Since 2010, support for the Sweden Democrats among blue-collar workers has
increased from 3% in 2006 to 26% in 2018.
When people vote according to class interests, the dominant
cleavages in politics are between labour and capital, or between
employees and employers. Dominant issues concern the role of
the state in the economy (whether the state should tax more or
less; to what extent the state should regulate or control private
enterprises, etc.) “As long as the traditional class-based cleavage
dominated”, Rydgren and van der Meiden argue, “there was little room for competing cleavage dimensions”. With the declining
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
135
strength of the Social Democratic Party, its hold on the working
class has declined, too, and left room for parties to mobilise voters
also along socio-cultural dimensions.
The Sweden Democrats are, like other radical right-wing parties,
clearly at the lowest end of the GAL-TAN scale.11 They mobilise
voters primarily by taking a clear and very strict stance on immigration. Voters do not doubt where Sweden Democrats stand on
this issue. All other parties who change their immigration policy in
a more repressive direction risk coming across as copycats of the
Sweden Democrats. An illustration of this is this year’s election
campaign, in which the Sweden Democrats did not put any slogan
or main demand on their posters. Instead, they confidently campaigned with one simple message: SD 2018.
Credit: Barbro Bergfeldt / Alamy Stock Photo
Figure 5: Election posters of the Sweden Democrats 2018.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Another factor that has contributed to the rise of the radical right
in Sweden is the fact that the two traditional parties, the Social
Democrats to the left and the conservative party Moderaterna to
the right, have both moved towards the centre. This concentration
in the centre has blurred the distinction between left and right, and
between policy alternatives along the left-right divide. This in turn
has contributed to an enhanced focus on socio-cultural issues, in
particular through a politicisation of the immigration issue.
Finally, over the last 15 years, the Sweden Democrats have
succeeded in erecting a relatively respectable façade, thereby attracting voters who were previously put off by the Sweden
Democrats’ extremism and Nazi roots.
Economic shocks and the politics of discontent
Recently, a team of researchers has made a very valuable contribution to the understanding of the rise of the Sweden Democrats
by conducting a socio-economic analysis of the political candidates of the Sweden Democrats and by comparing them to the
political candidates of the other political parties.
Ernesto Dal Bó, Frederico Finan, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson, and
Johanna Rickne12 have used uniquely rich data. They have been
able to access register data for all political candidates (all elected and non-elected individual candidates running for national
or municipal political office during the period 1982-2010): annual earnings, level of education, occupation, etc. Using this data,
they show how the increase in electoral support for the Sweden
Democrats can be related to two economic events over the past
ten years: 1) the ‘make-work-pay’ economic policies carried out by
the centre-right government that was in power from 2006 to 2014;
2) the 2008-09 financial crisis.
A central feature of the policy reforms of the centre-right government was to introduce labour-income tax cuts in the form of
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
137
earned income tax credits (EITC). With this policy, disposable
income increased substantially for ‘insiders’ with a job. At the same
time, the government tightened both payments from and access
to social security for ‘outsiders’, such as access to unemployment
benefit and sick-leave, a kind of austerity benefit. This increased
the cleavage between insiders and outsiders, and between winners and losers of the economic reforms.
It is important to note that the loss was often not absolute (that is,
a loss of disposable income). But even a relative loss can breed
resentment and discontent.
Figure 6: Widening gaps between labour market ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ 1995–2012
Source: E. Dal Bó, F. Finan, O. Folke, T. Persson, J. Rickne, Economic losers and political winners:
Sweden’s radical right, UC-Berkeley 2018.
The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 increased the risk of vulnerable insiders losing their job, and thereby produced ‘losers’ also
among the ‘insiders’.
Dal Bó et al. show that both losing groups, outsiders as well
as vulnerable insiders, are over-represented among the
candidates for the Sweden Democrats, whereas they are
under-represented among the candidates for all other parties,
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including the candidates for the Social Democrats and the Left
Party. Looking at the election results district by district, Dal Bó
et al. find that an increase in the income gap between insiders
and outsiders, as well as an increase in the share of “vulnerable insiders”, is systematically associated with larger electoral
gains for the Sweden Democrats.
Figure 7: Composition of Swedish population compared to representatives of Sweden Democrats,
the Left Party and all other parties, average 2002–2012
Source: Dal Bó et al.
According to the researchers, this effect might be explained
by an identification effect. In the first phase, losers lose trust in
established parties, and some become candidates for the anti-establishment party the Sweden Democrats. In the second phase,
other relative losers feel represented by their peers among the
Sweden Democrat candidates.
It is likely that the Sweden Democrats managed to exploit discontent among relative economic losers also in the 2018 election
(although this one factor cannot explain their entire support).13 The
Social Democrats have lost most heavily in municipalities where
unemployment is high, and where the number of days of sick leave
per person is also high.14 The higher the number of unemployed,
and the higher the number of days on sick leave per person, the
higher the loss for the Social Democrats.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
139
There is no straight connection between the share
of immigrants and anti-immigration attitudes
Alesina, Miano and Stantcheva find a striking discrepancy
between perceptions of the number of immigrants and the
actual size of the immigrant population. In five of the countries
surveyed by Alesina et al., the average respondent thinks that
the share of immigrants is at least twice as high as it really is.
In Alesina et al.’s survey, Swedish respondents were the most
accurate, but still far from correct: the average Swedish respondent put the number at 27%, when the actual number is 17.6%
(see Figure 8 below).15
Figure 8: Perceived vs actual share of immigrants
Source: A. Alesina, A. Miano, S. Stantcheva, Immigration and Redistribution,
NBER Working Paper 24733, 2018, p. 21.
Note: The left panel shows the average perceived share of immigrants (red squares) and the actual
share (blue diamonds) in each country. The right panel shows the average misperception (perceived
minus actual share) of the share of immigrants by groups. Groups are defined by the indicator variables
listed to the left: the mean when the indicator is equal to 1 is represented by the orange or red diamonds. The shaded areas are 95% confidence intervals around the mean.
Crucially, Alesina et al. show that respondents misperceive not only
the total share of immigrants in their country, but also their origins
and religion. Respondents have an exaggerated perception of the
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number of immigrants from the Middle East and overestimate the
share of Muslims among immigrants.
This has implications for the attitudes on migration in general,
since people tend to have different attitudes towards different
kinds of migrants. According to a recent survey,16 Swedes have
a much more positive view of labour migrants and students than
of refugees. The least favourable attitudes are towards the family members of migrants. In Sweden, family members of asylum
migrants dominate in this group.
Table 1: Perceptions of different kinds of migrants (percent)
People
coming to
Sweden …
Very
negative
Quite
negative
Neither
positive
nornegative
Quite
positive
Very
positive
Balance
measure
+54
… to escape war and oppression
2014
3
9
22
30
36
2015
4
9
24
30
24
+51
2016
4
9
25
30
33
+50
2014
2
5
18
34
42
+69
2015
2
4
17
35
42
+71
2016
1
4
18
36
41
+72
… to work
… to study
2014
1
2
17
37
43
+77
2015
1
3
19
37
41
+74
2016
1
3
18
39
41
+77
+28
… to be reunited with family members
2014
9
14
27
27
24
2015
9
14
30
25
22
+24
2016
9
14
29
25
23
+25
Number of responses: 2,254. The balance measure is calculated by subtracting the percentage
giving negative responses from the percentage giving positive responses.
Source: J. Strömbeck, N. Theorin, Attitudes towards immigration: An analysis of changes and media
effects in Sweden 2014-2016, Delmi Report 4, 2018.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
141
Whereas Swedes tend to be less prone to overestimate the number of people born abroad than those surveyed in other European
countries, voters of the xenophobic Sweden Democrats (SD) systematically overestimate their number. This is particularly true for
immigrants from the Middle East.17
It is important to remember that a lot of debate about ‘immigrants’ is not about immigrants per se – but about visible
minorities. It is useful to distinguish between ‘anti-immigration’
attitudes, and ‘anti-migrant’ positions. People may oppose certain immigration policies (eg, labour immigration that leads to a
downward pressure on wages and working conditions) without
being ‘anti-migrant’.
Shocking events
Even though there is indeed no straight connection between numbers of immigrants and anti-immigrant sentiment or support for
anti-immigration parties, it is clear that the attitudes to immigration
have been influenced by two dramatic, migration-related events:
one is the doubling of the number of asylum applicants in 2015,
most of whom arrived over a very short period of time during the
autumn of 2015. It is reasonable to expect that the increase but
also the numbers in themselves changed people’s propensity to
answer that it would be a good idea for Sweden to accept fewer refugees. That the events in 2015 had a significant effect is
clear from Figure 15 below on the influence of opinions on refugee
reception on party sympathy.
Another significant event is the terror attack in Stockholm on 7
April 2017. The ISIS-inspired terrorist who drove a heavy lorry
down the main shopping street of Stockholm and killed five people was a former asylum seeker who was in Sweden without a
residence permit. It is no surprise that the party that always argues
that all rejected asylum seekers are potential terrorists would be
able to increase its support after such an event.
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The radical right’s increasing power of mobilisation
Marie Demker, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg,
describes political support as a function both of values/opinions
in the electorate and the ability to capitalise on those values/
opinions through political mobilisation. Demker argues that an
important part of the explanation for the electoral success of the
anti-immigration Sweden Democrats lies with their increasing
capacity to mobilise the xenophobic vote.18
The reasons for this increased power of mobilisation are manifold.
One of the most important reasons is that voters attach increasing
importance to immigration issues (see Figure 9).
Figure 9: Share of people who spontaneously list immigration and/or integration as
“the most important issue(s) in Sweden today”
Source: Demker 2018.
