The ‘others’ as a threat: Attitudes towards border closure in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic

Although, the free movement of people and goods was an essential part of the treaty of Rome, it was not until the signing of the Schengen agreement that the idea of ‘Europe without borders’ began to gain support. Although the Schengen agreement was not adopted without criticism, e.g., the UK, (a member of the European Union at that time) and Ireland opted out, the idea of a borderless Europe as a crucial element of European integration appeared to be developed on solid ground. However, a series of events challenged this optimism (Wassenberg 2020). In 2015, terrorist attacks in France forced the French government to close its borders for security reasons. In the summer of the same year, Europe witnessed the suppression of the Dublin treaty to manage the high number of refugee asylum seekers. However, it was not until the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Europe in mid-March 2020 when policies of border closure were adopted in almost all EU countries. The article investigates the extent to which social isolation shaped preferences for border closure policies in different EU countries. We first hypothesize that social isolation has a positive effect on border closure. This is for two main reasons: Support for policies that target predominantly nationals, such as confinement policies, are likely to bring about support for policies that target non-nationals, such as border closure, as a means of renouncing the ingroup blamed from spreading the virus. Also, individuals who avoid contact with friends and family worry more about their personal vulnerability to the virus and therefore are also more likely to be supportive of border closure policies. We further hypothesize that social isolation will have different sizeable effects on border closure depending on the level of control signals. More precisely we test the extent to which the effect of social isolation on border closure is larger for those citizens who are dissatisfied with how the government is handling the COVID-19 pandemic than those who are satisfied. To test our hypotheses, we employ two types of data: Cross sectional data from the European Social Survey (Round 10) and panel data from the Citizens' Attitudes Under COVID-19 Pandemic (CAUCP) project. Findings offer overwhelming support for both hypotheses: First, social isolation has a positive effect on advocating border closure policies; and second the effect is stronger for citizens who are not satisfied with the way their government is handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings show how in times of a crisis, citizens’ social isolation caused by internalized measures ratchets up support for stringent externalized policies.