ImmCon

Immigration has become a central and persistent issue in the political discourse and public debate of many European societies. Some evidence suggests that the popularity of anti-immigrant parties has been partly driven by recent waves of immigrant arrivals. Other evidence, however, suggests that in areas where natives are more likely to come into contact with immigrants, greater immigration has reduced support for the far-right. The contrasting evidence makes it crucial to understand when and how contact with immigrants can generate political division, and when it may foster greater integration. The overall objective of this project is to better understand how contact with immigrants can change attitudes and political behaviour in Europe. An important literature in social science and psychology has demonstrated that, at least in controlled settings, contact between majority and minority groups can reduce prejudice and encourage interethnic relationships. Yet the effectiveness of contact outside of controlled environments is much less well understood, with large uncertainty as to how policy can be designed to facilitate positive contact. This project therefore aims to help fill this evidence gap and hence guide policy makers in how to encourage social integration. To achieve our objectives, we will undertake analyses using a variety of econometric methodologies at differing spatial scales. We will begin the project by using comparable data from eight European countries to examine the relationship between immigrant populations and voting. We will then dig deeper by undertaking analyses using unique national administrative data in four European countries: Denmark, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Finally, we will work with partners in three European countries to test specific ways in which contact with immigrants may impact the attitudes and behaviour of small groups of young people. Together, these different projects will aid to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role of intergroup contact in political reactions to immigration. The project aims to help lift two important scientific barriers that have limited work on this topic. A first major barrier has been a lack of data on both contact with immigrants and the potential long-term impacts of this contact. We aim to lift this barrier by using various administrative datasets, matching them with other data and collecting new data in carefully targeted settings. This will allow us to look at instances of contact that are currently understudied as well as investigate the impact on outcomes on which little evidence exists. A second important barrier has been the non-random nature of contact with immigrants that typically makes it difficult to study causal impacts. We aim to lift this barrier by focusing on several situations where contact is influenced by factors which are plausibly random, including one experiment where we will deliberately introduce purely random variation. Lifting this barrier will allow us to better identify the potential impact of policies which increase contact with immigrants. Our project advances the state of the art relating to contact with immigrants in two important ways. First, we will study the impact of contact on a set of important outcomes on which there is currently little well-identified evidence. This includes novel tests of implicit prejudice, behaviour in incentivized games, voting, labour market discrimination and residential segregation. Second, we will carefully examine ways in which the type and duration of contact matters, where existing evidence is also scarce. Overall, this will produce important lessons for policy makers from relevant settings that will aid in designing institutions and interventions which will encourage positive with immigrants.