Zan Strabac

Measuring Political Knowledge in Telephone and Web Surveys: A Cross-National Comparison

Fast pace of technology changes makes conduction of high-quality web surveys increasingly easy, and performance of web surveys should be continuously monitored. In this article, a comparison is made of the results of telephone and web surveys of items measuring international news knowledge. The authors compare web surveys of general populations conducted in the United States and Norway in January 2009 with their telephone replications conducted in the same month. Results show rather small differences between web and telephone surveys, particularly in Norway. The authors discuss the results and make recommendations for use of web surveys and for future methodological research.

Attitudes towards Muslim Immigrants: Evidence from Survey Experiments across Four Countries

There has been much negative focus on Muslims in public debates in the West and it is a matter of great interest to examine whether Muslims are particularly exposed to prejudice and hostility. Since it is known that immigrants tend to be exposed to prejudice, and practically all Muslims living in Western countries are either immigrants or are of immigrant origin, it is useful to analyse whether Muslims are viewed more negatively than immigrants in general. Using data from survey experiments conducted in Norway, Sweden, the USA and the United Kingdom in 2009, we find that Muslim immigrants were not more negatively viewed than immigrants in general. In the two countries that have experienced large-scale attacks by Islamic extremists, the USA and the United Kingdom, the expressed levels of anti-Muslim attitudes were actually lower than the levels of general anti-immigrant attitudes. We find that individual traits that influence general xenophobia also influence anti-Muslim attitudes.

INDIVIDUAL AND CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES OF WAR ON ETHNIC PREJUDICE IN CROATIA

This article examines what the determinants of ethnic prejudice in Croatia were in the aftermath of the 1991–1995 war. The analysis is based on a nationwide survey (N = 2,202) conducted in March and April 1996, less than a year after the cessation of war activities in Croatia. The main focus of our analysis is on how war influences the ethnic prejudice of individuals. The influences of individual war-related experiences and the effects of regional differences in the level of war activities are analyzed simultaneously by conducting a multilevel analysis. The main findings are that individual war-related experiences have little impact on prejudice, but that the contextual influence of war is somewhat stronger. Variables that are not directly related to the conflict—such as education, religiosity and size of the place of residence—have the strongest effect on prejudice. Insofar as our results can be generalized to other large-scale ethnic conflicts, they indicate that a recent history of conflict is not in itself a major hindrance to the process of ethnic reconciliation.

State-assisted integration, but not for all: Norwegian welfare services and labour migration from the new EU member states

In the last decade, the labour migrant population, especially from East European countries, has significantly increased in Scandinavia. Among the Scandinavian countries, Norway stands as the largest recipient of labour migrants from new European Union (EU) countries. This article focuses on the reception conditions for labour migrants from new EU member states during the period 2004—2009. The article also explores, contextualizes and relates the perspectives of the service providers to the Nordic welfare system, including, for example, eliciting their views on whether and why they think there is a need for a recalibration of existing practice and policies.

The dramaturgical nexus of ethno-religious, tourist and transnational frames of pilgrimages in post-conflict societies: The Bosnian and Herzegovinian experience

This article focuses on two Catholic pilgrimages in Bosnia–Herzegovina in order to analyse the similarities and differences between them with regard to forms of religious tourism and variety of interpretations of pilgrimages. Based on ethnographic data gathered in Bosnia–Herzegovina, the discussion focuses on micro-level processes and their structural frames. Regarding the frame analysis, the article provides an analysis of the tourist, transnational and ethno-religious frames that have shaped and still affect these two pilgrimages, including how they are experienced and interpreted by local pilgrims and the local population within a context of a post-conflict society. The main focus is on pilgrims’ responses to various frames, forms of guiding and definitions of situations which they encounter during their journeys. It is maintained that pilgrims’ responses reveal different interpretations of the frames, which are combined with dynamic impression management and identity switching between roles as pilgrims, guides, tourists and (trans)nationals.

