Eric Kaufmann

“White Flight” or Positive Contact? Local Diversity and Attitudes to Immigration in Britain

Does the local presence of immigrant groups increase White hostility to immigration? Most research finds that diverse neighborhoods reduce White opposition to minorities and immigration. However, most studies at higher geographies find the reverse effect. We confirm this pattern for England and Wales for 2009-2012. Yet, contextual studies are open to selection bias, which is where this article makes its main contribution. Is White tolerance in diverse neighborhoods the result of a positive effect of inter-ethnic contact, or does it arise from White flight, with anti-immigrant Whites exiting diverse areas but remaining within wider geographies as radicalized opponents of immigration? We provide the first attempt we are aware of to track the opinions of in- and out-migrants, as well as stayers, from local areas over an extended period. We use 20 years of large-scale geocoded British longitudinal data and find only limited evidence of selection effects associated with White flight.

The Dominant Ethnic Moment: Towards the Abolition of ‘Whiteness’?

In the past decade and a half, the study of the American white majority has blossomed into a major academic endeavour. So-called ‘White Studies’ provided an important service in opening up a ‘hidden’ field of study that remained neglected as recently as the early 1990s. However, in this debate, I suggest that while the study of whites and white racial systems is important, the White Studies approach possesses little heuristic value for scholars attempting to explain majority responses to multicultural politics. ‘Whiteness’ is a colloquial term used by local actors to describe the lived reality of dominant ethnicity as it appears from the ‘inside’ of American society. Scholars should be more critical, comparative and discerning than their subjects: ‘white’ is the particular racial boundary marker that distinguishes dominant ethnic groups from subaltern ones in a small proportion of the world’s nations. Whiteness informs, but does not constitute, dominant ethnicity and we should not mistake the content of group boundary markers for the essentials. Particular cultural markers are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for ethnicity. The position I advance goes further, claiming that White Studies suffers from a number of serious flaws that should lead us to question whether this approach can continue to advance the frontiers of knowledge in the wider sphere of ethnic and racial studies. These flaws include: (1) a constructivism that fails to recognize the cognitive and social processes that underpin social ‘reality’; (2) an excessive emphasis on ethnic boundaries as opposed to ethnic narratives, thereby overstating the degree of malleability possible in ethnic identity; (3) a tacit belief in white exceptionalism, which D E B A T E

Liberal ethnicity: beyond liberal nationalism and minority rights

This article tries to make the case for a variant of the good life based on a synthesis of liberalism and ethnicity. Liberal communitarianisms treatment of ethnicity tends to fall under the categories of either liberal culturalism or liberal nationalism. Both, it is argued, fail to come to terms with the reality of ethnic community, preferring instead to define ethnicity in an unrealistic, cosmopolitan manner. By contrast, this essay squarely confronts four practices that are central to ethnic communities: symbolic boundary-maintenance; exclusive and inflexible mythomoteurs ; the use of ancestry and race as boundary markers; and the desire among national groups to maintain their ethnic character. This article argues that none of these practices need contravene the tenets of liberalism as long as they are reconstructed so as to minimize entry criteria and decouple national ethnicity from the state. The notion of liberal ethnicity thereby constitutes an important synthesis of liberal and communitarian ends.

‘It's the Demography, Stupid’: Ethnic Change and Opposition to Immigration

It is often forgotten that, regardless of time or place, periods of high immigration are almost always periods of high anti-immigration sentiment. When ethnic change is rapid, driven by immigration or differences in ethnic natural increase, the ethnic majority often responds with a politics of immigration. This was true, for instance, in Britain in the 1960s, in the US during 1890–1925 and in interwar Scotland. I show that White British people in locales experiencing rapid ethnic change are more likely to call for lower immigration and to vote BNP. On the other hand, where there is already a high level of ethnic minorities, white opinion is less hostile to immigration: UKIP does poorly among whites in diverse areas. Habituation to change, typically within a decade, and assimilation—especially of Europeans—over a generation reduces hostility to immigration. If the rate of ethnic change slows, we should therefore expect a reduction in the salience of immigration. Ironically, because the children of European migrants are more readily accepted into the ethnic majority than is the case for non-Europeans, a shift from EU free movement to non-European skilled migrants, as is advocated by UKIP, could run counter to the wishes of its own supporters.

