Immigration and Attitudes towards the EU: Evidence from a Three-Country Survey Experiment

Immigration from countries outside the European Union is one of the most serious challenges facing the European Union (EU) today. Immigration as an issue is also highly salient to EU's citizens. Given the importance of immigration for European politics as well as the salience of immigration for the European public, this paper asks the following research question: How does immigration from countries outside the EU affect mass public attitudes towards the EU? Although existing literature suggests that attitudes towards immigration and mass public support for the EU are linked, little is known about what dimensions of public support for the EU are most affected. Furthermore, little is also known about the mechanisms that link the issue of immigration and mass public attitudes towards the EU. Does the issue of immigration affect support for the EU through the "logic of rationality", "the logic of identity", or "the logic of extrapolation" (Harteveld et. al. 2013)? In order to address these gaps in the literature, this paper analyzes data from an original survey experiment that were collected in three countries: Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic. By examining which dimensions of attitudes towards the EU are most affected by the issue of immigration as well as by uncovering which mechanisms connect immigration and mass public attitudes to the EU this paper substantially contributes to the debate about how mass immigration affects public opinion and politics in the European Union.