Both politicians and public opinion in a range of post-communist countries, including Romania, have been quite reluctant about accepting any of the refugees/migrants coming into Europe in the past year. While opposition to receiving refugees or immigration in general need not be prejudice-based, some of the public statements by political elites, as well as the virulence of anti-migrant reactions exhibited by regular citizens on social media, suggests that intolerance may play some part.
To see whether people's opposition may be based more on cultural, symbolic or economic threats or other considerations, in our paper we use a randomized question to whether respondents to a national representative survey were more or less likely to accept the idea of receiving refugees, depending on the argument type of framing they were exposed to (religious, humanitarian, legal or empathy-based, for instance). Coupling this item with other survey items, we can also see to what extent reticence towards refugees is associated with prejudice against the usual outgroups in Romanian society and thus whether those who are less accepting of these migrants have predispositions towards social and/or political intolerance. We also examine whether anti-refugee leanings are associated with other anti-egalitarian sentiments, a strong and essentialist national identity or markers of economic or cultural insecurity. Additionally, we are interested in exploring if and how perception of threat mediates the effects of existing anti-prejudice norms in the Romanian society on willingness to accept refugees in the country.
Moreover, we are able to put these results into context, by linking our survey data with information about the political climate, the type of media coverage the refugee issue received in various outlets and politicians’ views on the subject (as will be gleaned from a survey of Members of Parliament currently in the field). This allows us to see the links between elite and mass opinions as well as the links between media framing and public opinion.
