International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2021

 

Instrumental explanations of attitudes towards immigrants during the “refugee crisis”: Evidence from Italy

(Abstract)

 

Danilo Di Mauro and Vincenzo Memoli

 

The recent history of immigration flows shows recurrent massive waves of arrivals that put under great stress both policies and politics within national systems, due to rising politicization and public concern. Despite a great amount of analyses on the origins of attitudes towards immigrants and immigration, the relationships with flow peaks need still more observations, especially with a focus on natives’ interests. Do self and sociotropic interests perceptions become much more related to sentiments of hostility during high immigration flows? This study addresses this research question by focusing mainly on three realistic-instrumental theoretical explanations such as neighbourhood safety, contact theory and economic competition from a diachronic perspective. To this end, we observe the case of Italy, where the so-called refugee crisis affecting Europe since 2015 has generated an unprecedented number of arrivals, inflaming public debate and influencing both policy choices and party positions. By using the European Social Survey from the period 2003-2017, we show that in this context the relationship between economic indicators and hostility towards immigrants becomes stronger during the crisis period.