Informed Ideologues: Political Knowledge and Divergent Views on Free Movement in the EU

Immigration opponents often cite alleged negative consequences of EU Free Movement for public finances of receiving countries, especially in the context of comprehensive European welfare states (Ruhs and Palme 2018). This anti-immigration argument persists despite growing evidence that the fiscal impact of free movement ranges from negligible to positive (Dustmann and Frattini 2014; Martinsen and Rotger 2017; Nyman and Ahlskog 2018). Public opinion, meanwhile, appears divided. We ask: what determines public beliefs about the fiscal impact of immigration on national welfare states? Many scholars and immigration advocates view unsupported claims about the impact of immigration as a form of misinformation. If this is true, then more knowledgeable, informed citizens should converge on more accurate beliefs. On the other hand, expressions of factual beliefs may stem from motivated reasoning or “expressive responding,” in which citizens express beliefs in order to show support for their own party or ideology, rather than making an earnest attempt to endorse accurate statements about the world (Schaffner and Luks 2018). In what follows, we draw on a novel data set to investigate whether beliefs about the welfare impacts of immigration reflect expressive responding or actual information. Are the more knowledgeable and informed more likely to converge in their opinions, or to express more moderate views? Are ideologues the most polarized or extreme in their views? Does a higher political sophistication counter or reinforce ideological orientation? Our empirical analysis draws on nationally representative survey data from seven EU countries (Germany, Spain, Sweden, UK, Hungary, Poland, Romania). We construct a scale of political knowledge using a tailored set of seven questions on knowledge of EU institutions, EU policies on immigration, and recent facts about asylum migration in the EU. We identify views with a survey question asking respondents to evaluate how much EU immigrants receive in welfare and benefits in comparison to people born in the country. Initial evidence points to the power of information: the probability of thinking that EU immigrants pose a burden on the welfare system decreases among more informed respondents. However, once we account for an intersecting dynamic between knowledge and ideology, this effect becomes more pronounced for those furthest to the left, whereas it is no longer relevant among those furthest to the right on the scale. Those who positioned themselves on the far-right side of the ideological scale exhibited no differences in views based on knowledge levels. More knowledgeable respondents, then, do not converge in their beliefs. Those with higher levels of political sophistication exhibit more entrenched and more extreme beliefs about the welfare impacts of immigration. What underlies these findings? The most knowledgeable partisans might intentionally exaggerate the perceived number of EU welfare recipients to signal belonging to a respective side of the immigration debate. Importantly, our results suggest that increasing levels of knowledge on migration issues or the EU and its functioning is unlikely to secure an increase in public support for EU mobility.