The relation between integration policy and majority attitudes toward immigration. An empirical test across European countries.

Bart Meuleman & Tim Reeskens University of Leuven, Belgium Contact: bart.meuleman@soc.kuleuven.be

Abstract. Recently, students of attitudes toward ethnic minorities, immigrants and immigration have shown considerable interest in contextual factors that shape these attitudes. Various studies lead to the conclusion that ethnic diversity has a general negative effect on immigration attitudes. Yet, the currently available research has some shortcomings, as most of this research neglects the policy dimension. Potentially, migration and integration policies mitigate the negative effects of ethnic diversity. The case of Europe offers a unique opportunity to study the relation between integration policy and attitudes toward immigration, since the European countries have adopted specific integration regimes, despite the European Unions attempts toward harmonization of such policies. The data used in this paper are twofold. First, we will use the Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) data (Niessen et al., 2007) to construct a typology of integration policies. This valuable data set consists of more than 140 indicators covering minority policies in diverse areas (such as labour market access or political participation) for 27 European countries. In a second step, the obtained typology is linked to measures of attitudes toward immigrants. These measurements are taken from the European Social Survey. Merging MIPEX and ESS data allows a comparative analysis across more than 20 European countries. Key words: integration policy, attitudes toward immigration, perceived ethnic threat, Migrant and Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), European Social Survey (ESS)

Paper gepresenteerd op de Dag van de Sociologie, 29 mei 2008, Leuven

Introduction
Although migration is as old as mankind itself, migration flows into Europe have undeniably increased during the last decades (Hooghe et al., 2008). In 2006, net migration into the EU-27 exceeded 1.6 million, which is almost six times more than the net immigration figure 20 years earlier.1 Europe has de facto become a continent of immigration, irrespective of whether policy-makers acknowledge this or not. The increased immigration flows make deep inroads on various domains of social life. In certain strata of the European population, antiimmigration development have arisen, often driven by the perception that immigrants threaten certain prerogatives of the own social group (Blumer, 1958). Social scientists of various disciplines have always shown great interest in public attitudes toward immigration, immigrant groups and ethnic minorities. Recently, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the contextual factors that shape these attitudes (Scheepers et al., 2002; Coenders et al., 2004; Semyonov et al., 2004; Kunovich, 2004; Semyonov et al., 2006; Strabac & Listhaug, 2007; Sides & Citrin, 2007; Bail, 2008; Semyonov et al., 2008; Schneider, 2008). Taking group conflict theory (Blalock, 1967; Quillian, 1995) as a point of departure, several of these studies lead to the conclusion that ethnic diversity has a general negative effect on immigration attitudes among the majority population. Yet, the currently available research has some shortcomings, as most of this research neglects the policy dimension. However, migration and integration policies potentially mediate the relation between ethnic diversity and public attitudes toward immigration. This study attempts to fill out this lacuna by focussing on the connection between integration policies on the one side, and perceived threat and attitudes toward immigration on the other. For this purpose, a comparative stance is taken: we use data from over 20 European countriesalso including Eastern and Southern European countries that only started to experience substantial immigration very recently. The case of Europe offers a unique opportunity to study the relation between integration policy and attitudes toward immigration, since the European countries have adopted specific integration regimes, despite the European Unions attempts toward harmonization of such policies (Givens & Luedtke, 2004). In the past, various other studies have elaborated upon the nexus between integration policy and

attitudes (Castles, 1995; Castles & Alastair, 2000; Geddes, 2003; Lahav, 2004; Weldon, 2006). Yet to the best of our knowledge, this is study is the first to provide a systematic empirical test taking such a diverse range of European countries into account. Concretely, this papers tries to answer to main research questions. First, we examine to what extent it is possible to distinguish different types of integration regimes within Europe. Therefore, we use data from the Migration and Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) (Niessen et al., 2007). This valuable data set consists of more than 140 indicators covering minority policies in diverse areas (such as labour market access or political participation) for 27 European countries plus Canada. Second, we assess whether there exists a relation between the integration regime that a country adopts and measures of perceived ethnic threat and attitudes toward immigrants. These measurements are derived from the European Social Survey (ESS).

1. Setting the scene: post-war immigration into European countries At the beginning of the 21st century, immigration into Europe has reached historically high levels. These immigration flows have not developed in a linear way during the last decades, nor have they set off at the same moment in various countries. This is illustrated by the net migration rates given in table 1, even though these figures can only sketch a very broad picture of immigration flows into Europe. Western and Central European countries were among the first to experience sizeable post-war immigration. Initially, these migration flows developed mainly through two mechanisms. First, former colonial powers such as the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands granted special entrance rights to citizens from (ex-)colonies. Second, several countries actively recruited immigrants to tackle shortages on the post-war labour markets. These labour migrants originated mainly from the periphery of Europe (especially Southern European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece) or the Mediterranean area. In various countries, policy-makers thought of labour migration as a temporary phenomenon. However, what was intended as temporary migration often resulted in permanent settlement. Logically, the first wave of labour migration was followed by a second wave of family reunification. 3