As other parties become more aware of xenophobia as an issue
of (potential) political division, they become 1) more outspoken on
the issue, 2) more intolerant towards xenophobic views within their
respective parties. This propels people who attach importance to
their xenophobic/anti-immigration opinions to change parties.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
143
The success of other, similar parties in other parts of Europe has
also helped the Sweden Democrats to become more professional in their mobilisation efforts. The Front National in France and
FPÖ in Austria have provided both inspiration and concrete support. Today, Hungary is where anti-immigration party leaders go
on pilgrimage. A number of former leading Sweden Democrats
now live in Budapest. There is also ample documentation of close
links between the radical right milieu in Sweden and the alt-right
movement in the US.19
It is very clear that voters of the Sweden Democrats are defined
by their aversion to immigration. Figure 10 below shows the share
of people who think it would be a good idea for Sweden to accept
fewer refugees on political party preference. Social Democratic
voters (S) show a sharp decline in the share of supporters with
anti-immigration preferences (although the trend has been
reversed since 2015), whereas the Sweden Democrat voters (SD)
have stayed more or less the same since 2008: over 95% of SD
voters think it would be a good idea for Sweden to receive fewer
refugees.
Figure 10: Opinion on refugee reception on party sympathy 1995–2017 (%)
Source: SOM Institute, Gothenburg University 2018.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
According to the Eurobarometer survey, in 2017, even less than
a fifth of respondents in Sweden (19%) saw immigration mainly
as a problem, compared with over six in ten (63%) in Hungary,
Malta and Greece. Swedes have the highest level of people saying “opportunity” and the second lowest saying “problem” in
their answers – see Figure 11 below.20 What is particularly relevant, according to Demker, is the mix between seeing immigration
“mainly as a problem” and thinking that immigration is “the main
problem” in society and considering that there is only one political
party alternative if you hold these views.
Figure 11: Answers to the question, “Generally speaking, do you think immigration from outside the
EU is more of a problem or more of an opportunity for your country today?”
Source: Eurobarometer 2018, p. 58.
The limits of successful integration
Economically, Sweden is doing well. Unemployment is low,
employment figures are high, economic growth is well above the
European average, the trade balance shows a huge plus, and there
is a surplus in public finances. In this year’s Human Development
Index, Sweden had climbed from number 14 to number 7.21
This picture is very much at odds with the picture of Sweden
and ‘the state the country is in’ painted by anti-immigration political forces, in Sweden and abroad. Since 2015, when Sweden
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
145
received 163,000 asylum seekers in a single year, the Sweden
Democrats and others (notably US President Trump), for example,
have described Sweden as a country on the verge of economic
and societal collapse.
As political scientist Peo Hansen has shown, the favourable economic situation of Sweden can in fact be partly attributed to the
refugee situation of 2015 and 2016, since increased government
spending in order to cater for the refugees has had a Keynesian
effect on economic growth and employment.22
In terms of the integration of immigrants, Sweden seems also to
be doing well – at least in comparison with other European and
OECD countries.23 Even though Sweden has a relatively high share
of foreign-born population, with many having arrived quite recently, the share of the total population in employment is the highest
ever measured in an OECD country. In Sweden, immigrants are
integrated into the labour market to a higher extent than native
women in Italy or Greece.
In addition, integration measures seem to be improving in efficiency. For the refugees arriving in Sweden in 2007, it took more
than eight years before half of them had started working. For the
cohort of refugees arriving in 2011, it took five years. And more
than 40% of the refugees who arrived in 2012 were employed
after four years. The curve is steeper and steeper year by year:
integration is taking place faster and faster (see Figure 12).
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 12: Share of employed refugees received 2007–2015 (Y-axis)
on number of years after arrival (X-axis)
Source: Statistics Sweden, Presentation made by Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson at the
bi-annual government conference at Harpsund on 16 August 2018.
The reasons for this positive development are many, including
improved language training, enhanced labour market introduction
programmes (such as targeted wage subsidies), a favourable macroeconomic situation, etc.24
Messing and Ságvári show in their analysis of data from the
European Social Survey that the extent and quality of inclusion
policies correlate strongly with the acceptance of immigrants.25
Functioning integration is certainly a necessary basis for a credible, long-term liberal immigration policy. But one lesson to be
drawn from the Swedish case is that successful integration is not
on its own enough to contain anti-immigration parties, as long as
these parties can capitalise on remaining problems and challenges related to integration.
In Sweden, these challenges include high rates of violent crime
in segregated neighbourhoods with a large share of immigrants.
However, it is an exaggeration to suggest that there are ‘no-go
zones’ in Sweden.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
147
According to the Special Eurobarometer published in April 2018,
and compared to the EU average, Swedes are much more likely
to consider immigration an opportunity (40% vs 20% EU average) but are – paradoxically – less optimistic about integration.
Swedes are also more likely than others to think that their government is not doing enough to foster the integration of immigrants.
Whereas in Austria (72%) and Portugal (69%) over two-thirds say
that enough is being done to foster integration, in Sweden and the
United Kingdom less than four in ten respondents think so (both
39%). Less than a quarter (24%) of respondents in Sweden agree
that integration has been successful, while nearly three-quarters
(73%) think that integration has been unsuccessful.
Figure 13: Answer to the question “Generally speaking, how successful or not is the integration of
most immigrants living in your country?”
Source: Eurobarometer 2018, p. 65.
There are several possible reasons for this relative discontent.
1) The integration challenge has a different magnitude in Sweden
than in many other countries, since the immigrant population is
relatively larger, and a large share of the immigrant population
has arrived in Sweden quite recently.
2) There might also be an effect related to high(er) expectations: in
Sweden, the integration of immigrants has been a very topical
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issue, and politicians from all sides have tried to rally support for
their own integration policies, by arguing that integration has not
been successful enough.
In general, the Eurobarometer picture of attitudes towards integration is that Swedes feel strongly about integration. They are
(much) more confident than most others about the opportunities
connected to migration, but they are also less satisfied with how
these opportunities are nurtured. Swedes are much more confident about immigrants’ contribution to fill jobs (91% vs 72% on
average in the EU) and enrich cultural life (93% vs 61% EU average). Far fewer Swedes than other EU nationals think immigrants
are a burden on the welfare system (41% vs 56 %), despite the fact
that the Swedish welfare system does not discriminate between
citizens and other residents. At the same time, Swedes stand out
as those who feel most strongly (99%) that it is important that
immigrants “feel like a member of society” for their integration to
be successful. High expectations, and high demands.
Figure 14: Views regarding the impact of immigrants in Sweden vs EU average
Source: Sweden Factsheet, Special Eurobarometer 469, 2018.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
149
A repressive tilt
An analysis of public opinion and migration cannot only concern
the support for radical right-wing anti-immigration parties. It must
also look at how the support for anti-immigration and anti-immigrant ideas has changed the policies of other political parties. In
Sweden, the largest mainstream political party to the right on the
political spectrum, the conservative Moderaterna, has radically
changed its position on immigration. Between 2010 and 2014, the
right-wing government led by Moderaterna negotiated its immigration policy with the Green Party, which at that time (with the
possible exception of the Left Party) represented the most liberal
view on migration of all parties. In the election campaign of 2014,
the Moderaterna party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt, who was then also
Sweden’s prime minister, asked people to “open their hearts” to
immigration. But this position has now changed: after the dramatic
autumn of 2015, Moderaterna asked for a “stop on refugees” and
opened up for informal talks and co-operation with the Sweden
Democrats.
The Social Democrats have also clearly moved in a more restrictive direction. Before the election in 2014, the Social Democrats
promised to respect the agreement on migration policy that had
been negotiated between the right-wing government and the
Green Party. So in the election campaign of 2014, the only party that argued for a more restrictive immigration policy was the
Sweden Democrats.
Then came the autumn of 2015, and a much more restrictive
migration policy was introduced by the Social Democrats and the
Green Party in November 2015. In May 2018, the Social Democrats
presented a new migration policy:
• The temporary restrictive asylum law from 2016 will be prolonged
until new, common EU rules are in place.
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• Border controls will remain “as long as they are needed”.
• Central reception centres for asylum seekers will be built, and
there will be limitations on where asylum seekers can settle;
detention centres will be expanded.
• The time before a renewed asylum application can be made after
refusal will be doubled, and social support to refused asylum
seekers/un-documented migrants will be banned.26
It is a matter of discussion to what extent this policy is a necessary
response to the events of 2015 and their effect on public opinion
on migration, or an adaptation of the Social Democratic policies to
those of the Sweden Democrats, or both.
It is striking how little attention is paid in Swedish debate to the
Swedish position on larger European migration issues. Even
though the Social Democratic policy refers explicitly to the need
for a sustainable EU-level policy, there is (currently) no indication on the party’s website or in any published programme as to
what the Social Democrats would like these policies to look like.
The party asks for a common European asylum system based on
“responsibility and solidarity”, for increased EU aid to improve
conditions in refugee camps outside Europe, and for more repatriation agreements to be signed. Sweden’s ambition should be
to “push for other countries to enhance their capacity to receive
and integrate migrants, in order to achieve a better international
management of migration” (Social Democrats, 4 May 2018).
Recommendations: Progressives must
give people reasons for hope
In Sweden, anti-immigration sentiment has decreased over time,
even though Sweden has experienced rapidly growing numbers of immigrants. At the same time, despite this decrease of
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
151
anti-immigration attitudes, the anti-immigration party, the Sweden
Democrats, has received growing electoral support.
How can this be explained?
Firstly, the Swedish example confirms that anti-immigration
sentiment is not necessarily triggered by growing numbers of
immigrants.
Secondly, the rise of anti-immigration political parties cannot be
easily explained by a rising number of migrants or even by rising
anti-immigration opinions.
