Outsiders not Worth Trusting? Accounting for Concerns over Immigration in Central and Eastern Europe
Outsiders not Worth Trusting? Accounting for Concerns over Immigration in Central and Eastern Europe

Summary/Abstract: This study uses European Values Study 2017 data to identify key correlates of economic and culturalconcerns over immigration in Central and Eastern Europe against the backdrop of the 2015 refugee crisis.It does so by running fixed-effects regression models covering 10 CEE countries and testing theassociations between core cultural identities and basic values on the one hand and concerns overimmigration on the other. It was found that low trust in people of another nationality and – to a lesserdegree – low generalised social trust were associated with both economic and cultural concerns overimmigration in CEE. Also, CEE residents subscribing to both voluntarist and ascriptive nationhood criteriawere more likely to be concerned about economic and cultural aspects of immigration than those having a purelyvoluntarist conception of nationhood. It was also found that the association between national pride andeconomic concerns over immigration is stronger in Visegrád countries. Meanwhile, the study did notgenerate evidence that immigration attitudes in CEE were related to the strength of national identification,religious affiliation, cosmopolitan identity, Universalism or perceived state vulnerability. The articlemaintains that immigration attitudes in CEE are deeply embedded in societal value systems that are, inturn, shaped by distinctive historical legacies.

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