The CulTural DiviDe in europe Migration , Multiculturalism , and political Trust

S the end of World War ii, immigration has become one of the most divisive issues on the political agendas of Western democracies. Many individuals in european democracies express unease or outright concern with the potential effects of migration on their countries, while others in these same countries are less uneasy or even welcoming toward newcomers. ultimately, these divisions are unlikely to be solely about immigration but will also be about fundamental questions regarding how the nation-state should be constituted—does it need to remain closed to outside cultures and influences or can it absorb or incorporate these? These divisions have implications for voting and party systems, particularly with the rise of the far right in many european countries;1 in addition, research indicates that whichever side of this division holds government power can make a difference to immigration and immigrant policy-making.2 This article contends that in the

S inCe the end of World War ii, immigration has become one of the most divisive issues on the political agendas of Western democracies. Many individuals in european democracies express unease or outright concern with the potential effects of migration on their countries, while others in these same countries are less uneasy or even welcoming toward newcomers. ultimately, these divisions are unlikely to be solely about immigration but will also be about fundamental questions regarding how the nation-state should be constituted-does it need to remain closed to outside cultures and influences or can it absorb or incorporate these? These divisions have implications for voting and party systems, particularly with the rise of the far right in many european countries; 1 in addition, research indicates that whichever side of this division holds government power can make a difference to immigration and immigrant policy-making. 2 This article contends that in the modern mass-immigration states of europe, such divides also affect how individuals perceive the key political institutions of their nationstates, as well as the politicians running those institutions. Specifically, the article argues that public divisions over immigration affect trust in politicians and political institutions and that this relationship is not simply an artifact of general dissatisfaction. nor is it necessarily solely a result of far-right mobilization activities.
The article begins by briefly discussing the focus of the analysisdistrust in politics. it then outlines why divisions over immigration and multiculturalism are likely to affect political trust. although the article does not argue that negative perceptions about the impact of immigration are the only drivers of political distrust-and indeed, later sections of the article discuss some of the other explanations offered in the academic literature-it is contended here that this is an overlooked variable that is likely to have significant effects on perceptions of the political system. after explaining why this is expected to be the case, the article then discusses how contextual variables may be expected to affect this relationship, particularly the history of immigration and farright mobilization. The article next discusses the key alternative explanations for political trust found in the academic literature and then considers the methods and data used in the analysis. The hypotheses proposed in previous sections are then tested using multilevel modeling on the four waves of the european Social Survey (ess). The findings indicate that even after controlling for other predictors of trust in the political system, divisions about the effects of immigration on the national community are related to trust in politics. in addition, it appears that this relationship is partly mediated by the history of migration to the country: on average, in countries where there has been a long history of post-World War ii immigration, the impact of concern about immigration on trust in politics is stronger than in countries with more recent experiences as countries of immigration. By contrast, the potential for mobilization of concerns about immigration and political distrust by strong far-right parties is more limited than might be expected.
political trust political trust is crucial to effective policy-making, compliance with government regulations, and engagement in moral civic behavior. 3 it is also thought to be crucial to the representative relationship that lies at the heart of most democratic regimes. 4 Thus, understanding the causes of political distrust is important. But what do we mean by "political trust" or "distrust"? expressions of trust in a political institution may be affirmations that the agents operating within those institutions will, on average, prove trustworthy or that the democratic institutions will serve to select relatively trustworthy agents. 5 alternatively, "an expression of trust in government (or synonymously political confidence and support) is a summary judgment that the system is responsive and will do what is right even in the absence of constant scrutiny." 6 easton's distinction between diffuse and specific system support is also pertinent to our understanding of political trust. on the one hand, diffuse support can be understood as a deep-seated set of attitudes toward politics and the political system that is relatively impervious to change. 7 on the other hand, specific support pertains to the actions and performance of government or political elites. in a stable political system, it is assumed that short-term policy failures should not directly erode diffuse regime support or support for the political community as a whole.
