Immigration and Voting Behaviour

Project Directors Prof. Dr. Thorsten Faas Project Staff M. sc. Sebastian Fietkau Ministry of Science, Research and Arts Baden-Württemberg-funded 2011 – 2015

Research question/goal:

The aim of the project was to contribute to the understanding and explanation of citizens' attitudes towards immigration and immigrants as well as to draw attention to possible political consequences of these attitudes.

An additional starting point of the project was the fact that relevant research literature is based as a rule on direct survey questioning. Given how prone the topic is to provoke conflicts - with economic arguments („Fachkräftemangel“, shortage of skilled workers), wide-spread public scepticism, social desirability and political correctness driving these conflicts, such surveys seem hardly ideal. This project goes beyond earlier studies by choosing methodologically another, rather subtle and more valid way of measuring attitudes.

Building on recent relevant research predominantly from the U.S. this was the first study in Germany to employ such alternative techniques, among others experimental variations of individual migrants' features including morphing techniques and methods based on reaction rates (implicit attitudes tests).

Overall, the project showed that first, alternative measures to capture sensitive topics such as immigration can successfully be adopted in Germany and second, that they lead to different results than established procedures. Current events and discussions like the protest marches mainly in Eastern Germany (“Pegida”) and electoral successes of the party Alternative for Germany (“Alternative für Deutschland”, AfD), suggest that further research following this approach could be highly relevant.

Publications

Presentations

  • Faas, Thorsten, Sebastian Fietkau (2014): List Experiments in the Study of Voting Behavior. [4th Annual General Conference of the European Political Science Association, Edinburgh, 19/06/2014 - 20/06/2014]. More
  • Faas, Thorsten, Sebastian Fietkau (2014): The Undesired Social Desirability: Attitudes Towards Immigrants and Immigration in Germany. [Methodentagung 2014: Different Methods, Same Results? Chancen und Risiken der Methodenvielfalt in der empirischen Sozialforschung, Universität Kaiserslautern, 13/03/2014 - 14/03/2014]. More
  • Fietkau, Sebastian, Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca (2014): Economic Crisis and Attitudes towards Immigrants in Europe. [72nd Annual Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill., 01/04/2014 - 05/04/2014]. More
  • Fietkau, Sebastian, Constanza Sanhueza Petrarca (2014): From Self-Interest to Identity: Cross-Country and European-Wide Attitudes towards Migrants in Times of Crisis. [4th Annual General Conference of the European Political Science Association, Edinburgh, 18/06/2014 - 20/06/2014]. More
  • Fietkau, Sebastian, Kasper M. Hansen, Thorsten Faas (2014): How Perception of Immigrants Trigger Feelings of Economic and Cultural Threats: Experiment with Visualizing Techniques Across Danes and Germans. [72nd Annual Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 01/04/2014 - 05/04/2014]. More
  • Faas, Thorsten (2012): Experimente in der Politikwissenschaft. [Gründungstagung der Sektion „Methoden der Politikwissenschaft“ der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (DVPW) , Hamburg, 08/02/2012 - 10/02/2012]. More
  • Faas, Thorsten (2012): Experimentelle Einstellungs- und Verhaltensforschung. [Vortrag gehalten im Rahmen des Panels „Experimentelle Demokratieforschung: Partizipation und Politikgestaltung” im Rahmen des 25. Kongresses der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (DVPW), Tübingen, 23/09/2012 - 27/09/2012]. More