Public responsiveness and the macro-origins of immigration opinions across Western Europe

Since the 1980s, the study of opinions towards immigration has grown exponentially throughout European scholarship. Most existing studies, however, are limited in their scope and do not specifically refer to an aggregate phenomenon, but rather an individual one. This study seeks to establish empirically whether aggregate public immigration preferences across 13 European democracies relate systematically to national socio-political indicators or other underlying societal mechanics. Particularly, we analyze four mechanisms more in-depth, namely the predictive values of economic deprivation, immigration policy, immigration flows and the political environment. To do so we rely on country-level level data and update a unique dataset of immigration opinions. We find that (ii) economic deprivation is an important correlate of more restrictive immigration opinions, (ii) immigration opinions respond thermostatically to immigration policy, (iii) the non-asylum inflow of foreigners further restricts immigration opinions, and (iv) the immigration positions of government and opposition parties have antithetical effects on immigration opinions.