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Ethnoreligious Identity, Immigration, and Redistribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2017

Stuart Soroka ,
Matthew Wright ,
Richard Johnston ,
Jack Citrin ,
Keith Banting  and
Will Kymlicka
Stuart Soroka
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan, 5370 North Quad, 105 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285, USA, e-mail: ssoroka@umich.edu, @s_soroka
Matthew Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Government, American University, Washington, DC, USA, email: mwright@american.edu
Richard Johnston
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, e-mail: richard.johnston@ubc.ca
Jack Citrin
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, email: gojack@berkeley.edu
Keith Banting
Affiliation:
School of Policy Studies and Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, email: bantingk@queensu.ca
Will Kymlicka
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, email: kymlicka@queensu.ca
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Abstract

Do increasing, and increasingly diverse, immigration flows lead to declining support for redistributive policy? This concern is pervasive in the literatures on immigration, multiculturalism and redistribution, and in public debate as well. The literature is nevertheless unable to disentangle the degree to which welfare chauvinism is related to (a) immigrant status or (b) ethnic difference. This paper reports on results from a web-based experiment designed to shed light on this issue. Representative samples from the United States, Quebec, and the “Rest-of-Canada” responded to a vignette in which a hypothetical social assistance recipient was presented as some combination of immigrant or not, and Caucasian or not. Results from the randomized manipulation suggest that while ethnic difference matters to welfare attitudes, in these countries it is immigrant status that matters most. These findings are discussed in light of the politics of diversity and recognition, and the capacity of national policies to address inequalities.

Keywords

Survey experimentimmigrationsocial welfare policypolitical psychologyCanadaUnited States
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , Winter 2017 , pp. 173 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2017 

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References

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