TY - JOUR
T1 - Declining and splitting
T2 - Opposition to immigration in the United States, 1996–2018
AU - Sanderson, Matthew R.
AU - Semyonov, Moshe
AU - Gorodzeisky, Anastasia
N1 - Funding Information:
Work on this paper was supported by ISF grant ISF 769-2018 awarded to Moshe Semyonov by the Israel Science Foundation and USDA Hatch Multistate (MRF) grants W4001 and NC1190 to Matthew R. Sanderson. The authors wish to thank Yoav Roll for assistance in preparation, organization and careful analysis of the data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - The ‘competitive threat’ theoretical model leads to the expectation that flows of documented and undocumented immigrants, economic downturns, and spread of conservative-nationalist ideologies would increase opposition to immigration. Recent studies on attitudes toward immigrants in American society do not show any increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. In the present study, we use data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) and American National Election Survey (ANES) to study change in opposition to immigration between 1996 and 2018. The findings obtained from the two data sources are strikingly similar and lead to the following conclusions. First, opposition to immigration had steadily and monotonously declined throughout the period. Second, the decline is evident even after considering variations and changes in the composition of the population, shifts in political ideologies, regional variations and cohort replacement. Third, the trend of decline in opposition to immigration takes a linear form. Fourth, opposition to immigration is stronger among Republicans and Independent voters than among Democrats. Fifth, the overtime decline in opposition to immigration was evident mostly among supporters of the Democratic Party increasing the division along party lines. The findings suggest that immigration is becoming a major political issue that is steadily polarizing American society.
AB - The ‘competitive threat’ theoretical model leads to the expectation that flows of documented and undocumented immigrants, economic downturns, and spread of conservative-nationalist ideologies would increase opposition to immigration. Recent studies on attitudes toward immigrants in American society do not show any increase in anti-immigrant sentiment. In the present study, we use data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) and American National Election Survey (ANES) to study change in opposition to immigration between 1996 and 2018. The findings obtained from the two data sources are strikingly similar and lead to the following conclusions. First, opposition to immigration had steadily and monotonously declined throughout the period. Second, the decline is evident even after considering variations and changes in the composition of the population, shifts in political ideologies, regional variations and cohort replacement. Third, the trend of decline in opposition to immigration takes a linear form. Fourth, opposition to immigration is stronger among Republicans and Independent voters than among Democrats. Fifth, the overtime decline in opposition to immigration was evident mostly among supporters of the Democratic Party increasing the division along party lines. The findings suggest that immigration is becoming a major political issue that is steadily polarizing American society.
KW - ANES
KW - Attitudes
KW - GSS
KW - Immigration
KW - Opposition
KW - United States
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096367252&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2020.11.001
DO - 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2020.11.001
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AN - SCOPUS:85096367252
SN - 0147-1767
VL - 80
SP - 27
EP - 39
JO - International Journal of Intercultural Relations
JF - International Journal of Intercultural Relations
ER -