Table 1. Yearly net migration per 1000 inhabitants (averaged over 5-year periods) for various European countries (source: Eurostat)
60-64 EU27 AT BE CH DE FR IE LU NL UK DK FI IS NO SE CY ES GR IT MT PT BG CZ EE HU LT LV PL RO SI SK 0.66 0.13 1.55 10.17 2.20 . -7.38 6.52 0.32 1.11 0.19 -2.49 -0.77 -0.18 1.39 -8.30 -3.54 -4.97 -1.81 -17.95 -8.72 -0.01 -1.73 6.68 0.00 0.98 8.08 -0.25 -1.05 -1.21 5.48 65-69 -0.12 1.36 1.75 2.81 2.86 . -5.11 2.61 0.77 -0.92 0.20 -4.10 -1.94 0.17 3.13 -3.57 -0.92 -4.04 -1.89 -19.16 -19.11 -0.21 -0.04 7.26 0.18 1.31 5.00 -0.67 -0.18 1.87 -1.20 70-74 0.14 2.54 0.92 0.42 2.17 . 3.34 11.15 2.01 -0.57 1.30 0.26 -1.78 0.79 0.86 -52.06 -0.92 -2.81 -0.90 -8.50 -5.25 -0.88 -2.20 5.26 0.00 2.66 4.89 -2.24 -0.47 0.66 -2.14 75-79 0.50 -0.40 0.73 -4.36 0.19 . 3.12 3.93 2.58 -0.20 0.38 -1.55 -3.57 0.98 2.11 -2.20 0.79 6.06 0.06 -0.23 9.67 -2.44 0.21 3.61 -0.24 1.25 3.48 -1.20 -0.47 5.91 -0.63 80-84 -0.01 0.44 -0.72 2.48 0.02 . -2.00 1.12 1.00 -0.61 0.21 0.85 -0.01 1.13 0.62 -0.98 0.03 1.84 -0.49 2.55 0.63 0.00 -0.64 3.52 0.00 1.95 2.54 -0.67 -0.82 0.03 -1.11 85-89 0.67 1.90 0.83 3.95 4.24 . -9.19 5.91 1.87 0.40 1.24 0.49 0.34 1.73 2.86 1.94 -0.51 2.43 -0.05 4.27 -3.20 -5.77 0.23 2.29 -3.67 3.47 4.34 -1.09 -0.87 3.14 -0.67 90-94 1.46 6.25 1.87 6.86 7.00 . -0.40 10.06 2.73 0.39 2.05 1.78 -0.83 1.86 3.74 14.57 1.26 8.55 0.38 2.67 -0.74 -5.69 -0.56 -14.38 1.76 -5.01 -10.54 -0.39 -4.82 -1.35 -1.42 95-99 1.33 0.90 1.07 1.58 2.50 . 4.32 9.38 1.97 1.39 2.98 0.81 0.25 2.46 1.09 7.34 3.25 5.76 0.79 0.85 2.90 0.03 0.98 -6.17 1.70 -6.28 -3.52 -0.36 -0.55 0.14 0.36 00-04 2.91 4.82 3.13 5.25 2.15 2.63 9.28 8.57 1.72 2.89 1.63 1.01 1.92 2.61 3.09 12.07 13.08 3.31 5.59 8.84 5.65 -5.32 0.40 0.12 1.25 -2.35 -1.23 -2.43 -5.25 1.52 -0.60 05-06 3.32 4.72 5.11 6.13 0.63 1.35 15.61 12.29 -1.03 3.59 2.27 1.84 14.47 5.81 4.82 15.48 14.76 3.64 6.53 4.72 2.65 -0.06 5.01 0.12 1.74 -1.85 -0.53 -0.61 -0.20 4.43 0.87

Western & central Europe

Scandinavia

Southern Europe

Eastern Europe

When severe economic crisis brought along rising unemployment figures during the early 1970s, policy-makers made attempts to bring immigration flows to a halt by reducing possibilities to obtain work permits or by meddling with special immigration rights for 4

citizens of former colonies. The UK was 10 years ahead of this tendency when the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act subjected citizens of independent Commonwealth countries to immigration controls (Geddes, 2003: 35). The net migration rates in table 1 show that these stricter regulations where successful at reducing immigration for a limited period of time. In some countries that attracted considerable immigration flows, such as the UK, Switzerland and Belgium, emigration even exceeded immigration in some years. However, the legal obstacles have not been able to prevent new immigration in the long term. Especially through the procedure of family reunification, people continued to settle in Europe. As table 1 indicates, a renewed increase of immigration has taken place from the 1990s onward. Various phenomena can account for this phenomenon. The start of the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989 set off immigration flows from Eastern Europe to other European countries. Economic malaise and political instability in the third world combined with increased availability of means of transportation and communication causes increasing numbers of people wanting to settle in Europe. Because other paths to legal entrance have become less accessible, this new immigration wave consists for a substantial part of asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants.2 Recently, migration has thus not only undergone quantitative but also qualitative changes. New is also that Western and Central Europe are no longer the primary destinations of immigration. In Southern Europe, for example, countries that were until 1975 true countries of emigration now attract the largest amounts of immigrants. Also in Eastern Europe, immigration has risen sharply during the last decade (Hooghe et al., 2008). Yet, this fact is masked in the net migration rates given in table 1, as immigration into Eastern Europe is largely compensated by emigration from this region to other European countries.

