| Popis: |
Since 2015, unprecedentedly high numbers of people from North Africa, the Middle East – and, more recently, Ukraine – have sought refuge in Europe, fleeing from war, persecution, terrorism and other serious threats. National governments and the broader public have reacted to asylum seekers in widely different ways in the different countries. At the height of the refugee crisis of 2015, some considered the particularly negative reaction of several Eastern European countries to the proposal for an EU-wide quota policy – and more generally to the plight of the refugees – as somewhat surprising given their previous experience with political oppression and exile during communism. Yet, given the strength of ethnocentrism and the strong cultural and economic anxieties in these countries, often accompanied by elite mobilization on (ethnic) identity politics, this reaction largely reflected enduring anti-immigrant attitudes. But even if the roots of rejection may be there, and may be powerful, they are not the only game in town. Refugees or asylum seekers are, by definition, people in need of immediate help that cannot be provided in their country of origin (Carens, 2013, p. 201). A greater will to accept them is likely when they are perceived to have genuine political and humanitarian rather than purely economic reasons for their flight, and if they are perceived as more likely to integrate economically and culturally in the country of their destination. Better educated immigrants who are not Muslims are, in particular, received with more warmth (Bansak, Hainmueller & Hangartner, 2016). Attitudes towards refugees may therefore be expected to vary depending on arguments and considerations, either cognitive or emotional, that are made most accessible in the public domain when refugees arrive (Druckman, 2004). The strongest reasons for the rejection or for the acceptance of immigrants and, specifically, of refugees, are not mirror images of each other. It may be possible to have a coexistence of ethnocentrically driven rejection and normatively or instrumentally driven acceptance. Which predisposition may be mobilized depends on how well messages can tap into available and appropriate attitudes, as well as what considerations are or are not perceived as conflicting (Druckman, 2004). With this online experiment we follow up on three previous experiments investigating attitudes to refugee reception in Romania. Two were embedded in national surveys using probabilistic sampling, and a third was conducted on a long running online panel. The first two experiments were conducted by Median Research Centre as part of the project "Less Hate, More Speech: An Experimental and Comparative Study in Media and Political Elites’ Ability to Nurture Civil, Tolerant, Pro-Democratic Citizens" in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 after the parliamentary elections. A third experiment, meant to clarify and link the findings from the previous two given the theoretical questions of the research, was carried out by MRC in June 2018 with an online sample provided by Questia Research. In these previous studies (Popescu et al., 2019), we found that social intolerance of minority groups, ethnocentrism and cultural threat are all strong predictors of rejecting refugees. Both “identity” factors (ethnocentrism and a sense of being threatened by diversity) and economic factors (economic dissatisfaction) contribute to the rejection of refugees, but identity factors have a much more powerful effect than economic dissatisfaction. We also found that the most effective appeals or arguments in boosting support for welcoming refugees are framings rooted in a humanitarian argument emphasizing the duty of care for those in need. In the third experiment, we further found that this humanitarian appeal was effective whether one referenced Christian ideals (“being a good Christian”) or moral imperatives in general (“being a good person”). By contrast, other types of appeals – attempts to assuage fears about the cost of refugee reception, or to remind people that Romanians had once been asylum seekers too, or that the country has legal obligations – were not significantly impactful on the participants in our experiments. In the present study, we once again examine attitudes towards refugee reception as a function of individual traits, priming, and the interaction of the two. We test whether, in this new context where a neighboring country (Ukraine) is at war and many refugees from there have flocked to Romania and other European countries, respondents react differently to the refugee question depending on a) who they are asked about (people in general, Syrians or Ukrainians); b) humanitarian or Christian appeals compared to not referencing these norms at all. The study is relevant not merely as a replication exercise but also because it addresses directly our questions about the impact of particularistic/ascriptive (religious) versus universalistic/learned (humanistic) identities. Ukrainians are, in the main, at least nominally fellow Orthodox Christians to Romanians, while Syrians are mostly perceived as Muslims. Ukrainians as an ethnic group are also culturally closer to Romanians than Syrians. Therefore, following a social identity explanation of intergroup attitudes, we expect that Romanians in general are more willing to accept Ukrainians than Syrians as refugees. Ethnocentrism will however have a negative effect on the acceptance of both kind of refugees, though bigger on the acceptance of Syrian than Ukrainian refugees. Priming humanistic or Christian duty – and hence a universal-ascriptive human and a more particularistic and ascriptive Christian identity – will both have a positive impact on attitudes towards any kinds of refugees. In fact, priming the Christian duty of solidarity with the needy will help counteract aversion to Muslims on religious grounds, and thus have a bigger positive impact on the acceptance of Syrian than Ukrainians refugees. Meanwhile priming the universalistic humanitarian duty frame will have the same impact on accepting Ukrainian and Syrian refugees. |
