Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T15:42:32.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Migrating trust: contextual determinants of international migrants’ confidence in political institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Bogdan Voicu*
Affiliation:
Romanian Academy, Research Institute for Quality of Life, Bucharest, Romania Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Department of Sociology, Sibiu, Romania
Claudiu D. Tufiş
Affiliation:
University of Bucharest, Department of Political Science, Bucharest, Romania
*

Abstract

This paper considers the case of the international migrants’ confidence in political institutions, from a social embeddedness perspective on political trust. We use country-level aggregates of confidence in institutions as indicators of specific cultures of trust, and by employing data from the European Values Study, we test two competing hypotheses. First, as confidence in institutions depends on the values formed during early childhood, the international migrant’s confidence in political institutions in the current country of residency will be influenced by the confidence context from the country of origin. Second, the host country may have different norms of trust in political institutions, and a process of re-socialization may occur. Therefore, the immigrants’ confidence in institutions is influenced by two confidence contexts: one from the origin country and one from the host country. The time spent in the two cultures, along with other characteristics from these contexts, shape the interaction effects we tested in multilevel cross-classified models.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alba, R.D. and Nee, V. (2003), Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and the New Immigration, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Aleksynska, M. (2011), ‘Civic participation of immigrants in Europe: assimilation, origin, and destination country effects’, European Journal of Political Economy 27: 566585.Google Scholar
Almond, G.A. and Verba, S. (1965), The Civic Culture, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Anderson, C.J., Blais, A., Bowler, S., Donovan, T. and Listhaug, O. (2005), Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Andre, S. (2014), ‘Does trust mean the same for migrants and natives? Testing measurement models of political trust with multi-group confirmatory factor analysis’, Social Indicators Research 115(3): 963982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arts, W. (2011), ‘Explaining European value patterns: problems and solutions’, Studia UBB Sociologia LVI 1: 731.Google Scholar
Banducci, S. and Karp, J. (2003), ‘How elections change the way citizens view the political system: campaigns, media effects and electoral outcomes in comparative perspective’, British Journal of Political Science 33(3): 443467.Google Scholar
Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001), Individualization. Institutionalized Individualism and Its Social and Political Consequences, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Bloemraad, I. (2002), ‘The North American naturalization gap: an institutional approach to citizenship acquisition in the United States and Canada’, International Migration Review 36(1): 194229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloemraad, I., Korteweg, A. and Yurdakul, G. (2008), ‘Citizenship and immigration: multiculturalism, assimilation, and challenges to the Nation-State’, Annual Review of Sociology 34: 153179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brehm, J. and Rahn, W. (1997), ‘Individual-level evidence for the causes and consequences of social capital’, American Journal of Political Science 41(3): 9991023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bucker, C.S. (2005), ‘Political incorporation among immigrants from ten areas of origin: the persistence of source country effects’, International Migration Review 39(1): 103140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catterberg, G. and Moreno, A. (2006), ‘The individual bases of political trust: trends in new and established democracies’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research 18(1): 3148.Google Scholar
Comşa, M. and Tufiş, C. (2016), ‘Romania in times of crisis: economic conditions and support for democracy’, in M. Voicu, I. Mochmann and H. Dülmer (eds), Values, Economic Crisis, and Democracy, London: Routledge, pp. 277302.Google Scholar
Dinesen, P.T. (2013), ‘Where you come from or where you live? Examining the cultural and institutional explanation of generalized trust using migration as a natural experiment’, European Sociological Review 29(1): 114128.Google Scholar
Dinesen, P.T. and Hooghe, M. (2010), ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the acculturation of generalized trust among immigrants in Western Europe’, International Migration Review 44: 697727.Google Scholar
Doerschler, P. and Jackson, P.I. (2012), ‘Do Muslims in Germany really fail to integrate? Muslim integration and trust in public institutions’, Journal of International Migration and Integration 13(4): 503523.Google Scholar
Dogan, M. (2005), ‘Erosion of confidence in thirty European democracies’, Comparative Sociology 4(1–2): 1152.Google Scholar
Esser, H. (2010), ‘Assimilation, ethnic stratification, or selective acculturation? Recent theories of the integration of immigrants and the model of intergenerational integration’, Sociologica 1: 129.Google Scholar
Ester, P., Mohler, P. and Vinken, H. (2006), ‘Values and the social sciences: a global world of global values?’, in P. Ester, M. Braun and P. Mohler (eds), Globalization, Value Change, and Generations. A Cross-National and Intergenerational Perspective, Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill, pp. 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L. (1954), ‘A theory of social comparison processes’, Human Relations 7(2): 117140.Google Scholar
Gabriel, O. (1995), ‘Political efficacy and trust’, in J. van Deth and E. Scarbrough (eds), The Impact of Values, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 357389.Google Scholar
Gallagher, M. (2015), ‘Election indices dataset’. Retrieved 10 May 2015 from http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/index.php.Google Scholar