although this distinction between diffuse and specific support may seem fairly apparent, measuring it is less than clear-cut. When citizens express trust or confidence in their national parliaments, presidencies, or governments, does this provide a reasonable measure of general orientations to institutions and elites or does it solely measure attitudes toward current leaders and policies? 8 Comparative analyses indicate that although individual-level perceptions of current authorities and attitudes to other aspects of the political system-for example, its institutions-are related to one another, perceptions of institutions appear to be empirically distinct from perceptions of current government officials. 9 This article is concerned in particular with general orientations toward political institutions and elites, and based on these comparative analyses, it is assumed that indicators of trust and confidence can validly tell us something meaningful about these general orientations. Given that such items are, in fact, likely to tap into both types of support, in order to try to eliminate the likelihood that the findings here pertain solely to specific support, this article (1) investigates multiple indicators of political trust to determine how generalized our findings are across targets of trust and (2) controls for known predictors of specific support. in terms of (1), the indicators of political trust analyzed here refer to parliaments, politicians, and legal systems, as discussed below. it would not necessarily be expected that the predictors of trust in each would be similar-particularly trust in the legal system vis-à-vis parliament and politicians-unless they were all tapping into general system support. in terms of (2), after controlling for the known predictors of specific support, it is expected that any remaining covariance (once these predictors are included in the model) is likely to tell us something about diffuse support, although it must be acknowledged that the findings may ultimately refer to both specific and diffuse support. Before discussing the measures of political trust further, the article first outlines why it is expected that divisions over the impact of immigration on the national community will be related to political trust.
concern about immigration and political trust a distinguishing feature of modern states-particularly modern european states-is that they were built upon notions of shared identity and values. While modern advances in transportation and printing as well as increased state-led nation-building activities clearly helped in the process of constructing national identities, 10 some contend that "the presence of a core ethnie around which strong states could be built" made the creation of nations possible. 11 Strong states, that is, have been built around shared cultural heritage and norms. research on modern perceptions of national identity points to the conclusion that these identities, including their civic, ethnic, and cultural components, are still extremely relevant to citizens of european countries. 12 in addi- 10 anderson 1991;Gellner 1983;hobsbawm 1992. 11 Smith 1991, 61. 12 Schulman 2002. it must be recognized that many european countries were already multicultural states before large-scale immigration began after World War ii. it is argued that countries like Spain and Britain in particular are multicultural (or multinational). however, this does not necessarily mean that the state-building process and the attempt to build common state identity failed in countries like these. For instance, when asked how close they feel to their country, 91 percent of survey respondents in Spain claim to feel close (that is, to Spain); moreover, a clear majority in every region of Spain claims to feel close to Spain, including in the Basque Country and Catalonia (see the 2003 international So-tion, social identity analysis has highlighted the importance of identities-even artificially constructed laboratory-based identities-and contended that they contribute positively to self-esteem and self-image and help to provide clarity in a complex, confusing world. 13 established identities like national identities would thus seem to be even more relevant and powerful than those constructed in laboratories by social psychology researchers. For some, immigrants pose a strong threat to these identities by bringing with them seemingly different values and ways of life; they may also be seen as threatening the economic resources of fellow citizens. 14 newcomers who may be perceived as holding extremely different values from those of natives-Muslim migrants vis-à-vis a predominantly secular Britain or France, for instance-may be particularly difficult to reconcile with existing national identities. in short, notions of nationhood and citizenship attempt to distinguish between those who belong and those who do not. This may have the effect of fostering fear of those with whom we do not share common identity. 15 in the modern mass-immigration states of europe, immigration also divides natives between those who perceive the state as being unable cial Survey programme; results were similar for the 1995 issp; both available at http://zacat.gesis. org/webview/index.jsp, last accessed December 9, 2010). in addition, in the 1995 issp, approximately 84 percent of Spanish survey respondents felt that it is essential for their country to remain as one country rather than allow certain regions to separate. not surprisingly, however, 50 percent of the Basque sample believed that regions wanting separation should be allowed to leave the country, and approximately 40 percent in Catalonia also felt this way. on the whole, though, it appears that the vast majority of the Spanish population is supportive of a unified Spanish state, and issp data also indicate a high level of national pride in Spain. With regard to Great Britain, it must be noted that the apparent increase in Welsh and Scottish identity and growing demands from Scotland for separation after World War ii called into question the degree to which "Britishness" has "stuck," but such demands may have been connected to extraordinary dissatisfaction and unease with Thatcherite policies in the 1980s, in particular, and the prior discovery of north Sea oil. The clamor for separation, that