Wearing the veil: hijab, Islam and job qualifications as determinants of social attitudes towards immigrant women in Norway

ABSTRACT Immigrant women are a particularly vulnerable part of the immigrant population. In this paper we analyse negative attitudes towards immigrant women in Norway. We focus on immigrant women’s formal job qualifications, their religious background and wearing of hijab – the headscarf sometimes used by Muslim women. Using survey-embedded experiments we are able to analyse the net effects on attitudes of job qualifications, Islamic religious background and the hijab. The results show that native population frequently has more negative views of Muslim women who wear a hijab. The negative effects of a hijab do not seem to be strongly reduced if a woman wearing it has higher education. With a single exception, the results also show that Muslim background in itself (i.e. without the hijab) does not have any strong effect on attitudes of the native population towards immigrant women.

The Return of Prejudice in Europe's Regions: The Moderated Relationship between Group Threat and Economic Vulnerability

Using data from 16 countries and employing multilevel analysis that encompasses the national, regional, and individual levels, we find that both economic and social factors trigger anti-immigrant attitudes among Europeans. Regional per capita GDP is positively correlated with tolerant attitudes while the regional unemployment rate drives prejudice. We find a moderating relationship between immigrant population size and per capita GDP, which suggests that, as the size of the immigrant population increases, prejudice rises but only in poorer regions. In more affluent regions, an increase in the immigrant population corresponds to increased tolerance.

Political Nationalism and Attitudes towards Immigration: The Interaction of Knowledge and Policy

The issue of immigration is highly salient to citizens of industrialised democracies. Globalisation and the emergence of an international human rights regime, among other reasons, led to high levels of immigration to industrialised countries in recent decades. Immigrant-receiving states have shown only limited ability to control the size and composition of their immigrant population. Immigration has therefore emerged as a prominent political issue in practically all economically developed countries, and there are raising concerns over anti-immigration sentiments and nationalist tendencies that seem to be taking hold among modern publics. We argue that anti-immigration attitudes are not merely a response to increased immigration, but rather that these attitudes mirror governments’ nationalistic and anti-immigration stance. In addition, people who are interested in politics are expected to be more influenced by their governments’ policies than those who show less interest. We use data from the European Social Survey and the Comparative Manifesto Project to test these claims. Results from our multilevel models show that people living in countries where the government is right wing are more opposed to immigration than people living in countries where the government exhibits less right-wing tendencies. The effect of government policy positions is also found to be conditioned by political interest at the individual level.

Media Use and Misperceptions

Abstract There is considerable evidence that many people generally misperceive the size of the immigrant population in their country, and that this may have essential political implications. In studies of political knowledge, the news media are typically said to be one important source of information that can help make people more knowledgeable. In the present article, we investigate whether there is a relationship between TV viewing, media system variations and knowledge about immigration. We base our analysis on highly comparable data from the 2002-2003 wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) and an American replication of the ESS. The results indicate that TV viewing in general is associated with lower levels of knowledge, while there is a positive but non-significant relationship between watching TV news and knowledge about immigration. Differences in the levels of knowledge between the countries are fairly large, with residents of Nordic countries being most knowledgeable and residents of the UK, US and France tending to be least knowledgeable. Aggregate explanations for variations in media influence (share of public service TV and “media systems”) do not prove to be of much value in explaining differences in knowledge about the sizes of immigrant populations.

Temporary labour migration to United Arab Emirates: a complex story

Abstract In this study, we take a point of departure in two recently available large quantitative sources of data from the United Arab Emirates(UAE) in order to analyse social and economic aspects of temporary labour migration to the country. We attempt to present a nuanced and broad-scale description of social and economic situation of labour immigrants in the UAE. The results paint a rather complex picture. On one hand, immigrant workers are often low-paid and harshly treated, on the other there are opportunities for economic advancement for many of them. We conclude that, although far from being a neo-liberal utopia, the UAE does provide better opportunities for millions of immigrants. Life in the country is harsh for many of immigrants but it is less harsh than the alternatives they have in home countries. Regarding the UAE citizens, they surely are or will be facing economic challenges due to massive immigration, but the country has experienced the levels of economic development that would be unimaginable without a large-scale immigration. Thus, the immigration experience of the UAE has so far largely been a win-win situation, for both natives and immigrants.