2. Theoretical perspectives: integration policy and its relation to public attitudes

2.1 Dimensions of integration policy European countries have dealt in very different ways with the consequences of post-war immigration (Castles, 1995). Policy responses vary with respect to the extent to which newcomers have access to political, cultural and social rights. Migrant integration policy can be thought of as a series of measures and interventions developed during the process 5

settlement of immigrants (Favell, 2001: 350-351). Integration policy usually contains a great many of such measures, and can therefore be decomposed into several dimensions. This paper does not try to give an exhaustive overview of possible dimensions, but instead focuses on five aspects that are most relevant in the light of our research questions. These dimensions are: (1) access to nationality, (2) political rights, (3) socio-economic rights, (4) cultural rights and (5) anti-discrimination legislation. Access to nationality is perhaps the most crucial dimension of integration policy. Naturalization entails the recognition of newcomers as citizens, i.e. members of the nation as a political community. Formally at least, becoming a citizen entails that one is granted equal political, cultural and social rights. Numerous studies have illustrated how conceptions of citizenship vary across European countries (Kohn, 1944; Brubaker, 1996; Weil, 2001; Shulman, 2002). Usually, a distinction is drawn between two archetypical citizenship models. Ethnic citizenship defines belonging to the nation in ethnic terms: having common ancestry is seen as a necessary condition to become a citizen. This ius sanguinis approach excludes immigrants with a different ethnic background as full members of the nation state by definition. Civic citizenship, the other extreme of the civic-ethnic continuum, is an inherently political form of citizenship. Rather than common descent, adherence to the political rules and legal norms is taken as the criterion for granting citizen-status. By consequence, In the past, Germany and France have often been cited as exemplary for the ethnic respectively civic model. Brubaker (1996), for example, argues that the distinct German and French conceptions of citizenship are dependent on the historical conditions in which these nation states developed. However, recent changes in citizenship rules have resulted in a shift toward the centre of the civic-ethnic continuum (Geddes, 2003), which makes clear that citizenship conceptions should not be treated as static. Integration is broader than access to nationality, however (Marshall, 1964; Entzinger, 2000; Baubck, 2001). Being a non-citizen does not necessarily mean that one is deprived of all rights. Hammar (1990) introduced the term denizen to denote persons with a legal and permanent resident status who enjoy certain rights, but who do not possess citizenship. In Europe, several millions of first, second and third generation immigrants can be considered as denizens (Castles & Miller, 2003). The rights that can be theoretically granted to non-citizens fall apart into three broad categories. A first category deals with the possibility for noncitizens to participate in political life and decision-making. These political rights self6

evidently include voting rights at various governmental levels, but could also imply consultation of representative organs of foreign residents. Socio-economic rights determines the extent to which non-citizens have access to the labour market and resources of the welfare system. Finally, cultural rights refer to the possibility for newcomers to maintain cultural differences and to form ethnic communities. Of course, granting certain formal rights to immigrants does not yet guarantee that these rights are also put into practice. For this reason, we also consider the presence of anti-discrimination legislation to be an important dimension of integration policy. Such a legal framework could be a useful tool to enforce equal access to certain resources.

2.2 A typology of integration regimes Students of integration policy have noticed that in practice, these different dimensions are not independent of each other, but that instead certain patterns recur. This has made it possible to construct a typology of ideal-typical integration regimes. Usually, three broad integration models3 are distinguished in the literature (see, for example: Castles, 1995; Koopmans & Statham, 2000; Castles & Alastair, 2000; Rex, 2000; Castles & Miller, 2003): differential exclusion, assimilation and multiculturalism or pluralism. In the differential exclusionist model, immigrants are incorporated in certain spheres of life, but are excluded from others. While they are typically given access to the labour market (and sometimes also to certain social rights that are associated with this position), immigrants are not considered as full members of the political community. Differential exclusion is based on a ius sanguinis conception of citizenship, which implies that access to nationality is reserved for those belonging to the same ethno-cultural group. Immigrants are also denied rights to political participation. The philosophy behind differential exclusionism is that immigrants are temporary guests on the labour market. By consequence, little initiatives are undertaken to facilitate long-term residence or family reunification or to combat discrimination. In the literature, Germany is regularly cited as the primary exponent of differential exclusionism (Castles, 1995; Koopmans & Statham, 2000; Castles & Miller, 2003). However, it should be noted that the 1999 and 2001 revisions of German naturalisation law signified a serious shift away from ethnic citizenship (Geddes, 2003: 95; Castles & Miller, 2003: 212). Guest-worker 7

recruiting countries such as Austria, Belgium and Switzerland, but also certain new immigration countries in Southern and Eastern Europe are generally considered as having differential exclusionist integration policies (Castles, 1995). Assimilationist integration policy is based on the premise that migrants can be socially and culturally absorbed into the host society through a one-sided process of adaptation. Contrary to differential exclusion, assimilation is thus embedded in a civic conception of citizenship. Assimilation aims at incorporating immigrants as fully fledged members of the political community, irrespective of their ethno-cultural background. Newcomers on the territory (ius soli) are given ample access to nationality, as long as they are prepared to accept the political institutions of the country. Naturalization is thus the corner stone of the assimilation model, through which access to all other rights is given. No special provisions are made for immigrants that do not wish to naturalize, because assimilations attempts to prevent the formation of immigrant groups that are distinguishable from the rest of the population. Within the European context, France is most often put forward as exemplary for assimilationist policy. However, one could ask oneself to what extent France still corresponds to this idealtypical description after changes in nationality legislation during the mid 1990s (Geddes, 2003). The assimilationist and the multicultural model share their civic conception of citizenship. The key difference between these two integration regimes, however, is that the latter recognizes that immigrant groups form ethnic communities with distinct cultural and social practices. Furthermore, multiculturalism means that these ethno-cultural groups are given equal rights and treatment as the majority population in the different spheres of social life. This implies that multiculturalism scores high on the political, cultural and social rights dimension, and provides protection of these rights via anti-discrimination legislation. The multicultural approach also provides ample possibilities for naturalization, although this is not seen as a condition sine qua non for full participation in public life. In practice, many variants of the multicultural model exist, ranging from a laissez-faire approach in which difference is merely tolerated, to a more interventionist policy in which the state actively takes measures and changes its institutions to guarantee the equality of ethnic communities. In Europe, Sweden, the Netherlands and Great Britain are generally considered as examples of multicultural approach (Castles, 1995; Castles & Alastair, 2000).

