IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v102y2021i1p228-237.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Are “the Immigrants”? Beliefs About Immigrant Populations and Anti‐Immigration Attitudes in the United States and Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Kirill Zhirkov

Abstract

Objectives There is important variation in beliefs about immigration within the publics of immigrant‐receiving societies but empirical social research has largely overlooked it. The “imagined immigration” concept aims to bring these beliefs back in as an important component of public attitudes toward immigrants. It also offers a new perspective on the political conflict around immigration that persists despite the consensus on desired qualities of potential immigrants among citizens in industrial democracies. Methods I review the imagined immigration concept and present new empirical evidence in its favor using original survey studies in the United States and Britain. Results I describe respondents’ beliefs about immigrants, demonstrate their association with partisanship, and confirm that these beliefs are significantly related to perceptions of immigration as harmful—even when controlled for partisanship, ideology, and ethnocentrism. Conclusion I corroborate the foundations of the imagined immigration concept and discuss its promise and limitations.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirill Zhirkov, 2021. "Who Are “the Immigrants”? Beliefs About Immigrant Populations and Anti‐Immigration Attitudes in the United States and Britain," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(1), pages 228-237, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:1:p:228-237
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12925
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12925
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.12925?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. PETERSEN, MICHAEL BANG & AARøe, LENE, 2013. "Politics in the Mind's Eye: Imagination as a Link between Social and Political Cognition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 275-293, May.
    2. Valentino, Nicholas A. & Soroka, Stuart N. & Iyengar, Shanto & Aalberg, Toril & Duch, Raymond & Fraile, Marta & Hahn, Kyu S. & Hansen, Kasper M. & Harell, Allison & Helbling, Marc & Jackman, Simon D. , 2019. "Economic and Cultural Drivers of Immigrant Support Worldwide," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 1201-1226, October.
    3. Jack Citrin & John Sides, 2008. "Immigration and the Imagined Community in Europe and the United States," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 33-56, March.
    4. Jack Citrin & John Sides, 2008. "Immigration and the Imagined Community in Europe and the United States," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 33-56, March.
    5. Jens Hainmueller & Daniel J. Hopkins, 2015. "The Hidden American Immigration Consensus: A Conjoint Analysis of Attitudes toward Immigrants," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(3), pages 529-548, July.
    6. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    7. Scott Blinder, 2015. "Imagined Immigration: The Impact of Different Meanings of ‘Immigrants’ in Public Opinion and Policy Debates in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 63(1), pages 80-100, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jan G. Voelkel & Mashail Malik & Chrystal Redekopp & Robb Willer, 2022. "Changing Americans’ Attitudes about Immigration: Using Moral Framing to Bolster Factual Arguments," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 73-85, March.
    2. Benjamin G. Bishin & Thomas J. Hayes & Matthew B. Incantalupo & Charles Anthony Smith, 2021. "Immigration and public opinion: Will backlash impede immigrants’ policy progress?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3036-3049, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palermo, Francesco & Sergi, Bruno S. & Sironi, Emiliano, 2022. "Does urbanization matter? Diverging attitudes toward migrants and Europe's decision-making," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Alexis Grigorieff & Christopher Roth & Diego Ubfal, 2020. "Does Information Change Attitudes Toward Immigrants?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1117-1143, June.
    3. Jan G. Voelkel & Mashail Malik & Chrystal Redekopp & Robb Willer, 2022. "Changing Americans’ Attitudes about Immigration: Using Moral Framing to Bolster Factual Arguments," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 73-85, March.
    4. Grigorieff, Alexis & Roth, Christopher & Ubfal, Diego, 2016. "Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Representative Evidence from Survey Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 10419, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Grigorieff, Alexis & Roth, Christopher & Ubfal, Diego, 2016. "Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Representative Evidence from Survey Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 10419, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Marfouk, Abdeslam, 2013. "Préjugés et fausses idées sur l’immigration et les immigrés, vecteurs de discrimination en matière d’accès à l’emploi [false ideas about immigrants and immigration and discrimination in labor marke," MPRA Paper 47989, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Poutvaara, Panu & Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2018. "Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 471-490.
    8. Vrânceanu, Alina & Dinas, Elias & Heidland, Tobias & Ruhs, Martin, 2023. "The European refugee crisis and public support for the externalisation of migration management," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 279441, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Hanen Khaldi & Vicente Prado-Gascó, 2021. "Bibliometric maps and co-word analysis of the literature on international cooperation on migration," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(5), pages 1845-1869, October.
    10. Dylong, Patrick & Uebelmesser, Silke, 2024. "Biased beliefs about immigration and economic concerns: Evidence from representative experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 453-482.
    11. Antti Kouvo & Carita Lockmer, 2013. "Imagine all the Neighbours: Perceived Neighbourhood Ethnicity, Interethnic Friendship Ties and Perceived Ethnic Threat in Four Nordic Countries," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(16), pages 3305-3322, December.
    12. Maria Snegovaya, 2020. "Different Strokes for Different Folks: Who Votes for Technocratic Parties?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 556-567.
    13. Dražanová, Lenka & Gonnot, Jérôme & Heidland, Tobias & Krüger, Finja, 2022. "Understanding differences in attitudes to immigration: A meta-analysis of individual-level factors," Kiel Working Papers 2235, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Jimenez Mori, Raul, 2021. "Eliciting individual preferences for immigrants in the Dominican Republic. Results from two choice experiments," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    15. Rania Gihleb & Osea Giuntalla & Luca Stella, 2022. "Exposure to Past Immigration Waves and Attitudes toward Newcomers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9941, CESifo.
    16. Facchini, Giovanni & Margalit, Yotam & Nakata, Hiroyuki, 2022. "Countering public opposition to immigration: The impact of information campaigns," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    17. repec:pra:mprapa:47899 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Benjamin R. Knoll, 2013. "Implicit Nativist Attitudes, Social Desirability, and Immigration Policy Preferences," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 132-165, March.
    19. Louis Jaeck, 2022. "Political economy of immigration policy in GCC countries," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 444-464, July.
    20. Heidi Kaila & Saurabh Singhal & Divya Tuteja, 2017. "Do fences make good neighbours?: Evidence from an insurgency in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-158, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    21. Hege H. Bye & Hui Yu & Jennie Sofia Portice & Charles A. Ogunbode, 2023. "Interactions between migrant race and social status in predicting acceptance of climate migrants in Norway," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(4), pages 1-16, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:1:p:228-237. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.