is, appears to have lessened in the post-Thatcher era. although the Scottish national party continues to promise a referendum on Scotland's membership in the uK, it is extremely unclear as to how supportive the Scottish public will be of separation. While the results of public opinion polls on separatism in Scotland are very dependent on question wording, it appears that a majority of Scots would prefer to stay in the uK but with greater devolved powers for Scotland. (See, for instance, "how Snp Could Win and lose at the Same Time," The Times, april 20, 2007; "Do the Scots Support independence?" Channel 4. January 18, 2007; http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/ domestic_politics/factcheck+do+the+scots+support+independence/251043; http://thescotsman.scotsman .com/politics/pressure-on-parties--to.5415942.jp, accessed July 7, 2009; see also http://www.ipsos-mori .com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oitemid=2706, accessed July 25, 2011, for more recent poll results.) Supporting evidence from the British election Study of 2005 indicates that only 32 percent of respondents living in Scotland claimed to identify as Scottish only, with other respondents acknowledging some degree of British identity; in Wales this figure is only 16 percent (author's own analyses). Thus the majority of people living in Britain today appear to claim some degree of common British identity. 13 Tajfel 1970;Turner 1982;Turner 1985;Turner et al. 1987;Turner et al. 1994. 14 Sniderman, hagendoorn, andprior 2004;Quillian 1995;Fetzer 2000Fetzer . 15 huysmans 1995 to accommodate newcomers and those who believe that it can accommodate such newcomers. 16 The difficulty of coming to terms with new migrants and the differences in perceptions about whether or not newcomers pose a problem for the maintenance of the national society, in turn, have implications for political systems. it is thought that political systems do not work well if individuals in the system are not "sufficiently oriented toward one another" and are not willing to support the existence of a group of individuals who can negotiate and settle differences. 17 Some research has already concluded that immigration and multiculturalism may create problems for the former of these conditions (that is, orientation toward one another), although the evidence is somewhat mixed. 18 immigration or, more specifically, perceptions of the impact of migration may also create problems for the latter. That is, negative perceptions of the impact of immigration may reduce both willingness to support the existence of a group of individuals who can engage in policy-making and willingness to support the institutions through which these groups of elites govern. This is because feelings of disunity are not likely to apply solely to feelings of citizens for one another; rather, they are also likely to extend to feelings about the elites in this community and the way the community is governed. Consistent with this idea is the fact that individuals already tend to be increasingly less favorable toward using the institutions of the state to reduce poverty and provide welfare as a result of perceptions of cultural differences between groups who access these services. 19 Moreover, it has been argued that many european democratic political systems have been layered onto preexisting cultural connections-indeed, many would contend that democratic political systems arose in europe partly as a result of the development of feelings of national community and the community's demands for a more representative political system. 20 Thus, those who perceive that immigration is a threat to this community are likely to feel a weaker connection to the elites and institutions that were originally designed to 16 anti-immigration sentiment is, of course, not limited to the european context and can be seen in countries like the u.S. and australia as well. however, it is not immediately clear as to whether concern about immigration in these countries would translate into reduced political trust. Given the differences between european countries and the u.S. and australia, in terms of national identity and construction of the modern nation-state, analyzing the connection between concern about immigration and political trust in the latter contexts is beyond the scope of this article. 17 easton 1957, 391;rustow 1970;Miller 2006Miller . 18 putnam 2007anderson and paskeviciute 2006;alesina and la Ferrara 2000;Costa and Kahn 2003;Stolle, Soroka, and Johnston 2008;letki 2008;hooghe et al. 2009;Sturgis et al. 2011. 19 Gilens 1999habyarimana et al. 2007. 20 For example, Smith 1991. govern a national community. More specifically, those most concerned about the problem may believe that the political system (the elites and institutions) have sold out the public by failing to protect the national community from the potentially disruptive and divisive force of immigration. in sum, large-scale mass immigration clearly creates widespread concern about political and social community and about social identities. 21 under conceptualizations of national identity that date to the era before mass immigration and to which many europeans still subscribe, it is assumed that elites govern the national polity through institutions designed to adjudicate between members of the national community. if individuals perceive newcomers as a threat to that community, then the governing institutions are likely to be called into question: those most worried about the effects of newcomers in the multicultural state may question the extent to which national political institutions will continue to represent a national citizenry. in addition, individuals are likely to blame their political elites and institutions for allowing large-scale migration in the first place, which adds to the negative feelings. While some existing research hints at the connection between immigration and perceptions of political systems, there is still only limited academic investigation of this relationship. 22 The analysis here takes a step toward filling this gap. Thus, the first proposition to be investigated is as follows: proposition 1. individuals expressing most concern about the impact of immigration on the national community will be most distrusting of politicians and political institutions.