The existing typologies have been criticized for various reasons. First, the ideal-typical integration regimes have too often been used as static and monolithic categories, thereby obscuring the dynamic character of integration policies. Above, some examples were already given of how changing legislation can cause countries to shift gradually in the direction of other integration models. An adequate account of integration policy should also take into account a distinct integration approach can be adhered to by different political actors, in various domains or with respect to diverse target groups (Koopmans & Statham, 2000: 20). Second, Entzinger (2000) argues that the often-used typologies underestimate complexity of immigration policies by focussing too much on a limited number of dimensionsuch as legislation with respect to naturalization or cultural rights for immigrant groupswhile neglecting other aspects that might be equally important (e.g. the social and economic domain). Finally, a too exclusive emphasis on integration policy typologies might give the impression that the national states are the only relevant actors concerning the integration of immigrants, which is clearly not the case. In the European context, the impact of the European Union on national policies should not be overlooked, even if harmonization efforts of the EU have until now focussed on immigrant policies rather than on integration policies. Besides that, the informality of the economy and the way in which the welfare system is organized can strongly affect the grip of national states on integration of newcomers in society (Geddes, 2003).

2.3 The relation between integration regime and majority attitudes toward immigration Various studies scholars have argued that there exists are relation between integration regimes on the one hand, and immigration-related attitudes that live among the majority population (Castles, 1995; Castles & Alastair, 2000; Geddes, 2003; Lahav, 2004; Weldon, 2006). Rather than trying to identify one clear-cut causal path, the connection between policy and attitudes should be conceived as a dialectical relation, with effects that run in various directions. Here, we discern three processes through which the link between policy and attitudes can operate. First, government policies often serve as a reference point for the public debate on integration. The vocabulary used by policy makers has an impact on the categories that the majority population uses to frame integration issues. The definitions employed in the official discourse play a crucial role in the social construction of good and bad types of immigrants (Geddes, 9

2003). Policy measures can be seen as institutionalized values with respect to the rights and duties of newcomers in society. Through processes of socialization that take place in different spheres of life, individuals internalize these values to a certain extent (Weldon, 2006). In this sense, policy measures and the discourse that is constructed to justify these measure can be seen a form of elite-discourse that influences mass opinion (Zaller, 1992). This idea is supported by the findings of Lahav (2004) that there is some coherence between attitudes of members of parliament and public opinion with respect to immigration. Second, integration policy can influence attitudes indirectly because it fundamentally shapes the context in which the relations between majority and minority groups take place, and therefore also influences the outcomes of such relations. Castles and his colleagues argue that certain integration policies prevent or conversely just stimulate ethnic minority formation (Castles, 1995; Castles & Alastair, 2000; Castles & Miller, 2003). In contrast to ethnic communities, ethnic minorities are not accepted as an integral part of society and therefore forced into a marginal position. Because differential exclusionism separates immigrants from the rest of the population in various spheres of life, this integration regime gives rise to the marginalisation of immigrant groups and to ethnic minority formation. Multicultural integration policies, on the other hand, recognize immigrant groups as equal but different parts of society and therefore lead to the emergence of ethnic communities. Although to a lesser extent than differential exclusionism, the assimilation model would also lead to ethnic minority formation. Paradoxically enough, policies that set out to assimilate immigrants have in practice often led to immigrant groups becoming marginalized, thereby leading to less integration than the multicultural model (Castles, 1995; Weldon, 2006). The formation of ethnic minorities rather than communities goes hand in and with the occurrence of antiimmigrant attitudes and racist violence. Besides self-definitioni.e. the development of a collective identity as an ethnic group, ethnic minority formation also includes an aspect of other-definition: the dominant group imposes its demarcation of ethnic minorities on subordinate groups. This process involves stereotyping and the development of negative outgroup attitudes (Castles & Alastair, 2000). In the two processes sketched above, integration policy is thought to have consequences for attitudinal dispositions of the majority population. Nevertheless, there are good arguments to believe that this relationship also runs in the other direction. In countries where antiimmigrant attitudes are widespread, policy makers can be tempted to introduce integration 10

policies that tend towards differential exclusionism, out of fear for losing votes to extremeright wing parties with a vigorous anti-immigration programme. In contradiction with this line of thinking, Freeman (1995) argues that public opinion only has a minor impact on immigration-related policies.

3. An empirical test of the typology of integration regimes In the first empirical part of this paper, we test whether the typology of integration regimes presented above provides a useful analytical tool to understand the integration policies of the various European countries. For this purpose, data from the Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) (Niessen et al., 2007) is used. MIPEX gives a comparative overview of integration policies in 25 EU-member states and 3 non-EU countries. In total, this index takes over 140 different indicators are taken into account, which makes it possible to sketch a nuanced and relatively complete picture of the policy measures with respect to the participation of immigrants in various social spheres. MIPEX refers to six policy strands: (1) access to the labour market; (2) long-term residence; (3) family reunification; (4) political participation; (5) access to nationality; (6) antidiscrimination. Each of these strands is divided into several subcategories, such as the conditions that need to be fulfilled by immigrants to obtain certain rights or the security of these rights, once they are granted (see table 2 for an overview). Each of these subcategories is then operationalized by several indicators, referring to a specific policy measure. For every indicator, a score between 1 (worst practice) and 3 (best given) was given by a panel of experts. A complete list of indicators can be found at the MIPEX-website: http://www.integrationindex.eu. Thus, MIPEX grasps several of the integration policy dimensions that were mentioned in the theoretical part above. Unfortunately, two dimensions have not been covered comprehensively. Labour market access and the rights associated with this cover only one albeit the most fundamental oneaspect of social rights. Unfortunately, MIPEX does not consider cultural rights to be a separate policy strand, and therefore pays only little attention to this topic. The only indicators that refer to cultural rightsbe it only indirectly and very partiallyare integration conditions to obtain a certain status. Very probably, these aspects 11

have been omitted from MIPEX because in these domains it is notoriously difficult to obtain comparable measurements for this domain. Table 2. Strands and subcategories included in the Migrant Integration Policy Index