Instead, the recent Swedish experience of changes in public support for anti-immigration policies shows that progressive parties
have to deal with a complex interplay of different factors. These
include, in the Swedish case:
1) Resentment and discontent among the relative losers of recent
neo-liberal economic policies that have produced widening gaps
between labour market insiders on the one hand, and outsiders
who depend on social benefits, on the other hand. This has fed
increasing discontent and distrust in established parties.
2) Remaining underlying anti-immigration and racist sentiment in
the population has made it possible to mobilise this discontent
for policies that aim at redistribution from immigrants to natives,
rather than from the rich to the poor.
3) A failure of the progressive left to mobilise the social discontent
for left wing policies, not least because the difference between
left and right economic policies has been blurred as established
parties have moved to the centre. At the same time, the radical
right has increased its mobilising power (through internal and
external funding, manipulation of social media, etc.) and its
capacity to turn discontent and resentment into electoral gains.
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The conclusions are also manifold.
1) Progressive parties must pursue radical policies for increased
equality. We cannot accept widening gaps between insiders and
outsiders, and we need to fight relentlessly against economic
policies that breed discontent and resentment among ordinary
people.
2) Progressive parties cannot give up on our long-term struggle
against racism, xenophobia and inward-looking nationalism.
Labour parties have everything to lose and nothing to gain from
policies that pit workers against workers.
3) Progressive parties must work to re-focus the political debate on
the left vs right or the redistribution vs corporate interests dimension. At the same time, the mobilising power of the radical right
must be contained concretely by new transparency regulations
on party funding, increased protection against the manipulation
of social media (eg, through bots) and protection against interference with election systems.
Overarching this strategy, there is a need to formulate a long-term
progressive vision of open, inclusive societies that build social
cohesiveness on the basis of diversity.
Tentative conclusion for the Swedish case
The Swedish Social Democrats need to:
• Form a long-term strategy to decrease xenophobic sentiment in
the population. The trend of the past decades gives cause for
optimism: xenophobia has decreased; tolerant attitudes have
grown. But as this chapter shows, as long as there is still anti-immigration and racist sentiment in the population, this can and will
be exploited by right-wing populists and by the radical right. It
is imperative that Social Democrats do not confirm these views.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
153
Social Democrats must not contribute to giving the impression
that the main conflict in society is between liberal immigration
policies and the protection of vulnerable natives. We need to
insist that the main conflict is between labour and capital, and that
the main policy choices are between enhanced redistribution on
the one hand, and more freedom for market forces on the other;
• Have a short-term strategy to win elections despite increasing
importance attached to anti-immigration policies by voters. This
policy must be rooted in Social Democratic ideology, in order to
be credible to the voters. People’s security is central: Social Democrats must put a priority on fighting precarity on the labour and
housing markets, on restoring confidence in the pension system
and trust in the ability of the education system to give every child
the opportunity to lead a decent life. To focus on these issues will
also help re-focus the political debate on the left-right dimension;
• Have a long-term, inspiring and hopeful vision of open, welcoming and integrative societies – societies that are heterogeneous
but cohesive, that are open to the world but self-confident about
their identity. This is not just a demographic imperative for ageing
societies, but also essential for the building of an inclusive, progressive society.
Tentative European long-term conclusions
The starting point for progressive migration policies must be that
migration is a part of the human condition. It has always been part
of human history, and people will continue to move across countries and continents in the future. Migration cannot be stopped,
but it can be managed in a way that maximises its benefits: for
those who move, for the countries and communities they leave,
and for the countries and communities that receive them.
First of all, we need to ask ourselves what is the possible scope of
policy on migration to Europe? That is, what can we do, what can
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we not do, what would be the consequences if policies fail, or if
we fail to have a policy?
1) Well-managed immigration is good for Europe. Europe will need
labour immigration to care for and replace an ageing population,
and to recruit competences on the global labour market. That
is, a demand for labour from abroad will continue to exist. If this
demand cannot be met by regular, legal labour migration, it will
be met by irregular migration. This has at least two very serious
consequences: one is that an increase of irregular migration will
breed corruption and organised crime along the external borders
of the EU, making it both costlier and more difficult to control
the borders in the future. The same is true for refugee policy. If
Europe fails to make sure that people who are forced to flee their
homes can get protection in neighbouring countries, we must
provide legal avenues to seek protection in Europe. If we fail
to provide legal avenues (such as quota systems, humanitarian
visas, etc.), desperate refugees will be forced to use their savings
to finance the smuggler industry, putting their safety at risk, and
feeding organised crime and corruption.
2) Closure is not an option. Even if we wanted to, it is not possible
to close Europe completely to immigration. And even if we did
tomorrow, we still have to deal with increasingly culturally, linguistically and religiously heterogeneous societies. If we attempt
to close Europe completely we will 1) fail; 2) pay a high price in
human lives (not least because mounting pressures along the
borders will sooner or later lead to new, dramatic and deadly
situations); 3) shatter Europe’s image in the eyes of the rest of
the world; and 4) pay a high price in the form of internalised xenophobia as we turn inwards and cultivate fear instead of openness.
3) Don’t feed the monster, and don’t be copycats, people will
vote for the original. In a situation when support for repressive
policies is increasing, it is tempting also for progressive parties
to try to win elections by adopting a repressive rhetoric or even
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
155
programme. Such a strategy is bound to fail: people will have
their prejudices confirmed and strengthened, and in the end,
they will probably prefer the repressive, anti-immigration originals to some newly awakened copycats. There is a danger also
that progressive parties might be tempted to pretend to be strict,
while the policies they pursue (or intend to pursue) are in fact
pragmatic, acknowledging that fact that immigration is good for
our economies and societies. This risks creating deep mistrust
among voters (Stephen Castles has written extensively on this)27
who expect politicians to deliver on their promises of strict policies, and who indeed might expect politicians to realise ‘zero
immigration’. An increasingly repressive view of migration also
risks turning refugees into nothing but perceived security threats,
and their aspirations towards a better life to be turned into an
economic burden.
4) Prevent dramatic situations. A lesson to be learned from Sweden post-2015 is that dramatic, chaotic situations can undo what
years and decades of successful integration and successful
work against racism and xenophobia has achieved. Pictures of
overcrowded shelters, thousands of people queuing at border
crossings, policemen hoarding refugees while wearing face
masks as protection (from what, smell? Infectious decease?)
trigger people’s fears. Because we desperately need pragmatic management of migration in order to prevent uncontrollable
situations, progressive parties should consider making migration
policy an area of deepened co-operation between a limited number of member states, like the Schengen area co-operation. At
the moment, we cannot afford to give a right of veto to non-constructive governments, like those presently in power in Hungary,
Italy and Slovakia, for instance.
5) The regulation of migration must encompass labour migrants
and refugees as well as unwanted migrants. The regulation of
migration should be built on three pillars:
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
• The first pillar is labour migration to meet legitimate demand for
competence and manpower. It is unacceptable that this kind of
demand for labour cannot be met through regular labour immigration today, forcing both employers and employees to rely on
and support criminal networks in order to enter the European
labour markets. It is not legitimate to use foreign labour to lower
wages and working conditions. The protection against this kind
of abuse will have to look differently in different European countries, but this is not an excuse not to develop common, European
policies on regular labour immigration.
• The second pillar is the right to asylum. The right to asylum cuts
across whatever regulation there is on other kinds of migration.
The right to asylum must be upheld, regardless of the economic
situation or the level of unemployment. The right to asylum forms
an indispensable part of the defence for universal human rights.
• The third pillar is a humanitarian strategy to deal with unwanted
migration. No matter how successful we are in building a system
for regular labour immigration, or offering protection to refugees,
as long as migration is regulated (and it should continue to be,
I think), there will be unwanted migrants. We cannot simply let
irregular migrants drown and let human rights acquis such as
maritime codes on rescue at sea drown with them.
6) We need a long-term progressive vision. A progressive strategy
must be based on a long-term vision of Europe as a welcoming
continent, which is open to legal, orderly and safe migration.
A vision will not be enough, but it is necessary. And we need
to talk about it in order to inspire people to confide in it. The
direction must be to strive towards ever increasing openness. It
is understandable that the mantra of the last couple years of all
leading political parties in Sweden (and in neighbouring countries) has been “we must not repeat the autumn of 2015”. But
this is insufficient as a vision for progressive parties. Obviously,
human mobility or migration is not the answer to all problems.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
157
The right to stay in your home community and your home country, and to have opportunities for local development is just as
important as the right to mobility. But at the same time, human
mobility is about realising some of the core values of social
democracy: freedom, equality, solidarity. Freedom to move from
places where your opportunities and those of your loved ones
are stunted or constrained. Mobility is a part of the struggle for
equality between those that have had the luck to be born in
a prosperous place, and those that happened to grow up in a
poor place. A progressive policy for human mobility must strive
to take steps – pragmatic, reformist steps – towards eradicating
inequality produced by geography.
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ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
159
Notes
1
Statistics Sweden, Population statistics, 2018, retrieved from http://www.
statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/sv/
ssd/?rxid=f45f90b6-7345-4877-ba25-9b43e6c6e299.
2
Eurostat 2018, Statistics explained: Migration and migrant population statistics,
data extracted in March 2018. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/
statistics-explained/index.php/
Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migrant_population:_almost_22_
million_non-EU_citizens_living_in_the_EU.
3
Sweden received 16,016 applicants per one million inhabitants in 2015, Hungary
17,699 per one million inhabitants in 2015 (Eurostat 2016). Numbers in Hungary
are not entirely comparable, however, as most asylum applicants left the country
before continuing with the procedures. Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/
documents/2995521/7203832/3-04032016-AP-EN.
pdf/790eba01-381c-4163-bcd2-a54959b99ed6
4
Eurobarometer 2017, p. 6 and p. 72.
