As advanced postindustrial countries have faced steadily escalating migration-related challenges in recent decades, the field of migration studies has come into its own, becoming something of an academic juggernaut. Nothing if not multidisciplinary, it has been notable for the variety of research approaches employed under its rubric. In social science research on migration and migrants in Europe, quantitative methods have been on the upswing of late.
This book fits squarely within that trend, offering a textbook example of how public-opinion survey data can be utilized in this area of investigation. Lauren M. McLaren makes a definite contribution to our understanding of the ways in which postwar migration is testing European democracy. Nevertheless, she also demonstrates several of the drawbacks of both secondary survey analysis and national-level migration studies.
To start with the strong points, the author has chosen a timely research question: To what degree and how has migration been threatening the legitimacy of democratic institutions in Europe’s receiving societies? The main argument is stated clearly, consistently, and frequently: “This book contends that long-standing concerns about immigration on the part of European publics, along with the perceived failure of state elites and institutions to reduce immigration, are undermining trust in government institutions and elites and contributing to general dissatisfaction with national political systems” (p. 11).
McLaren shows admirable restraint in presenting (and not overstating) her research findings and demonstrates appropriate awareness of the limitations of this type of inquiry. Where the author is daring, on the other hand, is in not condemning public opinion that is critical of migration or its consequences. She concludes that “it is unlikely that these expressions of concern are expressions of self-interest and instead reflect concerns about the effect of immigrants and immigration on the nation-state as a whole” (p. 150). Her evenhandedness is exceptional for a field in which the prevailing consensus in favor of migration tends to color attitudes toward individuals and groups who are not in agreement, for whatever reason.
The behavior of receiving states does come in for criticism. Their efforts to limit immigration in line with constituents’ wishes have fallen short, due in no small measure to human rights commitments and labor demand deriving from economic growth (pp. 76–81). This disjuncture is judged to have fed deeply corrosive popular skepticism about political systems more generally. McLaren’s hypothesis-cum-argument is that “more positive perceptions of national political institutions at the individual level” (p. 89) can be expected if European states emphasize a civic approach to citizenship and identity—whereby “newcomers can become part of the nation by participating in society and in politics, and by getting involved in their communities” (p. 91)—rather than an ascriptive/cultural one.
Even though that position is defensible, there are problems with the analysis that supports it. The initial chapters contain somewhat dated and insufficiently nuanced coverage of social capital (Introduction); the history of modern states and models of national identity in Britain, France, and Germany (Chapter 2); and the “gap hypothesis” pertaining to the disparity between elite actions and popular opinion (Chapter 3). A step-by-step exposition of the central argument fills the remainder of the book.
Immigration and Perceptions of National Political Systems in Europe has apparently been written primarily for an audience that engages in and consumes survey research. For the nondevotee, at least, there are several troubling features of the instruments being repurposed here. Many of them are discrete polls, for example, taking snapshots of opinion at a given time. The author argues that when responses to a number of questions all go with the grain of her hypothesis, they can help establish the direction of causality between national identity and attitudes toward national political institutions, and also indicate levels of support for the system (instead of solely for the government of the day). An instrumental variables approach is also used in Chapter 5, yet only one round of the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2009 was suitable for such analysis. A major reason for including the British case study (Chapter 6) thus seems to have been the availability of the panel component of the 2005 British Election Study. Unfortunately, the British findings run against the general argument about the benefits of promoting civic identity, something that is admitted but then finessed (p. 128).
It is also not always clear where migrant-origin residents themselves figure into this story. In three instances, McLaren mentions (in footnotes) having omitted non-nationals, ethnic minorities, or those with “parents or grandparents of different nationality or race” (p. 160) from the analysis. There is a short discussion of a single 1988 survey conducted in four countries that “asks about specific immigrant-origin minorities” (pp. 73–75). They are otherwise treated as the undifferentiated objects of others’ sentiments.
While it is true that most western and southern European societies now have migrant populations, as the author observes (pp. 47, 89), their settlement patterns and the constellations of their countries and cultures of origin diverge widely. The people upset about migration are no more randomly or evenly distributed. Perceptions and relations differ by region, city, and even neighborhood; and it is in explaining those patterns that solutions to Europe’s diversity problems are to be found, as local-level research has suggested. References to that literature are completely absent from this book. Neither the author nor the majority of scholars whose work she cites bear witness to much firsthand knowledge of Europe’s migrants and migrant neighborhoods—or even the surveys that cities like Berlin and Rotterdam conduct to gauge feelings of and toward migrants at that level.
This deficiency can lead to debatable assumptions. To cite only one example, as opposed to indicating perforce a desire to impose “cultural connectedness” (p. 128), as McLaren argues, it can simply seem to “natives” like a commonsense practicality for migrants to learn the local language; it facilitates labor market insertion, children’s education, and bridging social capital. Those who conduct neighborhood research are often struck by the peaceful and positive coexistence that holds in so many locales, despite the fact that unprepared communities have had to deal with the arrival of large numbers of new neighbors with various cultural beliefs and practices. Rarely have policymakers given cogent reasons for their presence, to say nothing of the resources necessary to respond to it.
The constraints acting on receiving states include human rights obligations but, more importantly, powerful corporate interests that want the free mobility that assures them access to cheap, pliable, unskilled labor and allows them to avoid paying to train skilled workers. European states have been steadily relinquishing control over key facets of their economies and allowing hard-won social protections to come under attack. Migration is but one element in the thoroughgoing changes roiling the continent, which include processes of globalization, social polarization, and automation/digitalization that public policies have had a role in initiating and feeding.
In the absence of strong official defenses of migration and migrants, it has been easy for the latter to become scapegoats, the visible manifestation of the painful transformations underway. McLaren is probably correct that a more civic approach to citizenship would be helpful in attenuating the migration-related aspects of Europe’s political legitimacy crisis. Its causes are so much deeper and its scope so much wider, though, that overall, the effect would likely be minimal.