Strand 1: Labour market access Strand 4: Political participation Eligibility formal political rights labour market integration measures informal political rights security of employment consultative and advice bodies rights associated with status implementation policies Strand 2: Family reunion Strand 5: Access to nationality eligibility for sponsor eligibility eligibility for family members conditions for acquisition of status conditions for acquisition of status security of status security of status dual nationality rights associated with status Strand 6: Anti-discrimination definitions and concepts Strand 3: Long term residence Eligibility fields of application conditions for acquisition of status enforcement security of status equality policies rights associated with status

Despite these shortcomings, we believe that the MIPEX data give us the possibility to test empirically whether the typology of integration regimes is a useful tool to gain understanding in integration policies that the European countries have adopted. By means of latent class analysis (LCA) (McCutcheon, 1987), we examine whether it is possible to distinguish a small number of interpretable types of integration policy. LCA is a statistical method for finding unobservable subtypes in multivariate data. In this case, for example, we want to distinguish countries with a similar integration regime. However, the integration regime is not observed directly, but indicated indirectly via policy indicators. In a certain sense, LCA can be seen as a confirmatory factor analysis where the latent factor is categorical rather than metric (this is the Mplus approach, see: Muthn & Muthn, 1998-2006). LCA differs from crisp cluster techniques because rather than allocating every observation unambiguously to a certain cluster, the model estimates the probabilities of belonging to the latent classes. This fuzzy cluster approach provides an answer to the above-mentioned critique that typologies often obscure the fact that some countries can have elements that belong to more than one integration regime.

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Rather than the individual indicators, we use average scores for each of the six policy strands as input variables for the LCA.4 These averages were rescaled so that all scores range between 0 (maximal exclusion) and 10 (maximal inclusion).5 Mplus 4.0 (Muthn & Muthn, 19982006) was used to estimate the model. A model with three latent classes provides the best solution, judging by statistical criteria as well as in terms of interpretability.6 The interpretation of the latent classes can be derived from the estimated class means on the six policy strands. These means are represented graphically in figure 1. The first class scores high on all variables, meaning that the countries in this class have adopted inclusive policies with respect to all measured domains of integration policy. These countries havecompared to the other countries in the study at leastgenerous procedures for naturalisation. At the same time, non-nationals have relatively easy access to the labour market, political participation, family reunification and long-term residence. Indeed, this latent class bears a strong resemblance to the multicultural integration regime. Not surprisingly, countries that are often referred to as exponents of multicultural policy, such as Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands (Castles, 1995; Geddes, 2003) are most likely to belong to this first latent class.7 Also Belgium, Norway and Finland and three new immigration countries in Southern Europe, namely Portugal, Spain and Italy, are strongly connected to the first latent class (see figure 2). As figure 1 makes clear, the second class is the very opposite of latent class 1. With respect to all policy dimensions, class 2 has a significantly lower average than class 1, meaning that immigrants are given are given access to far less rights. This second latent class shows certain similarities with the differential exclusionist integration regime. The restrictive naturalisation procedures and the very low levels of political participation reflect the conception of immigrants as temporary guests that should not be granted full citizenship. However, there also exists a remarkable contradiction between latent class 2 and differential exclusion. The countries in latent class 2 have a low score on the labour market dimension, while the model of differential exclusion precisely predicts that labour market is the key domain to which immigrants are given access. Rather than differential exclusion, the countries in latent class 2 have adopted policies aimed at full exclusion. One could argue that this contradiction between latent class 2 and the theoretical model of differential exclusion is related to the specific operationalization of the labour market dimension in MIPEX. After all, not only the possibility to enter in the labour market, but also rights and security associated with this are

13

measured. But even when eligibility for access to the labour market is analysed separately, the same pattern is retrieved: class 2 scores significantly lower than class 1. All Eastern European countries in the study are most likely to be members of latent class 2. This is in line with the literature that states that an ethnic conception of citizenship is typical of Eastern European countries (Castles, 1995). It is striking to see that these countries have adopted a very different approach to migrant integration compared to other countries that only have become countries of immigration very recently, such as Portugal, Italy and Spain. Apart from the Eastern European countries, also Austria, Denmark and Greece and Malta are close to latent class 2. This makes the exclusionism the most widespread integration regime among the countries under study.