contextual effects: the history of migration and the far right Based on the preceding discussion, it might be expected that levels of migration would be significantly related to political trust. in the past three decades, however, all countries of Western europe have become countries of immigration, experiencing high levels of economic migrants, asylum seekers, and other newcomers. historically, though, this experience has been extremely varied, with Southern europe and ireland initially not being prime destinations for migrants. This began to change only in the 1980s and 1990s, with Spain, portugal, italy, and Greece receiving large numbers of migrants from north africa and, in the case of Greece, also from Central/eastern europe. in recent years, ireland, too, has become a key destination for immigrants. 23 Thus, ultimately, all the West european nation-states now share the experience of large-scale mass immigration from outside of Western europe, and all therefore confront the same difficulty of having to incorporate newcomers into the polity. This also means that all citizens of West european nation-states likely have feelings about whether newcomers are detrimental or helpful to their national political and socioeconomic systems. in keeping with this, the fact is that perceptions of migrants and the perceptions of the levels of migration in the past decade are often unrelated to the actual levels of migration to the various countries. 24 it is possible that the history of migration to the country will affect political trust, though, and, more specifically, will affect the relationship between concern about immigration and political trust. Why might this be? That there is an expected connection between concern about immigration and political trust reflects a process by which citizens are becoming disconnected from their state institutions because of their growing belief that nonnationals are sharing in the state's spoils and will eventually have a voice in its political decisions-or already have a voice in these decisions. This is not likely to be a sudden transformation of perceptions, as, for instance, when individuals respond relatively rapidly to economic downturns. it is instead likely to be a gradual process, as generations of citizens come to terms with the implications of immigration for their states. in addition, in longer-term immigration countries, several generations of citizens have now had the opportunity to reflect on their perceptions of the impact of newcomers on their societies. This, in turn, is likely to reflect lengthier public debates about the effects of immigration in these countries, with citizens developing firmer views about whether immigrants are a plus or a minus for the country and about the implications of immigration for the political system as a whole. 25 23 hollifield 1997; Castles andMiller 2009. 24 Semyonov, raijman, andGorodzeisky 2006;Sides and Citrin 2007. 25 it might be expected that the relationship would be the opposite of what is being hypothesized here because long-term immigration countries will contain citizens who have had more opportunity for contact with immigrants. although the opportunity for contact must, of course, be present for contact to occur, such opportunity does not necessarily guarantee that contact does occur. Moreover, it is possible that in the aggregate, the amount of perceived threat that results from immigration simply outweighs any effects that contact might have (for example, Quillian 1995). More importantly, it is unclear whether the average level of contact with immigrants in a country should affect the individuallevel relationship between concern about immigration and political trust.