5
V. Messing, B Ságvári, Looking behind the culture of fear. Cross-national analysis
of attitudes towards migration, Budapest 2018.
6
Ibid.
7
This relationship might have been reversed over the past two or three years, as
asylum immigration has decreased drastically although the share of people who
would like Sweden to receive fewer refugees has now increased. More on this
below.
8
J. Rydgren, S. van der Meiden, The radical right and the end of Swedish
exceptionalism, Eur Polit Sci 2018, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0159-6.
9
H. Oscarsson, S. Holmberg, Nya svenska väljare, Stockholm 2013.
10 Valu. Sveriges Television, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.svt.se/special/
valu2018-valjargrupper/.
11
The GAL-TAN scale measures values along a line from Green, Alternative and
Liberal (GAL) values at the top, and Traditional, Authoritarian and Nationalist (TAN)
values at the bottom.
12 E. Dal Bó, F. Finan, O. Folke, T. Persson, J. Rickne, Economic losers and political
winners: Sweden’s radical right, UC-Berkeley 2018. Accessed at perseus.iies.
su.se/~tpers/papers/Draft180902.pdf.
13 Data from Eurobarometer also indicate that people with a more vulnerable
economic situation are less likely to think that integration has been successful:
“Less than half of those who have difficulty paying their bills most of the time (47%)
agree that integration of immigrants has been a success, compared with 56% of
those who almost never or never have this problem. Eurobarometer 2017, p. 66.
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
14 Arbetet, S tappade flest röster där arbetslösheten är högst, 13 September 2018.
Retrieved from https://arbetet.
se/2018/09/13/s-tappade-flest-roster-dar-arbetslosheten-ar-hogst/
15 A. Alesina, A. Miano, S. Stantcheva, Immigration and Redistribution, NBER
Working Paper 24733, 2018.
16 J. Strömbäck, N. Theorin, Attitudes toward immigration: An analysis of changes
and media effects in Sweden 2014-2016, Delmi Report 4, 2018.
17 K. M. Jylhä, J. Rydgren, P. Strimling, Sverigedemokraternas väljare: Vilka är de,
var kommer de ifrån och vart är de på väg? Forskningsrappor 2, 2018.
18 M. Demker, Sverige åt svenskarna: motstånd och mobilisering mot invandring
och invandrare i Sverige, Stockholm 2014.
19 See: SVT, Uppdrag granskning: Så försöker alt-rightrörelsen förändra Sverige
med rasistisk propaganda, 29 August 2018. Accessed at https://www.svt.se/
nyheter/granskning/ug/
sa-forsoker-alt-rightrorelsen-forandra-sverige-med-rasistisk-propaganda
Socialdemokraterna (2018-05-04) “En trygg migrationspolitik för en ny tid”.
Retrieved from www.socialdemokraterna.se.
20 Eurobarometer 2018, Special Eurobarometer 469 Integration of immigrants in the
European Union: SWEDEN. Fieldwork carried out in October 2017, published April
2018. http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/
getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2169
2018, p. 58.
21 UNDP, Human Development Report, New York 2018.
22 P. Hansen, Asylum or Austerity?: The ‘Refugee Crisis’ and the Keynesian
Interlude, in European Political Science, 1/2018, pp. 128-139.
23 T. Huddleston, O. Bilgili, A-L. Joki, Z. Vankova, Migrant Integration Policy Index
2015, 2015, www.mipex.eu.
24 For a recent overview of the labour market integration of immigrants in Sweden
1990-2014, see O. Åslund, A. Forslund, L. Liljeberg, Labour market entry of
non-labour migrants–Swedish evidence, in Nordic Economic Policy Review,
TemaNord 2017:520, pp. 115-158.
25 V. Messing, B Ságvári, Looking behind the culture of fear.
26 socialdemokraterna.se, 4 April 2018.
27 See for example S. Castles, Why migration policies fail, in Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 27:2, 2004, pp. 205-227. Accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870
42000177306.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
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The political backlash: Scotland within the
context of the United Kingdom
SARAH KYAMBI
Context
This contribution occupies a rather peculiar place. The United
Kingdom’s imminent exit from the European Union (EU) means no
EU elections will be held in the United Kingdom (UK) next May.
So why include the UK case? The answer is that this contribution
focuses mainly on Scotland within the context of the UK. The rationale is that Scotland provides an exception to the general trend
in immigration politics across Europe. Both political debate and
policy suggestions on immigration remain positive with an emphasis on welcoming migrants and the benefits they bring. It is worth
considering what factors have contributed to this and what progressives can learn from the Scottish experience.
To provide some context, the UK’s foreign-born population stood
at 7.3 million in 2011 comprising 13% of the total, the respective
figures for Scotland are 369,284 and 7%. These figures have continued to rise. The UK has a long history of immigration, including
substantial migration from its former empire in the post-war period.
Nevertheless, the country has experienced significant changes in
its migrant population in recent decades. For one there has been
a marked increase with the foreign-born population, which rose
from 4.6 million (9%) in 2001. Equally importantly, migratory patterns have changed, with a diversification of migrant origins and
migrant settlement patterns. Net migration from the European
Union has risen steadily, while non-EU migration has declined
somewhat. Illustrating this shift in the origins of the migrant population, Poles are now the largest group in both Scotland and the
UK as a whole, overtaking the numbers from Pakistan and India as
the single largest country of origin (although migration from outside the EU continues to remain higher overall than EU migration).
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
163
In contrast to many EU member states, recent immigration debates
in the UK are dominated by labour migration, with the number of
refugees and asylum seekers in the UK remaining comparatively
low. Instead the decision to allow immediate access to its labour
markets for nationals of Poland and the seven other ex-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004 is arguably the definitive
moment in UK immigration policy for the last decade and a half.
With most other EU member states (apart from Ireland and Sweden)
delaying labour market access, there was significant immigration
into the UK from the 2004 EU accession states. Immigrants from
these countries also departed from previous migrant settlement
patterns when they came to live and work in areas of the UK that
had had limited prior experience of migration, rather than concentrating in towns with significant co-ethnic, co-national populations.
Rising immigration from the 2004 accession states plays a key
role in the shift in Scotland from a country of emigration to one
of immigration in the early 2000s. Immigration also plays a key
role in reversing the continual downward trend in Scotland’s
population since the mid-1970s. In terms of the purpose of migration, the composition of migrant inflows in the previous decades
shows that immigrants come to the UK mainly to work or study
with other reasons far less prevalent (13% of total inflows in 2017).
EU migrants dominate among those coming to work, while those
coming to study are mainly non-EU citizens.
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Figure 1: Net migration to the UK by citizenship (thousands) 2002- 2016
Source: Long term international migration data, Office for National Statistics.
Since 2010, UK immigration policy has been dominated by a net
migration target which seeks to reduce migration to the ‘tens of
thousands’, implementing an electoral campaign promise by David
Cameron.1 Net migration continues to be well in excess of this figure (282,000 in 2017) and it is unlikely that reducing migration by
this extent is either possible or desirable, particularly considering
the target includes student and family migration. To emphasise
the difference in Scotland: a recent Scottish Government discussion paper recommends the migration target be dropped or that
migrants to Scotland be exempted from it.2
Under the devolution settlement which set up the Scottish
Parliament and Scottish Government in 1998, immigration is one
of the areas reserved to the UK Government at Westminster.
Nonetheless, over time increasing policy divergence has become
apparent on immigration matters. For example, on issues related to refugees and asylum seekers, different practice and
approaches are consistently evident in Scotland. These include
an approach to refugee integration that involves the integration
of asylum seekers from the moment of arrival, and calls for the
ending of detention of child asylum seekers. The more positive
approach in Scotland to asylum and refugee issues is also apparACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
165
ent in the fact that it has the highest involvement of any UK region
in the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme for refugees
from the conflict in Syria. On immigration, a desire for differentiation is also discernible and this has become more strident
since the Brexit vote in 2016. Early differentiation on immigration
can be seen in introduction of the Fresh Talent scheme in 2004
that allowed students at Scottish further education institutes to
extend their stay on post-study work visas. Since the Brexit vote,
several First Minister speeches and statements from the Scottish
Government have stressed the desire for Scotland to be a country
that welcomes immigrants.
It is difficult to determine the factors driving a different and more
positive approach to immigration in Scotland compared to the
rest of the UK. While attitudes to immigrants and immigration in
Scotland are more favourable than elsewhere in the UK, they are
not in favour of immigration overall. Scholars have advanced a number of theories for the broadly positive approach to immigration in
Scottish politics and policy debates. Factors seen as contributing
to this include: a desire to display an open, civic Scottish identity to
demonstrate that Scottish nationalism is civic and inclusive, rather
than ethnic and exclusionary; lower levels of immigration, greater
concerns regarding population growth and population ageing; limited powers over immigration resulting in a lack of party competition
or polarisation on the issue and othering of the English.3
A central concern for successive administrations in Scotland that
is provided as a rationale for its more open approach to immigration has been more advanced population decline and population
ageing. Scotland experienced a declining population until the
2000s. The shrinking population and the prospect of it falling
below the 5 million mark were identified as a key challenge by
successive administrations going back to the Labour-Liberal
Democrat coalition government in 2004. Population ageing is also
more advanced in Scotland than in the rest of the UK and migration plays a greater role in sustaining the population growth in
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Scotland than in England and Northern Ireland. In addition, migration, particularly from the EU, has played a key role in sustaining
more remote communities, with many rural businesses in sectors
like hospitality and tourism, food and drink, and agriculture and
food processing unviable without workers from the EU.4
Scotland provides an interesting contrast in terms offering generally positive narrative on immigration despite public attitudes that
are not, in fact, that much different to those across the UK as a
whole. To understand this in context is it worth briefly outlining
the general political differences between Scotland and England.