Figure 1. LCA solution estimated class means on the 6 policy strands (with 95% confidence intervals)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Labour market Acces Family reunion Long term residence Antidiscrimination Political participation Access to nationality

Class1

Class2

Class3

14

Figure 2. LCA solution most likely latent class membership for 27 European countries

The third and smallest latent class takes a position in between the two previous ones. Alike class 2, this policy type only offers limited access to the labour market and to family reunion. Yet at the same time latent class 3 shares high average scores on the nationality and political participation dimension with class 1. Only with respect to long-term residence, class 3 occupies an extreme position: this integration type includes the most restrictive procedures for long-term residence of all countries. At first sight, the low scores on the long-term residence dimension combined with generous naturalisation legislation might show resemblance to assimilationist policy. After all, assimilation is based on propositions that integration should be conveyed through naturalization and that no special provisions should be made for immigrant groups. Yet, the high score on political participation contrasts sharply with the assimilation model. A more accurate interpretation of latent class 3 can perhaps be given by identifying which countries have the highest probabilities of belonging to this class: Germany,

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France, Ireland, Luxemburg and Switzerland. Historically, these countries adhered to very different conceptions of nationhood. Nevertheless, they have in common that they figure amongst the countries with the largest foreign born populations in Europe. Apart from Ireland that has only started to experience sizeable immigration flow more recently (Hooghe et al., 2008), these countries belong to the classic European immigration countries. Being confronted with relatively large immigrant populations, the governments of these countries were compelled to give access to nationality and to provide some opportunities for political participation. This is even the case for Germany, a country that has often been considered as the typical example of differential exclusion. At the same time, these countries have apparently tried to contain further immigration by limiting labour market access, long-term residence and family reunification. This latent class analysis has yielded several interesting insights. First, it has become clear that despite attempts to harmonize European policies, very different integration regimes can be discerned within Europe. While some countries have adopted relatively inclusive integration policies, othersespecially in Eastern Europehave taken an exclusive stance on all measured policy dimensions. A third integration regimes scores high on political citizenship (naturalization and political participation), while more restrictive procedures are employed for other dimensions such as labour market access and family reunification. Nevertheless, migrant integration policy in practice does not correspond fully with the theoretical integration models that are proposed in the literature. Instead of differential exclusion, undifferentiated exclusionist policies (i.e. restrictive policies on all dimensions) are found to be quite widespread in Europe. Furthermore, there is little evidence for the existence of the assimilation policy model in contemporary Europe. Instead, a latent class that stresses political citizenship is found. These countries have generous naturalization procedures and offer non-nationals opportunities to participate in political life, but score low on the other dimensions. It is also interesting to see how Germany and Francetwo countries that are often presented in the literature as having antipodal integration regimesare most likely to be members of the same latent class, namely the one with political citizenship. Recent changes in the legislation of these countries (Geddes, 2003; Castles & Miller, 2003) have apparently resulted in a convergence of integration policy. To account for these findings, certain aspects of theory on integration models need to be qualified.

16

Finally, it is very interesting to see how new immigration countries have developed very different responses to the rising immigration flows they are confronted with. While most Southern European countries, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy have adopted a more multicultural integration regime, Eastern European states have reacted rather uniformly with exclusionists policies. Explanations for these different approaches might be sought in the tradition of ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe or in the experience of mass emigration that Southern European countries lived through in the post-war period, although the case of Greece contradicts this latter explanation.

4. An empirical test of the relation between policy and attitudes The typology of integration regimes that was derived in the previous paragraph renders it possible to perform an empirical test of the relation between integration policy and attitudinal variables, such as attitudes toward immigration or the perception of ethnic threat. For this purpose, we make use of data of the first round (2002-03) of the European Social Survey (ESS).8 The ESS is an academically-driven survey project that was fielded in 21 European countries that are also present in the MIPEX data. These countries and their respective effective sample sizes are: Austria (AT) (2,257), Belgium (BE) (1,899), Czech Republic (CZ) (1,360), Denmark (DK) (1,506), Finland (FI) (2,000), France (FR) (1,503), Germany (DE) (2,919), Great Britain (GB) (2,052), Greece (GR) (2,566), Hungary (HU) (1,685), Ireland (IE) (2,046), Italy (IT) (1207), Luxemburg (LU) (1552), Netherlands (NL) (2,364), Norway (NO) (2,036), Poland (PL) (2,110), Portugal (PT) (1,510), Slovenia (SI) (1,519), Spain (ES) (1,729), Sweden (SE) (1,999), and Switzerland (CH) (2,037). The data were taken from the website http://ess.nsd.uib.no. ESS round 1 contains an elaborate module of over 50 items dealing with various aspects of attitudes toward immigration. In this part, we will mainly focus on three different scales measuring the perception that immigrants form a threat to economic (ECOTHREAT) or cultural prerogatives (CULTHREAT) and the rejection of new immigration into the country (REJECT). Question wordings for these items are given in table 3. By means of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, the quality and the cross-cultural measurement equivalence of these scales was tested.

17

Table 3. Question wordings of the items

Question wording To what extent do you think [country] shoud allow people D4. ... of the same race or ethnic group from most [country] people to come and live here? D5. ... of a different race or ethnic group from most [country] people to come and live here? D7. ... from the poorer countries in Europe to come and live here? D8. ... from the richer countries outside Europe to come and live here? D9. ... from the poorer countries outside Europe to come and live here? D10. ... have good educational qualifications? D11. ... have close family living here? D12. ... be able to speak [country language]? D16. ... have work skills that [country] needs? D. 19 People who come to live and work here generally harm the economic prospects of the poor more than the rich D21. If people who have come to live and work here are unemployed for a long period, they should be made to leave. D25. Would you say that people who come to live here generally take jobs away from workers in [country], or generally help to create new jobs? D26. On balance, do you think people who come here take out more than they put in or put in more than they take out? D27. Would you say that it is generally bad or good for [country] economy that people come to live here from other countries? D28. Would you say that [country] cultural life is generally undermined or enriched by people coming to live here from other countries? D40. It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions. D41. It is better for a country if there are a variety of different religions.

