Most Britons have been hostile to immigration for decades, long before the waves of EU migration in the last decade. What has changed now is the political salience of this hostility. But he was mauled. People believe the fable, so they accept the facts. They take an active role in the construction of their beliefs. They are invested in them, finding enjoyment and solace in them. To explain popular racism we have to stop explaining it away, and look at the conditions that make sense of it.
The dominant sentiment of this racism is resentment. People are convinced that immigrants have taken something from them. Moreover, the development of neoliberalism in the UK is inextricable from the politics of Britishness. Thatcher shutting off immigration was as central to her agenda for national renewal as a strong pound or Falklands fever.
Immigrants have been continually identified as undeserving leeches, a security menace, an existential threat to British values — and thus a fitting target of resentment. Not everyone is equally susceptible to this kind of resentment. Research suggests that those most prone to a resentful nationalism are those sectors of the working and middle classes who have been on a downward trajectory for decades. Enter your keywords. Ethnically-based nationalism more likely to develop in countries that have lost territory or experienced conflict in the past.
Published: 29 Nov Facebook LinkedIn Tweet Widget. Countries with a history of war, loss of territory, sovereignty or a past of significant conflict either external or internal are more likely to develop a form of nationalism that is ethnically-based — i.
This form of nationalism is associated with a higher degree of anti-immigrant sentiment. Countries without a prior history of war, conflict or loss of territory are more likely to develop a form of civic nationalism where the state is seen as responsible for promoting welfare of all citizens equally.
There is less anti-immigrant sentiment as a result. News releases. Source Site:. Related Content News. Governments across Europe have applied both strategies with limited success. The third strategy assumes that poor immigrant integration has caused this anxiety and that once immigrants integrate with the native population, it will dissipate. The fourth option asks host countries to face up to their primary challenges and address them instead of ignoring them and scapegoating immigration.
This last policy option is rather vague and would clearly be effective only once policy makers determine what is really driving anxiety in their country. Many believe that the only possible solution to political discontent about immigration is to restrict it, in particular the entry of illegal, undocumented, or irregular immigrants, whom residents in many host countries particularly despise. National governments in many countries have responded to the rising discontent by increasing border and internal enforcement, sometimes with measures like constructing walls and fences or immigrant detention centers.
These policy responses assume that immigration is the true cause of public anxiety. The success of right-wing political parties that favor such policies in Europe and the United States is ostensibly evidence that immigrants are the primary culprits and restricting immigration would resolve most of the problems these countries encounter.
In this book I have provided evidence that immigration is not a key driver of the rising political anxiety. A number of factors, some of them quite unrelated to immigration, have created public antipathy to establishment political parties that have followed what are perceived to be relatively liberal immigration policies.
A further question is this: even if immigration is the root of some problems, are restrictions the only solution? Restrictive policies have often failed to reduce immigration.
When countries build fences or walls, immigrants build underground tunnels; they take hazardous routes to immigrate; they fall into the clutches of illegal human traffickers, who are exploitative and charge immigrants exorbitantly but who also create illegal channels for migration. In such a scenario, a key justification for implementing restrictive policies is to show that the governments are not ignoring the grievances of the public and are responsive to their demands.
But clearly these policies are not a solution to economic fears and anxiety. On the contrary, instances of failed enforcement measures show that they create greater anxiety about refugees and illegal immigrants.
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