In recent decades Scotland has exhibited more left-leaning political attitudes and voting patterns than England. These have their
roots in the nation’s experience of manufacturing decline in the
late 1970s and 1980s resulting in unpopularity of the Conservative
Party in Scotland due to its association with government in the
1980s. It also relates to a wider reliance on the state and public
sector in Scotland leading to support for social democratic rather than neo-liberal approaches. This left-leaning political instinct
tended to favour the Labour Party as the dominant centre-left party until more recently when the Scottish Nationalist Party began to
espouse a vision of an independent Scotland (its primary aim) as
more egalitarian, outward-looking and left-wing.
Attitudinal data on immigration
The analysis of attitudinal data in this section mainly uses the UK as
the unit of analysis, as data is generally available at UK level with
little Scotland level data available. Attitudes to immigration across
the UK are generally negative, with the majority of respondents
in a variety of surveys consistently favouring a reduction in immigration. While comparing surveys and understanding responses
is fraught with difficulty for a number of reasons, it is clear that
immigration is unpopular with the general public. The graph below
shows opposition to immigrants/immigration with data taken from
three main surveys going back to 1964.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
167
Figure 2: Opposition to immigrants/immigration 1964-20165
Source: S. Blinder, Immigration and independence: Public Opinion on immigration in Scotland in the
context of the referendum Debate, Migration Observatory report, COMPAS, University of Oxford,
2014.
While the salience of immigration as an issue of concern rises as
immigration levels rise, the sense that immigration is too high persists even when levels of immigration are low. This suggests that
lowering immigration is not likely to reduce the perception that
there are too many immigrants or that the level of immigration is
too high.6 Attitudinal segmentation shows that the largest group
of people hold complex, and sometimes contradictory, views
on immigration characterising them as an ‘anxious middle’ as
opposed to the minorities holding staunchly pro- or anti- immigration views.7 A range of concerns can be said to underpin negative
attitudes on immigration including concerns about impacts on
public finances, public services, labour markets, culture and the
economy. Respondents to surveys also have markedly different
views on different categories of migrants with asylum seekers frequently viewed as the least popular. Similarly, low skilled migrants
tend to be viewed less favourably than the highly skilled, although
recent research suggests that responses to low skilled migrants
are far more positive when specific ‘useful’ occupations are
named, such as ‘fruit pickers’.8
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Different groups have different foci for their immigration concerns.
Higher earners are generally more concerned about the impacts
on public services, while lower earners are more concerned about
jobs.9 Disaggregating survey data reveals a range of factors that
interact with attitudes to immigration. For example, where people live influences attitudes, with those in diverse or cosmopolitan
areas generally more positively disposed. This seems to provide
evidence supporting the ‘contact hypothesis’ that interactions
between groups tend to lessen levels of antipathy. However, there
is a caveat in that asylum dispersal areas in the UK have the highest levels overall of respondents wanting immigration reduced.
This indicates there is a core of resource competition that contributes to anti-immigrant sentiment in areas with high levels of
deprivation, while elsewhere it is the fear of immigrants and what
they represent rather than the reality of immigration that appears
to play the central role.
What newspapers people read links closely with their attitudes
on immigration, indicating a key role for media portrayal of immigrants in shaping attitudes. However, it is difficult to determine
causality and researchers tend to confine themselves to seeing
a ‘reinforcing interaction’ between media, the public and politicians on immigration. Age and life stage also seem to influence
opinions on immigration with older groups tending to be more
negative on immigration. Party politics matter too with those
intending to vote for left wing parties such as the Labour Party
or the Liberal Democrats registering lower rates of salience on
immigration. Notably, undecided and non-voters register closer to
Labour and Liberal Democrat voters on the question of the importance of immigration as an issue.
Eurobarometer data
The Eurobarometer data10 at the centre of this analysis may seem
unusual in that the UK responses are positive on immigration in
many respects, as well as consistently more positive than the EU28
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
169
average. However, it should be noted that the survey does not ask
respondents whether they like or dislike immigration nor whether
it should be increased or reduced. Instead, this is a survey that
focuses mainly on integration rather than immigration. Even the
questions on the opportunities and impacts of immigration can be
seen as relating to the experience of immigration in the past rather
than reflecting voters’ views on immigration policies themselves.
The positive responses should not obscure the fact that people
can be positive about the impacts and benefits of immigration, but
nevertheless wish to see immigration reduced.11 How to effectively
address this dissonance in peoples’ views on immigration will be
key for progressives. The difficulty will be to find a message that
acknowledges many people’s grasp of the benefits of immigration
without discounting their misgivings. The Eurobarometer data for
countries like the UK12 highlight the need to wrestle with professedly positive views on immigration alongside a rising penchant for
anti-immigration politics. To add a further layer of contradiction,
alongside a drift towards increasingly anti-immigration policies
and politics at UK level, within Scotland a more leftist voting
tradition remains coupled with a generally positive approach to
immigration that has become more outspoken in recent years.
The UK dataset in this Eurobarometer special survey contains
1,382 respondents of which 94% are UK nationals. The remaining
6% comprise nationals of Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria and
Romania (1% each).13 Of these, 43% believe themselves to be “well
informed” on immigration and integration related matters, 55%
think they are “not well informed”.
The highest proportion of UK respondents view immigration as an
opportunity (35%). This is one of the highest proportions across
the EU28, with only Sweden and Ireland more optimistic as to
immigration offering opportunities (45% and 36% respectively)
and the EU average as low as 20%. This viewpoint is the more
striking when you consider that only in a handful of countries14 did
a greater proportion of respondents see immigration as an oppor170
EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
tunity rather than as a problem. However, among UK respondents
a further 31% see immigration as a problem and 22% see it as
equally a problem and an opportunity. Further breakdowns of the
survey show that those who see immigration as an opportunity are
mostly left leaning (53%) while those seeing it as a problem tend
to identify as right on the political scale (43%).
High levels of UK respondents (74%) report being comfortable
interacting with immigrants across the full range of social categories,15 compared to an EU28 average of 57%. The average
conceals that in most EU countries the majority did not feel comfortable across all types of interactions. This was only the case
in 11 other countries but the average is pulled up by the fact that
in some of those countries reported comfort rates stood at very
high levels such as 83% in Spain, 79% in the Netherlands, 78% in
Portugal and 81% reported for Sweden.
In the UK the level of reported comfort interacting with immigrants
varied by left-right political identification. Those identifying as left
or centre reported higher rates of comfort (84% and 74%), while
those on the right reported lower rates (67%). The data strongly
support the contact hypothesis, with those with more interaction
with immigrants reporting higher rates of comfort interacting with
immigrants (above 80%) than those with less frequent contact – of
those who interacted with migrants less than weekly, only 59%
reported feeling comfortable interacting across all settings. Far
fewer variations are discernible in terms of urban/rural divides,
with rates of reported comfort varying only slightly (from 73%
to 76%) between rural areas/villages, mid-size towns and large
towns. Similarly, social class sees high rates of reported comfort
across the board from 72% to 83%. However, difficulty paying bills
does correlate to lower rates of comfort, with those with difficulties paying bills “most of the time” reporting just a 59% rate of
comfort. Those with no, or only occasional, difficulties paying bills
reported comfort levels of 73% and 72%.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
171
In terms of economic impacts, people in the UK had more positive views on the economic benefits of immigration, with 69%
in agreement – compared to an EU28 average of 51%. This was
one of the highest positive responses alongside Sweden (69%)
and Ireland (72%). Only a further six countries had a majority of
positive responses. Economic benefits for UK respondents were
most related to migrants providing labour in hard-to-fill jobs: 81%
saw this as a benefit from immigration, while 65% agreed that
immigrants brought new ideas and boosted innovation. Less than
half of respondents agreed that immigration was a burden on the
welfare state (38%) or that immigrants took jobs away from other
workers (33%). As might be expected, views on economic benefits
of migration vary in relation to the education level and economic
situation of the respondents. Of those ending education at 15 or
younger just 57% are persuaded of the economic benefit, compared to 81% of those ending their education at 20 years+. Those
with difficulty paying bills are less likely to perceive immigration as
bringing economic benefits than those who never have such worries (50% and 71% respectively). Left-right political identification
matters too. A high proportion of those identifying as on the left
see immigration as having economic benefits (84%). The same is
the case for 68% of those identifying as the centre and just 61% of
those identifying as on the right.
Social impacts were viewed even more positively than economic
benefits, with 71% of UK respondents agreeing that the impact of
immigrants on society was “very positive” or “moderately positive”. The enrichment of cultural life seems to feature even more
strongly, with 75% agreeing that immigrants had enriched cultural
life (art, music, food, etc.) In terms of the impact of immigration
on crime rates, respondents were more circumspect, with 50%
agreeing that overall immigration had worsened crime problems
in the UK. In terms of integration, discrimination against migrants
was seen as a major obstacle by 65%. Furthermore, 62% saw negative media portrayal as a major obstacle to integration, 60% saw
the major obstacle as limited efforts by migrants themselves to
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
integrate, 54% identified limited interactions between migrants
and citizens, 51% saw difficulties finding a job as a major obstacle
to integration. Positive views of the social impacts of immigration were quite widespread across EU countries, with a further
15 countries reporting this as a majority view, including a number of the 2004 accession countries including Poland, Slovenia
and Lithuania. For the UK respondents, the factors that seem to
influence responses most are very similar to those that seem to
influence views on the economic impacts. Again, lower educational outcomes increase the proportion of negative views to 16% from
just 2% among graduates. Financial worries increase negative
views to 19% from 7%. Those identifying as on the left report just
4% negative views on social impacts. Those on the right report
higher rates of 15%, while among those who see themselves in the
centre 7% see social impacts as negative.