Answer categories

REJECT

1 (many), 2 (some), 3 (a few), 4 (none)

1 (agree strongly) to 5 (disagree strongly) 0 (take jobs away) to 10 (create new jobs) 0 (generally take out more) to 10 (generally put in more) 0 (bad for the economy) to 10 (good for the economy) 0 (cultural life undermined) to 10 (cultural life enriched) 1 (agree strongly) to 5 (disagree strongly)

As a first step in this analysis, we test whether the latent class a country (most likely) belongs to relates to the country-level means on the three attitude scales. The country means used here are latent means estimated with LISREL 8.7. Because age, gender and education are known to have an impact on attitudes toward immigration, observed differences in the country means could be (partly) due to the fact that the distributions of these variables differ across countries. As this analysis focuses on contextual rather than individual explanations, we decided to eliminate this part of the country-level variance by controlling for age, gender and education. All latent presented latent means are thus adjusted for age, gender and education. The relation between latent class and the attitude scales is tested by means of a non-parametric test,

CULT

ECON

18

namely the Kruskal-Wallis test (Kruskal & Wallis, 1952).9 This test is essentially a one-way ANOVA on the rank scores of the countries. For each of the three latent classes, table 4 gives the mean rank score (mean score), the sum of rank scores (sum of scores), the expected sum of scores under the hypothesis that the three classes have the same median on the attitude scale (expected under H0) and the standard deviation of the sum scores (standard deviation under HO). The last column of the table provides the results of a statistical test for the hypothesis that the median is equal across the three latent classes.

Table 4. Nonparametric tests for the relation between most likely latent class membership and attitude scales
REJECT (adjusted for age, gender and education) Wilcoxon scores (rank sums) N Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 9 7 5 Mean score 9.00 14.00 14.40 Sum of scores 81.00 98.00 52.00 Expected Standard under deviation H0 under H0 99.00 77.00 55.00 14.06 13.40 12.10 Kruskal Wallis test Chi = 2.6216 Df = 2 p-value = 0.2696

ECOTHREAT (adjusted for age, gender and education) Wilcoxon scores (rank sums) Expected Standard Kruskal Wallis Mean Sum of test N under deviation score scores H0 under H0 Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 9 7 5 8.33 15.29 9.80 75.00 107.00 49.00 99.00 77.00 55.00 14.07 13.40 12.11 Chi = 5.1889 Df = 2 p-value = 0.0747

CULTHREAT (adjusted for age, gender and education) Wilcoxon scores (rank sums) Expected Standard Kruskal Wallis Mean Sum of test N under deviation score scores H0 under H0 Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 9 7 4 9.06 14.29 7.13 81.50 100.00 28.50 94.50 73.50 42.00 13.16 12.61 10.58 Chi = 4.7082 Df = 2 p-value = 0.0950

19

On average, countries with an inclusive integration regime (class 1) appear to have a lower mean rank score on REJECT than countries in the other two classes. This means that class 1 countries figure more often at the lower end of the country ranking, and consequently that resistance against immigration is lower among the populations of these countries. However, the Kruskal-Wallis test indicates that these differences are not statistically significant. There exists stronger evidence for a connection between integration regimes and perceived ethnic threat. The country-means of both ECOTHREAT and CULTHREAT are significantly different across the latent classes. Countries that are most likely to be members of the second latent class have substantially higher mean rank scores on these scales than latent classes 1 and 3. Perceptions that immigration poses serious threats to economic and cultural goods are thus more widespread in countries with exclusive integration policies. Between the other two classes, only minor and statistically insignificant differences are present, although latent class 1 scores somewhat higher on cultural threat and slightly lower on economic threat. Apart from calculating average rank scores for the latent classes, it can be enlightening to have a closer look at the position of the countries separately. Figure 4 plots most likely latent class membership against the latent mean scores on the attitude scales. The figure confirms the conclusion that integration policies are stronger related to perceptions of economic threat than to the rejection of immigration. Indeed, the location of the latent classes lies clearly further apart for ECOTHREAT and CULTHREAT than for REJECT. In Norway and Swedentwo countries with more inclusive integration policies (latent class 1)the population is least prone to ethnic threat percpetions. On the contrary, perceived ethnic threat is most widespread in Greece, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary, four countries that have adopted exclusive integration policies (latent class 2). Nevertheless, there is one clear exception to the observed relation between perceived ethnic threat and integration regimes, namely Denmark. While this country has adopted exclusive integration policies, the level of perceived ethnic threat is among the lowest in Europe.

20

Figure 3. The relation between integration regimes and attitude scales

0.4 1.00 0.8

Latent mean on ECOTHREAT (adjusted for age, gender and education)

Latent mean on REJECT (adjusted for age, gender and education)

0.2

0.80

GR

Latent mean on CULTHREAT (adjusted for age, gender and education)

GR HU
0

GR
0.6

PL

PL PT

AT

LU

0.60

0.4

PL
0.40

-0.2

NL BE

FR

SI GB PT BE FI NL ES IT

HU

SI
0.2

-0.4

ES GB FI IT

SI IE

0.20

PT
0

FR HU AT CZ

AT CZ

FR DE IE CH

IT

BE

-0.6

DK CH

0.00

-0.2

NL

ES FI IE SE

-0.8

NO

CZ

DE

-0.20

-1

-0.40

NO

DK

LU

-0.4

GB

DK

CH

-1.2

SE

-0.60

SE

-0.6

NO DE

-1.4

-0.80

-0.8

Most Likely Latent Class

Most Likely Latent Class

Most Likely Latent Class

21

As a second step in this analysis, we assess how each of the six policy strands that are covered in MIPEX relates separately to the attitude scales. For this purpose, the correlation between the country rank order the attitude scales and the MIPEX policy strand scores is calculated (Spearman, 1987). Only a limited number of aspects of integration regimes turn out to be related to the attitude scales. The extent to which third country nationals are given access to the labour market correlates significantly (=.10) with REJECT and ECOTHREAT. Resistance against immigration and the perception of economic threat are less prevalent in countries with inclusive labour market integration policies. It is not surprising that the correlation with perceived cultural threat is less strong, since labour market is pre-eminently an aspect of the economic sphere. Besides labour market policies, also the political participation dimension is correlated with certain attitude scales. In countries that offer third country nationals relatively open access to political participation, lower levels of both economic and cultural threat are registered.