Gundelach, P. (1994), ‘National value differences: modernization or institutionalization?’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology 35(1): 3758.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1997), Modernization and Post-Modernization. Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, R. (1999), ‘Postmodernization erodes respect for authority, but increases support for democracy’, in P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 236265.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C. (2005), Cultural Change and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence, New York, NY and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Joon, H. (2004), ‘Social capital, post-materialism and institutional confidence in South Korea: 1981–2003’, Development and Society 33(2): 165183.Google Scholar
Kaase, M. and Newton, K. (1995), Beliefs in Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keele, L. (2007), ‘Social capital and the dynamics of trust in government’, American Journal of Political Science 51(2): 241254.Google Scholar
Kelleher, C. and Wolak, J. (2007), ‘Explaining public confidence in the branches of state government’, Political Research Quarterly 60(4): 707721.Google Scholar
Maloney, W., van Deth, J. and Rosteutscher, S. (2008), ‘Civic orientations: does associational type matter?’, Political Studies 56(2): 261287.Google Scholar
Marshall, M.G., Jaggers, K. and Gurr IV, T.R. (2014), Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2013. Dataset User’s Manual, Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace.Google Scholar
Maxwell, R. (2010), ‘Trust in government among British Muslims: the importance of migration status’, Political Behavior 32(1): 89109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A. and Listhaug, O. (1999), ‘Political performance and institutional confidence’, in P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 204216.Google Scholar
Mishler, W. and Rose, R. (2001), ‘What are the origins of political trust?: testing institutional and cultural theories in post-communist societies’, Comparative Political Studies 34(1): 3062.Google Scholar
Newson, L. and Richerson, P.J. (2009), ‘Why do people become modern? A Darwinian explanation’, Population and Development Review 35(1): 117158.Google Scholar
Newton, K. (1999), ‘Social and political trust in established democracies’, in P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 169187.Google Scholar
Newton, K. (2006), ‘Political support: social capital, civil society and political and economic performance’, Political Studies 54(4): 846864.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, K. and Norris, P. (2000), ‘Confidence in public institutions: faith, culture, or performance?’, in S. Pharr and R. Putnam (eds), Disaffected Democracies, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 5273.Google Scholar
Niessen, J., Huddleston, T. , Citron, L., Geddes, A. and Jacobs, D. (2007), Migrant Integration Policy Index, Brussels: British Council, Migration Policy Group.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (1996), ‘Does television erode social capital? A reply to Putnam’, PS: Political Science and Politics 29(3): 474480.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (1999), ‘Institutional explanations for political support’, in P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 217235.Google Scholar
Portes, A. and Zhou, M. (1993), ‘The new second generation: segmented assimilation and its variants’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 530: 7496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, R. (2007), ‘E pluribus unum: diversity and community in the twenty-first century, the 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture’, Scandinavian Political Studies 30: 137174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Röder, A. and Mühlau, P. (2012), ‘Low expectations or different evaluations: what explains immigrants’ high levels of trust in host-country institutions?’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38(5): 777792.Google Scholar
Sandu, D. (1999), Social Space of Transition, Iaşi: Polirom.Google Scholar
Seligson, M. (2002), ‘The impact of corruption on regime legitimacy: a comparative study of four Latin American countries’, Journal of Politics 64(2): 408433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suls, J. and Wheeler, L. (2012), ‘Social comparison theory’, in P. Van Lange, A. Kruglanski and E.T. Higgins (eds), Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, Vol. 1, London: Sage, pp. 460482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sztompka, P. (1999), Trust. A Sociological Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tufiş, C. (2012), Learning Democracy and Market Economy in Post-Communist Romania, Iaşi: Institutul European.Google Scholar
Voicu, B. (2014a), ‘Participative immigrants or participative cultures? The importance of cultural heritage in determining involvement in associations’, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 25(3): 612635.Google Scholar
Voicu, B. (2014b), ‘Immigrants and social trust: mind the cultural gap?’, Studia Politica XIV(2): 201220.Google Scholar
Voicu, M. and Rusu, A. (2012), ‘Immigrants’ membership in civic associations: why are some immigrants more active than others?’, International Sociology 27(6): 788806.Google Scholar
Welzel, C. (2007), ‘Individual modernity’, in R. Dalton and H.D. Klingemann (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behaviour, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 186205.Google Scholar
White, S., Nevitte, N., Blais, A., Gidengil, E. and Fournier, P. (2008), ‘The political resocialization of immigrants. Resistance or lifelong learning?’, Political Research Quarterly 61(2): 268281.Google Scholar
Whiteley, P., Clarke, H.D., Sanders, D. and Stewart, M.C. (2010), ‘Government performance and life satisfaction in contemporary Britain’, Journal of Politics 72(3): 733746.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zmerli, S. and Newton, K. (2008), ‘Social trust and attitudes toward democracy’, Public Opinion Quarterly 72(4): 706724.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Voicu and Tufiş supplementary material

Voicu and Tufiş supplementary material 1

Download Voicu and Tufiş supplementary material(File)
File 285.9 KB