UK-Scotland differences and similarities in attitudes
As noted above, the political debate on immigration between the
UK and Scotland is markedly different, with party positions and
political debate in Scotland more positive than at UK level. This
difference in positioning extends across the political spectrum
and is visible in parties that have a UK presence and a Scottish
version such as the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat
Parties.16 Attitudes to immigration in Scotland are also more
positive than in England and Wales. Nevertheless, a majority of
people in Scotland would prefer to see immigration reduced.
Comparing attitudes between Scotland and the rest of the UK
is made difficult by a lack of comparable data. While the British
Social Attitudes survey and the Scottish Social Attitudes survey
both periodically include questions relating to immigration and
race relations, the questions are differently worded and posed in
different years making comparisons unreliable. With the British
Social Attitudes survey gathering just over 3,000 responses
across the UK as a whole, disaggregating by region means sample sizes become small.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
173
The most robust, in-depth, analysis comparing attitudes is a report
based on a commissioned YouGov survey gathering over 2,000
responses in Scotland and in England plus Wales over the period 16-28 October 2013.17 This found that 58% of respondents in
Scotland wanted to see immigration reduced, compared to 75%
in England and Wales. While this is 17 percentage points lower, it
is still a majority view in favour of reducing immigration. However,
in addition, a smaller proportion of respondents in Scotland than
in England and Wales (32% compared to 49%, see graph 3 below)
saw people coming to live in the country from outside the UK as
“bad for the country”. This presents a contradiction that marks
a key challenge for progressives, namely that people may well
understand the benefits of immigration while being hostile to
immigration. As the authors of this study note, a “belief in the benefits of immigration can coexist with a desire to reduce its scale”.
They caution that the different terminology used in the questions
could also explain the variation.
The report also notes that the difference in attitudes to immigration between Scotland and England and Wales may reflect the
difference in immigration contexts, where Scotland’s migrant population is relatively small and its population density low compared
to many parts of the UK. While attitudes to immigration are more
positive than in England and Wales, the perception that immigration is good for Scotland still falls just shy of a majority at 49%.18
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
Figure 3: Immigration as good/bad for Scotland/Britain
Source: Migration Observatory/YouGov, 16-27 October 2013.
Generally, scholars are sceptical of finding an innate difference
in attitudes to immigration in Scotland compared to the rest of
the UK even though the attitudinal data tend to be more positive
for Scotland. McCollum et al, for example, disaggregate 2011 BSA
data by government office region to find that only inner and outer London have fewer negative responses questions on the level
of immigration and a desire to see immigration halted.19 A similar
finding is made by Mann and Tommis based on polling data from
Ipsos MORI.20 Nonetheless, the differences are treated cautiously,
with suspicion that context and a lack of power over immigration
and asylum issues in the Scottish Government and Parliament may
tend to restrict the extent to which concerns surface in attitudinal
data from Scotland.
Status quo
The current political narrative in Scotland is characterised by
the continuing dominance of the Scottish National Party (SNP),
which formed a minority government in the Scottish Parliament
for the first time in 2007 and has been the party of government in
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
175
Scotland ever since. Commentators on Scottish nationalism, and
particularly the brand of nationalism espoused by the SNP, note
its keenness to stress a brand of inclusive, outward looking civic
nationalism in contrast to exclusionary tropes of ethnic nationalism. The SNP’s dominance appears to have reached its peak
in the 2015 UK general election, where almost all of the Scottish
seats in Westminster went to the SNP. However, a further, and perhaps paradoxical, development has been the resurgence of the
Conservative Party in Scotland. Despite Scotland being characterised as a left-voting country, both the UK Parliament elections in
2017 and the Scottish Parliament elections in 2015 have resulted
in the Conservative Party securing the second largest share of
seats. The SNP’s dominance has come mainly at the expense of
other left-leaning parties, particularly the Labour Party. The 2017
Westminster election result was striking in that the SNP’s almost
complete dominance in terms of Scottish seats at Westminster
(56 of 59) swung back to 35 seats with 12 of those lost going to
the Conservative Party, marking that party’s best performance in
Scotland since 1983. In terms of the European Parliament, Scotland
constitutes a single constituency and returns six MEPS. The past
three elections have returned two members each from the SNP
and Labour Parties. The party-affiliation of the remaining MEPs
elected shows a drift rightwards, with the Conservative Party MEP
joined by an MEP from UKIP in 2014 rather than representation
from the Liberal Democrats.
Despite the SNP’s current dominance, core political issues provide a substantial challenge for the party’s positioning. One core
issue is Brexit. While Scottish voters wished to remain in the EU by
62%, SNP support for remaining in the EU (by remaining within the
European single market and retaining free movement of people/
continuing EEA immigration)21 did not translate into straightforward
success at the ballot box in 2017. Instead, it appears that the SNP’s
commitment to a second referendum on keeping Scotland in the EU
has the effect of splitting the pro-independence vote. Eurosceptic
support for the SNP dropped from 51% to 36% between the 2015
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and the 2017 elections.22 Currently the only other party offering a
remain alternative would be the Liberal Democrats, whose political
fortunes in Scotland have hit a serious low.
The question of how immigration plays into the current political scene is a vexed one. Immigration is often taken to be a key
issue driving the vote to leave the EU, with the notion of ‘taking
back control’ interpreted as concomitant with public concerns
about levels of immigration and objections to the free movement of people. Much is made of the central role that concerns
about immigration played in the leave campaign.23 While some
analyses of the impacts of immigration on the 2016 Brexit vote
find the impact to be small and related to perceived, rather than
experienced, effects,24 others determine that negative attitudes to
immigration were strongly predictive of voting to leave the EU.25
Regardless of the impact of anti-immigrant sentiment on the Brexit
vote, attitudes to immigration in the UK have been softening since
the vote. Blinder and Richards cite several surveys that show lessening support for a reduction in immigration. These reductions are
by sizeable margins such as a decline from 77% to 58% of respondents wanting immigration reduced and a decline from 64% to
45% in those believing there were too many migrants.26
In terms of policy and political pronouncements it is striking that
the Scottish Government’s approach to immigration in the period
since the Brexit vote has been characterised by positive statements on the benefits of immigration and the need for immigrants
to continue to come to Scotland. Positive messages in speeches
by the First Minister27 are backed up with positive proposals on
immigration in Scottish Government submissions28 and discussion
papers29 on immigration seeking to influence debate and policy
processes, as well as campaigns to welcome and integrate ‘new
Scots’ and proposals to attract migrants through tax breaks30. The
positive approach to immigration goes wider than the current government and is echoed in statements made by the other parties in
Scotland. Looking back to the 2017 general election, the main parACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
177
ty pledges on immigration in Scotland are more frequently linked
to improving the ways in which Scotland can secure the economic
benefits of migration compared to national party manifestos.31
Recommendations
Migration is a necessary investment for the future in Scotland.
Demographic projections show immigration as the core factor
in sustaining population growth. Migration also plays a key role
in the labour market and brings in much needed innovation and
skills. In rural and remote areas of Scotland it can play a crucial
role in keeping localities viable and sustaining business. But as
well as opportunities it presents challenges, and attitudes to
immigration are consistently negative, even when the impacts of
migration are viewed positively. It is important to approach data
relating to immigration carefully and not reduce it to being either
positive or negative given that people’s views are complex and
often seemingly contradictory. It is important to note that even
where immigration impacts are seen to be beneficial (as in the
Eurobarometer survey data discussed above) this should not necessarily be read as supporting pro-immigration policies that would
seek to increase immigration flows. Instead, politicians should be
aware of the propensity for immigration as an issue to function as
a touchstone for discontents that may be unrelated. The role for
progressives here is to ensure that immigrants do not become
scapegoats for policies related to austerity, rising inequality,
declining security and living standards. Thus there is a need to
be actively explaining the causes of social and economic ills, rather than solely espousing the benefits of immigration. The key is
to recognise people’s discontent and dissatisfaction, but to help
frame this through a progressive rather than a populist lens.
The experience in Scotland indicates that leadership on immigration matters: the consistently positive messages in Scotland on
immigration across the political spectrum seem to have yielded
attitudes that are generally more positive than elsewhere in the
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EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND MIGRATION
UK. It also appears to have led to a situation where the public are
more aware that immigration is beneficial even when it may be
unpopular. It is the task of politicians to provide leadership on this
divisive issue that acknowledges people’s fears while protecting
our countries’ best interests.
How can progressives balance citizens’ concerns with a principled approach to immigration in their policies?
Progressives should be unafraid to stress the positive impacts
and opportunities immigration offers and to explain the continuing
need for immigration that exists in our countries both economically and socially. Progressives should be reassured that when
communicating with voters the aim is not to get people to like
immigration, but simply to understand the need for immigration
and the benefits it can bring.
Progressives should take care to acknowledge the difficulties and
challenges citizens express as relating to immigration. However,
they should be proactive in showing citizens that the roots of
these problems have causes unrelated to immigration and be able
to show how progressives intend to address citizens’ problems
and why that will be effective.
Voters’ perceptions of the scale of immigration do not correspond
to actual levels of immigration. Research indicates that ‘myth-busting’ approaches that seek to correct voters’ perceptions of the
scale of immigration tend to be ineffective in changing minds on
the perception that immigration is at too high a level. Progressives
should therefore not simply focus on correcting impressions that
immigration is ‘too much’ with a data driven account of actual
immigration levels.