Table 5. Spearman Rank Order correlations (p-values between brackets) between the MIPEX policy strands and attitude scales (adjusted for age, gender and education)

Labour market access Family reunification Long term residence Political participation Access to nationality Anti-discrimination N

REJECT -0.44 (0.0474) -0.42 (0.0595) -0.23 (0.3229) -0.37 (0.1024) -0.20 (0.3831) 0.18 (0.4299) 21

ECOTHREAT -0.43 (0.0540) -0.20 (0.3753) -0.19 (0.4203) -0.71 (0.0003) -0.05 (0.8447) 0.13 (0.5747) 21

CULTHREAT -0.21 (0.3732) -0.15 (0.533) 0.07 (0.7574) -0.57 (0.0085) -0.19 (0.4277) 0.20 (0.3995) 20

These analyses yield several interesting conclusions. Empirical evidence is presented for a relation between the integration regimes that countries have adopted on the one hand, and public immigration attitudes. Inhabitants of countries with exclusive immigration policies perceive immigrants more frequently as a threat to certain prerogatives such as cultural and economic goods. Between countries of the other two latent classes, no significant differences were detected. The relation between policy and attitudes can be predominantly attributed to 22

one specific policy dimension, namely political participation. Populations of countries with ample opportunities for newcomers to participate in political life exhibit lower levels of perceived ethnic threat. Although political participation is probably not the policy strand with the largest practical impact on the lives of immigrant populations, this turns out to be a factor of crucial importance for understanding the attitudes of the majority populations. This is perhaps the consequence of the fact that granting voting rights to immigrants is a highly mediatised topic in many countries. However, the finding that a relation between integration policies and attitudes exists does not tell us anything about the causal direction of this relation or the specific processes through which the influence takes place. Unfortunately, the data presented here does not allow us to discriminate between all possible processes that were made explicit in the theoretical part of this paper. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence presented here completely contradicts an often-cited theoretical framework, namely group conflict theory (Blalock, 1967; Quillian, 1995). This theory predicts that inclusive integration policies will increase the level of competition between minority and majority groups, and therefore also the perception of ethnic threat among the latter. We, on the other hand, clearly find that countries with more inclusive integration policies are precisely characterized by lower levels of perceived ethnic threat. More open policies thus do not necessarily have to lead to a so-called white backlash.

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Endnotes
These figures were retrieved from the Eurostat website (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu). For obvious reasons, movements of undocumented immigrants are not registered and thus cannot be deduced from the figures in table 1. 3 Some authors also mention a fourth type of integration policy, namely total exclusion (Castles, 1995; Rex, 2000). However, this integration model is not discussed here as it has not been applied in post-war Europe. 4 It would be very interesting to analyze individual indicators rather than strand averages, and see how they behave across integration regimes. However, due to the small number of observations (27 countries), it is impossible to include over 100 variables in the analysis. 5 25 out of 141 indicators had a missing value for at least 1 country. These variables were excluded from the analysis. The items with missing values refer to policy measures at regional level (not applicable to all countries) or to specific characteristics of integration assessment as a condition for acquiring a certain status. A side effect of these omissions is that our analyses put less stress on integration tests than the policy strand averages reported by MIPEX. 6 MLR estimation with random starts was used (Muthn & Muthn, 1998-2006). With 26 free parameters, the three-class model has Loglikelihood value of -274.431. The bootstrapped parametric Loglikelihood ratio test shows that a model with 2 classes has a significantly (p<.10) worse model fit: 2 times the Loglikelihood difference equals 20.36 for a difference of 7 parameters. Due to the small number of countries in the analysis, the entropy of the model is very high (0.988). 7 In LCA, the observations (here: countries) are not dichotomously assigned to one of the classes. Instead, the probabilities of belonging to each of the three latent classes are calculated for each country. Based on these latent class probabilities, the latent class of which a country is most likely to be a member can be determined. In this case, the most likely latent class is very obvious, as each country has one latent class probability of 0.90 at least. 8 There is a time gap of 3 years between the attitude measurements and the MIPEX data. If one of the two elements that are being compared, however, is sufficiently stable over time then this time gap does not threaten the validity of the results. Here, we assume that integration policies have not altered substantially between 2003 and 2006. 9 Nonparametric tests are used here because for two scales (ECOTHREAT and CULTHREAT) slight deviations from (partial) scalar measurement equivalence (Byrne et al., 1989; Steenkamp & Baumgartner, 1998) were detected. Strictly spoken, this implies that the latent means on these scales are not comparable for some of the countries. It was shown, however, that these deviations were small enough to leave the country ranking unaffected. By consequence, nonparametric tests that are based on rank scores (such as the Kruskal-Wallis test or the Spearman rank-order correlation) can still be used.
2 1

27