Symbolic boundaries, incorporation policies, and anti-immigrant attitudes: what drives exclusionary policy preferences?

Abstract

This research empirically approaches symbolic boundary making in the form of individual assent to selective immigration policy. Distinguishing two such types of boundaries, restriction based on immigrant skills and race/religion, we approach the antecedents of such preferences. Do economic or rather cultural concerns about immigration drive boundary making? We furthermore assess whether social boundaries in the form of integration and multicultural policies are of importance. The results obtained from the European Social Survey show that on the individual level, both forms of boundary making are mainly driven by cultural concerns. On the country level, net of several measures of diversity, integration policies dampen skill-related boundaries, while multicultural policies weaken the strength of cultural boundary making along race and religion. These findings expose the political embeddedness of processes of symbolic boundary making into the very policies that approach the respective type of boundary.