Progressive parties should collectively stress the benefits of immigration and highlight the positives while acknowledging that there
can be challenges. But they should take care not to legitimate
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
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far-right anti-immigration views as this would risk simply legitimating far-right and anti-immigrant parties rather than attracting
right-leaning voters.
How should progressives communicate internally within the party
and the party family as well as externally with voters?
Internal communication on immigration needs to stress the
need to demonstrate leadership and values in our approach to
immigration.
Internal communication should stress that left-leaning voters
are more likely to hold less negative views on immigration, while
right-leaning voters hold more negative views. Anti-immigration
rhetoric therefore risks putting off left-leaning supporters while simply legitimating anti-immigration parties for right-leaning voters.
Communication with voters should seek to discuss immigration
in local, concrete terms wherever possible. Research suggests
that attitudes to local migrants or immigration into specified jobs
are less negative than when immigration is discussed in general
abstract terms. Progressives should pledge to tackle public policy
problems that are attributed to immigration, such as lack of available housing and pressure on services, but make clear the causes
of such problems do not lie mainly with immigration or immigrants.
Communication with voters should seek to engage particularly with
undecided voters and voters in those social-demographic groups
most inclined to be positive towards immigration. Younger voters in
particular are a key group that progressives should focus on.
Progressives should keep in mind that voters’ perceptions and
fears that immigration is too high are not alleviated by reducing
immigration levels. Promises to reduce immigration to a level that
voters believe is correct should therefore be avoided as this tends
simply to reinforce that immigration is problematic.
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How should progressives engage with opponents of immigration?
Progressives must be assured in their understanding that they
cannot win against parties on the right of the political spectrum
by being more hostile to immigration. Progressives cannot gain
politically by tacking rightwards on this issue and need to remain
true to their values.
Moving to more negative immigration policies and rhetoric does
not ultimately help progressives secure the centre ground. Instead
it shifts the centre ground further to the right and this legitimates
anti-immigration arguments and anti-immigration parties.
Left-wing parties are less likely to convince voters when they
intend to enforce restrictive immigration policies. Adopting such
policies as a progressive party would not therefore secure the
same gains at the ballot box as it might for parties on the right.
Progressives should be reassured that the largest segment of
voters makes up an undecided ‘anxious middle’ on immigration.
Progressives should focus on persuading this undecided group
rather than those who have set anti-immigration views. Most
people within this undecided group are already inclined to vote
Labour or Liberal Democrat in the UK.
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Notes
1
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/6961675/
David-Cameron-net-immigration-will-be-capped-at-tens-of-thousands.html.
2
https://beta.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-population-needs-migration-policy/.
3
See further: E. Hepburn, M. Rosie, Immigration, nationalism, and politics in
Scotland, in E. Hepburn, R. Zapata-Barrero (Eds), The Politics of Immigration in
Multi-Level States, London 2014; D. McCollum, B. Nowok, S. Tindal, Public
Attitudes towards immigration in Scotland: Exceptionality and possible policy
implications, Scottish Affairs 23.1 (2014): 79–102; C. Boswell, S. Kyambi, S. Smellie,
Scottish immigration policy after Brexit: Examining the options for a differentiated
approach, Edinburgh 2017.
4
https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/11/6792/2/.
5
Notes: British Election Studies 1964, 1966, 1979, 2015 (Do you think that too many
immigrants have been let into this country or not? Yes/No), 1983, 1987 (Do you
think that immigration has gone too far? Yes/No); 1989-2017 data are from
Ipsos-MORI (How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
“There are too many immigrants in Britain”, 5-point scale from ‘strongly agree’ to
‘strongly disagree’). Also, Ipsos MORI allowed a ‘neither’ response in some years
but not others. Thus, Ipsos MORI’s versions allowed more respondents to opt out
of the question, depressing opposition to immigration but also depressing assent
to immigration; European Social Survey 2002-2016 (Allow immigrants of a
different race/ethnicity to come and live in the UK, response categories ‘none’
and ‘a few’ combined).
6
B. Duffy, T. Frere-Smith, Perceptions and reality: Public attitudes to immigration,
London 2014.
7
H. Dempster, K. Hargrave, Understanding Public Attitudes to Refugees and
Migrants, Chatham House Working Paper 512, London 2017.
8
J. Rutter, R. Carter, National conversation on immigration: Final report, London
2018.
9
B. Duffy, T. Frere-Smith, Perceptions and reality.
10 Special Eurobarometer survey 469 ‘Integration of Immigrants in the EU’,
published 18 April 2018.
11
S. Blinder, Immigration and independence: Public Opinion on immigration in
Scotland in the context of the referendum Debate, Migration Observatory report,
COMPAS, Oxford 2014, discussed in more detail below.
12 Similar countries in this dataset include Sweden and Germany, while Italy, Austria
and Hungary frequently present very different views.
13 Nationals of Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia are also among the respondents
at less than 1% of respondents in each case.
14 The other countries are Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Finland and
Sweden.
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15 Categories in the survey are: in the workplace; at a childcare centre, school or
university; when using public services; in your neighbourhood; during sport,
volunteering or cultural activities; when using household services.
16 E. Hepburn, M. Rosie, Immigration, nationalism, and politics in Scotland.
17 S. Blinder, Immigration and independence.
18 Ibid.
19 D. McCollum et al, Public Attitudes towards immigration in Scotland.
20 R. Mann, Y. Tommis, Public sentiments towards Immigration in Wales, Bangor,
2012.
21 https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/12/9234/downloads.
22 http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2018/06/
how-brexit-became-a-problem-for-nicola-sturgeon/.
23 See: D. Clarke, M. Goodwin, P. Whiteley, Brexit: Why Britain voted to leave the EU,
Cambridge 2017.
24 See S. O. Becker, T. Fetzer, Does immigration cause extreme voting?, CAGE
Online Working Paper Series 306, 2016.
25 J. Curtice, The Vote to leave the EU, British Social Attitudes 34, 2016.
26 S. Blinder, L. Richards, UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall attitudes
and level of concern, Migration Observatory Briefing, Oxford, 2018. See also R.
Ford, How have attitudes to immigration changed since Brexit, 24 January 2018,
https://medium.com/@robfordmancs/
how-have-attitudes-to-immigration-changed-since-brexit-e37881f55530. and
Ipsos MORI, Shifting ground. 8 key findings from a longitudinal study on attitudes
towards immigration and Brexit, 2017, https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/
news/documents/2017-10/Shifting%20Ground_Unbound.pdf.
27 https://www.snp.org/
nicola_sturgeon_speech_on_brexit_at_the_david_hume_institute and https://
www.snp.org/nicola_sturgeons_speech_to_the_snp_conference_2017 and
https://beta.gov.scot/publications/
scotlands-place-in-the-world-first-ministers-stanford-university-speech/.
28 https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/11/9611.
29 https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/02/5490.
30 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/
scotland-immigrants-cash-money-moving-brexit-nicola-sturgeon-andrew-wilson-scottish-independence-a8369786.html.
31 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39955886.
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Recommendations
This section is a summary of the recommendations emerging from
the previous chapters and aims to provide strategic and practical
advice for progressive politicians in the run-up to the European
Parliament elections in May 2019.
Our recommendations have three core themes concerning both
regular as well as irregular migration, and a fourth section with
practical advice:
1. Establishing a moderate narrative explaining that progressives are the only ones who offer a balanced approach to
migration.
2. Mainstreaming migration into other policy areas as much as
possible rather than addressing it as an exclusive topic.
3. Exploiting the mistakes and failures of populists and far-right
parties.
4. Practical advice
1. Establishing a moderate narrative
Progressives should present themselves as the only ones who offer
a balanced approach to migration based on human rights and solidarity but which also strives to ensure that migration is controlled
and which addresses the core concerns and fears that voters link to
migration. This narrative should also proclaim a truly inclusive vision
of society in which disadvantaged groups are not played off against
each other but rather unite against common structural challenges.
Progressives should provide a moderate alternative to both rightwing and far-left approaches to migration. This strategy maintains our
traditional claim of being a broad coalition of diverse voter segments
and conflicting interests. It is also the only viable short-term way to
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
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prevent internal ideological divisions on cultural issues and diversity
from tearing our parties apart. In the long term, however, the main
goal should be the redirection of public opinion towards a forwardnot backward-oriented perception of diversity in a globalised world.
A progressive strategy should contain the following aspects:
• The starting point for progressive migration narratives (and policies) should be that migration is a part of the human condition. It
has always been a part of human history, and people will continue
to move across countries and continents in the future. Migration
cannot be stopped, but it can be managed. Migration is neither
good nor bad, it is rather a phenomenon that simply exists.
• Progressives should focus on getting voters to understand that
immigration is a necessary part of our future if we want to remain
prosperous and thriving. Rather than trying to persuade voters to
like it, we should explain how immigration can benefit our countries
economically and demographically.
• We need a long-term progressive vision: a progressive strategy
must be based on a long-term vision of Europe as a welcoming
continent, which is open to legal, orderly and safe migration.
• Progressives are at a disadvantage when immigration rises in salience, and should thus avoid playing up the issue. Nevertheless,
progressives should demonstrate a clear commitment to domestic/
EU migration management and addressing root causes through
proactive foreign policy and development cooperation. Creating
legal migration channels could be the strongest political message.
• We need to Europeanise progressive objectives: in order to
achieve our goals, we must push for EU-level solutions and explain
why they are necessary. The Common European Asylum System is
a case in point: reforming it is the only way to avoid a repeat of the
so-called 2015-2016 refugee crisis.
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2. Mainstreaming migration
Immigration functions as a touchstone issue in European politics,
channelling voter concerns and discontent on issues ranging from
economic insecurity to cultural change. Progressives should try to
shift the focus of political debate towards these underlying concerns,
as this is where they can be better positioned to take on the right.