The End of Secularisation through Demography? Projections of Spanish Religiosity

Abstract This article presents the first projection, to our knowledge, of the intensity of religiosity in a population, which has a strong bearing on the critical question of the religious future of Europe. Spain has, in recent decades, simultaneously experienced rapid religious decline and marked demographic change through high immigration and declining fertility. To investigate future trends, we carry out population projections by religion and religiosity to the year 2050. We find that both fertility and immigration increase the share of the highly religious, as the more religious tend to have more children and immigrants tend to be more religious than non-immigrants. The non-religious population grows because people switch from religion to no-religion and because they are younger. Our findings suggest that in the longer term (2050), there may be growth in the no-religion population, a decline in the share of highly religious Christians, and moderate development of low religious Christians. The Muslim population would substantially increase, unless there is an end to migration and fertility differentials.

Demographic Change and Conflict in Northern Ireland: Reconciling Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence

Recent large-N quantitative studies have failed to uncover a link between demographic change and conflict. This seems to refute quite powerful qualitative evidence from small-scale case studies that such a relationship exists. This article attempts to reconcile the conflicting evidence by revealing how population change—in this case a major decline in the size of the Protestant majority—matters for violent conflict, but not in a direct way. In addition, relationships differ by level of geography. In the case of Northern Ireland, no significant quantitative association exists between ethnic change and violence. This holds across both geographic units and years. However, there is a significant association between ethnic demography and Protestant mobilization into the Orange Order across counties. This in turn is related to Protestant resistance to reforms aimed at extending civil rights to the Catholic population during the Stormont period. This stance was a major factor in generating Catholic support for IRA violence. Moreover, in specific locations, a direct link between Protestant population decline relative to Catholics and loyalist violence against Catholics is evident. Hence demography matters, but in conjunction with other factors, and several steps upstream from the outbreak of violence.

Land, history or modernization? Explaining ethnic fractionalization

Ethnic fractionalization (EF) is frequently used as an explanatory tool in models of economic development, civil war and public goods provision. However, if EF is endogenous to political and economic change, its utility for further research diminishes. This turns out not to be the case. This paper provides the first comprehensive model of EF as a dependent variable. It contributes new data on the founding date of the largest ethnic group in each state. It builds political and international variables into the analysis alongside historical and geoclimatic parameters. It extends previous work by testing models of politically relevant EF. In addition, this research interprets model results in light of competing theories of nationalism and political change. Results show that cross-national variation in EF is largely exogenous to modern politico-economic change. However, the data are inconclusive with respect to competing geoclimatic, historical institutional and modernist theories of ethnogenesis.

Primordialists and constructionists: a typology of theories of religion

Abstract This article adopts categories from nationalism theory to classify theories of religion. Primordialist explanations are grounded in evolutionary psychology and emphasize the innate human demand for religion. Primordialists predict that religion does not decline in the modern era but will endure in perpetuity. Constructionist theories argue that religious demand is a human construct. Modernity initially energizes religion, but subsequently undermines it. Unpacking these ideal types is necessary in order to describe actual theorists of religion. Three distinctions within primordialism and constructionism are relevant: namely, those distinguishing (1) materialist from symbolist forms of constructionism; (2) theories of origins from those pertaining to the reproduction of religion; and (3) within reproduction, between theories of religious persistence and secularization. This typology helps to make sense of theories of religion by classifying them on the basis of their causal mechanisms, chronology, and effects. In so doing, it opens up new sightlines for theory and research.

American political affiliation, 2003–43: A cohort component projection

The recent rise in identification with American political parties has focused interest on the long-term dynamics of party support. Liberal commentators cite immigration and youth as forces that will produce a natural advantage for the Democrats in the future, while conservative writers highlight the importance of high fertility amongst Republicans in securing growth. These opinions are not based on demographic analysis. We addressed this omission by undertaking the first ever cohort component projection (up to 2043) of populations by American party allegiance, based on survey and census data. On current trends, we predict that American partisanship will change much less than the nations ethnic composition because the parties are similar in age structure. Nevertheless, our projections suggest that the Democrats will gain 2–3 per cent more support than the Republicans by 2043, mainly through immigration, although the higher fertility of Republicans may eventually offset that advantage.

Ethno-national conflict and its management

This special issue of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics covers the topic of ethno-national conflict management, with a particular focus on the intersection between this body of work and the inter...