By mainstreaming migration issues into broader socio-economic
challenges, we can avoid ‘us vs. them’ framing and demonstrate
how structural deficiencies – not migrants – are the problem. We
must ensure that we have strong narratives and convincing proposals for voters on how we will tackle growing inequality and rising job
insecurity, and on how we will provide safety and security. We must
promote an attractive vision for our future that includes immigration.
• Progressives should ensure that party positions have a strong
narrative on solutions to social and economic concerns that aligns
with our values. We should strive to ensure that immigration is not
to the detriment of existing residents. Progressives should focus
on safeguarding labour standards, wage levels, public services
and social security.
• The left should offer a policy that can reduce uncertainties,
acknowledge that immigration can raise challenges, but be
clear that these are just part of the wider challenges facing our
societies. Progressives must stress that the solutions needed to
counter growing insecurity and inequality must be much broader
than ending or restricting immigration, and emphasise that without immigration some of these problems will worsen.
• Progressives should address security concerns relating to immigration (regardless of whether these concerns are only perceived
or actually exist). But progressives should also explain that restrictive measures marginalise migrants and their descendants, thus
increasing the risk of crime and radicalisation. Instead, solutions
lie in improving integration and equality.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
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• Progressives should explain that part of the challenge for our
societies is to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs and
that these are shared by all.
• Progressives should be careful to resolve any instances of direct
resource competition between immigrant and non-immigrant
populations with regard to jobs, housing and other resources.
3. Exploiting mistakes and failures
Even though progressives should mainly aim for a narrative that
is centred around their own ideas, there is a window of opportunity to show that populist policies fail to provide sustainable
migration solutions.
• The promises of Brexit with its slogan “take back control” could
be used as a case to highlight the failure of populist ‘quick fixes’
based on misinformation. It is up to progressives and the political centre to prevent further chaos.
• Likewise, the false success of the June 2018 European Council
summit, which promised disembarkation platforms and a strong
focus on border control, could be used to showcase that only
progressive solutions for a Common European Asylum System
provide sustainable answers.
• Local-level examples of counterproductive migration policies
could be highlighted at the national level in order to demonstrate how hard-line policies do not work.
4. Practical advice
The following points are a collection of practical tips for progressive campaigning and advocacy work. It is not an exhaustive list
but rather a starting point for further elaboration.
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• Use simple, clear and natural language.
• Communication with voters should seek to discuss immigration
in local, concrete terms wherever possible. For example, while
using the term “unskilled workers” can cause implicit disapproval,
describing migrants as “cleaning staff in hospitals”, “construction
workers” etc. can foster a more positive sentiment.
• Pay attention to vocabulary. Always distinguish between refugees
and migrants; publishing a progressive vocabulary list could help.
• Personal leadership on immigration is important – do not underestimate the role of personality/charisma.
• Target group: focus more on young voters and non-voters, since
formerly progressive voters who have recently voted for the right
are much more difficult to reach.
• Draw historic parallels between current political developments
and 20th century history, and how the EU was created and
expanded in response to those historical events.
• There are few votes to be gained for left-wing parties by shifting
to anti-immigration positions. Do not talk tough on immigration
issues to attract right-leaning voters; they will not be persuaded,
while left-leaning voters will be alienated.
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Contributors
Tamás Boros is a political analyst. He is the
strategic director, co-founder and co-owner
of Policy Solutions, a Budapest-based political consulting and research institute. He is
also a member of the Scientific Council of the
Foundation for European Progressive Studies
(FEPS) and of the Hungarian Political Science
Association. Boros is a regular guest of political
talk shows on Hungarian television and often comments on current
affairs in international media (such as The Economist, Financial Times
and the BBC). His publications and analyses focus on Hungarian
domestic politics, populism and political extremism. Previously,
he worked as an EU and communications expert for the European
Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hungary. For four
years, he also served as the director of an NGO, the Pillar Foundation.
In 2005, he was the winner of the Young European of the Year
Award offered by the German Schwarzkopf Foundation.
Marco Funk is a policy officer at the
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung EU Office, where he
is responsible for the foundation’s Brusselsbased activities related to EU migration and
home affairs. He previously worked as a policy
analyst for the European Policy Centre, where
he focused on EU migration and asylum policy. Prior to that, he worked as a research
assistant at the EU Institute for Security Studies and as a research
and communications associate at the International Organisation for
Migration. In 2015, he published a book about refugees stranded
at Italy’s border with Austria, while he was working for a local NGO.
Funk studied European Affairs at Sciences Po Paris and Political
Science at the University of Central Florida.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
191
Hedwig Giusto is a senior policy advisor at
the Foundation for European Progressive
Studies where she works predominantly on
migration and the Western Balkans. She holds
a PhD in History of International Relations
from the University of Florence and an MSc
in History of International Relations from the
London School of Economics. From 2006 to
2015 she worked at the Fondazione Italianieuropei, where she
was in charge of the foundation’s international relations and activities. She has also taught Politics and Economics of the European
Union, and Italian History and Politics in academic programmes for
US students spending a semester in Italy.
Oliver Gruber is a post-doctoral lecturer in
Political Science at the University of Vienna.
His research focuses on immigration and
migrant integration, party politics, political
communication and education policy, both
from a national and comparative perspective. Recent publications include ‘More than
just the economy, stupid! Austria’s Social
Democrats and their ambivalent relationship to migration’, in M.
Bröning, C. Mohr, The Politics of migration and the future of the
European Left (Bonn, 2018); ‘The effects of institutional change
on Austrian integration policy and the contexts that matter’ (with
S. Rosenberger), in C. Bakir, D. Jarvis, Institutional entrepreneurship and policy change (Basingstoke, 2017); and ‘Institutionalising
a cross-sectional policy area? Ministerial competences for
migrant integration in EU member states’, in Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies (2016).
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Sarah Kyambi is a consultant on immigration and integration policy. She holds a PhD
in Law from Birkbeck College, University
of London and has expertise in providing policy-relevant research and strategic
input for government, funders and NGOs.
Kyambi has worked with several think tanks
across the UK and in Brussels including the
Institute for Public Policy Research, the Migration Policy Group,
the Scottish Council Foundation and the David Hume Institute,
where she was the deputy director. Her current work focuses
mainly on UK immigration policy after Brexit, with a particular
focus on Scotland.
Hervé Le Bras is a historian and demographer.
He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique
in Paris and is currently an emeritus research
director at INED (National Institute of
Demographic Studies, Paris), university professor at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales), chair of Territoires et
populations at the Global Studies College
of the FMSH (Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme), and
a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He was the director of
the LDH (Historical Demography Laboratory: EHESS/CNRS) from
1987 until 2007, chief editor of Population (1978-1990), and associate editor of Mathematical population studies, Demographic
research, Autrepart, Revue de synthèse, Histoire et mesure, Raison
présente, and various books. His recent publications include The
Nature of Demography (Princeton, 2008); Le mystère français (with
Emmanuel Todd), (Paris, 2013); Mathematical Demography (ed. with
K. Wachter), (New York, 2014), Anatomie sociale de la France, (Paris,
2016); L’âge des migrations (Paris, 2017); Archéologie des migrations (ed. with Dominique Garcia) (Paris, 2017).
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
193
Lisa Pelling is a Swedish political scientist.
She currently works as the head of analysis at
Stockholm-based think tank Arena Idé, funded by the Swedish trade union movement.
Pelling regularly contributes op eds to the daily
newspaper Dagens Arena and opinion pieces to other Swedish newspapers. She hosts
Sweden’s largest podcast on migration issues.
She was previously a political advisor to the Swedish minister for asylum, migration and development issues, as well as to the Swedish
foreign minister. Pelling was the secretary general of the International
Union of Socialist Youth from 1997 to 2001.
Timo Rinke is the director of the project
‘Flight, Migration, Integration in Europe’
for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung based in
Budapest. With a scientific background in
politics and public management, he previously worked for the German Development
Institute in Bonn. In 2016, Rinke joined the
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, where he was
responsible for the implementation of a refugee concept within
the scholarship department. He moved to Budapest in March 2017.
Thilo Scholle studied Law in Münster and Paris
and is a former member of the federal board
of the SPD Young Socialists in Germany. He
has worked on topics regarding migration
and integration at the cabinet of the minister
for employment, integration and social affairs
of the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia, at the
office of the SPD secretary general and at the
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Embassy of North-Rhine-Westphalia in Berlin. He is currently working
on questions regarding the future of work and digitalisation at the
Federal Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs in Berlin.
Luigi Troiani teaches International Relations
and EU Politics and History at the Pontifical
University St. Thomas in Rome and EU Politics
and History for summer course in Rome of
the State University of New York at Stony
Brook. He is the author of books and essays
on international politics and coordinates
the research and studies of the Fondazione
Pietro Nenni. He was an associate researcher at the Istituto Affari
Internazionali (IAI, Rome) and at the Center of European Studies at
Harvard University.
ACHIEVING COMMON PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVES
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An increasing number of Europeans feel uneasy about people who
escape poverty and violence in search of a decent and safe life
far away from their home. This European uneasiness is expressed
in fears that range from unfair competition in the labour market
and reduced access to social services in the host countries to the
perceived threat posed by migrants to national identities, ethnic
homogeneity and security. The aim of this book is to try and shed
light on the paradox that the disadvantaged and marginalised
represent an imminent threat to our societies. It also aims to explain
the origin of a political short circuit that is affecting public opinion
right across Europe and impacting on electoral results, political
dynamics and immigration policies in many EU member states.
• This book is edited by FEPS, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the
Fondazione Pietro Nenni and the Fondation Jean Jaurès with
the financial support of the European Parliament.
• ISBN number 978-2-930769-24-0 9782930769240