Moreover, in terms of laying specific blame on government for allowing large-scale migration in the first place, there is a significant difference between what one finds in the longer-term countries of immigration and what one finds in the more recent countries of immigration concerning how the immigration began in the first place and why it continued over time. namely, most of the longer-term countries of immigration actively engaged in helping to recruit migrant workers. Thus, the reason for Germany's large Turkish population is directly attributable to government policies in the first instance; the same is true for Britain's pakistani, afro-Caribbean, and indian populations (although in the case of Britain colonial ties also played a part in the choice of recruitment centers). in addition, although there have been periods of economic recession in which these countries have attempted to put the brakes on the high levels of immigration, admittedly without much success, there have also been periods of growth in recent decades that have led governments to allow further migration to fill gaps in the labor market. These policies can be contrasted with those of the newer immigration countries, where there has been no such active recruitment on the part of governments. instead, immigrants have arrived for a very different set of reasons, namely, the rapid increase in economic development in these countries, the increased difficulty at times of gaining access to the older european countries of immigration, and the large informal economy in some of the newer countries of immigration that is attractive to those traveling to europe clandestinely. 26 Because in these cases governments have not actively attempted to recruit labor from abroad, citizens may be less likely to blame immigration on their government's policies. in this sense, immigration is likely to be viewed as being something that simply happens, with less of a focus on government as the culpable party. Ceteris paribus, it is thus expected that the group of countries with longer histories of postwar immigration may experience higher levels of political distrust than countries with shorter histories of postwar immigration and that this variable may mediate the effect of concern about immigration on political in addition, some might contend that in the countries that have been experiencing immigration for longer, citizens are likely to have recovered from the initial shock of large-scale immigration and so perceptions of immigration should be less likely to affect perceptions of the political system in the modern day in these countries. however, public opinion statistics indicate fairly persistent levels of concern about immigration in these countries (see, for instance, eurobarometer data available from http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp). That is, anti-immigration sentiment seems as firm as it was more than two decades ago, and, as argued here, the long-term persistence of concern about this perceived problem is likely to have implications for how individuals perceive their political systems. 26 Castles and Miller 2003;Geddes 2003. trust. 27 Therefore, the second and third propositions to be investigated are the following: proposition 2. individuals living in long-term "countries of immigration" will be the most distrusting of politicians and political institutions.
proposition 3. individuals living in long-term "countries of immigration" and who are most concerned about migration will be the most distrusting of politicians and political institutions. 28 as already noted, far-right parties have been on the rise in europe in great part because of anti-immigration sentiment. ivarsflaten, for instance, finds that the key factor uniting successful right-wing parties in europe is mobilization against immigration. 29 Many of these same parties also attempt to mobilize hostility to "the political class." Thus, it is possible that (1) distrust in politics is higher where far-right parties have been involved in waging such campaigns and that (2) the relationship between concern about immigration and distrust in politics may be mediated by the mobilizing ability of far-right parties. Therefore, the fourth and fifth propositions to be investigated are: proposition 4. individuals living in countries with a strong far-right presence will be most distrusting of politicians and political institutions. 27 Because of the difficulty of adequately capturing the history of experience with post-World War ii immigration with standard migration statistics (that is, considering the lack of comparable data for all european countries across the entire postwar period-see Castles 1984), i attempt to capture this history with a dummy variable. The analysis here is limited to Western europe (see below), and among the countries included in the analysis, academic discussions of the history of migration to these countries, as outlined above, clearly point to the conclusion that the southern european countries of Spain, Greece, portugal, and italy were not "countries of immigration" until the 1980s, whereas the rest of Western europe, other than ireland, had become more or less areas of large-scale immigration starting in the 1950s (for example, hammar 1985; Castles and Miller 2003;Geddes 2003). it is also important to note that the main argument presented in the previous section is not necessarily one about the numbers of migrants but is about the impact of being a country of immigration and the impact of long-term immigration on perceptions of the construction of the nation-state. Thus, for the analysis below, Greece, Spain, portugal, italy, and ireland are given a code of 0, and all other countries are given a code of 1. 28 it should be noted that i have empirically verified that actual levels of recent migration (that is, in the years prior to each of the surveys), recent changes in levels of migration, and the percentage of foreigners living in the country all have statistically insignificant effects on political trust and on the relationship between concern about immigration and political trust. i have, therefore, omitted these from the analysis below. i have also investigated the potential impact of migrant policy on this relationship using the Migrant integration policy index (available at http://www.integrationindex.eu/, last accessed august 9, 2010). although the interaction between migrant policy and concern about immigration is statistically significant, the actual differences in the slopes between countries with more-migrant-friendly policies and those with less-migrant-friendly policies is minimal. That is, the slope for concern about immigration is strong and positive regardless of the migrant integration policies of the country in question. 29 ivarsflaten 2008.
proposition 5. The relationship between concern about immigration and political distrust will be stronger in countries where there is a strong far-right presence. 30 The measurement of all these variables is discussed in the appendix.
political distrust: alternative explanations one might argue that any relationship found between concern about immigration and political distrust is spuriously driven by other factors. The analysis therefore controls for many of these factors. of particular importance may be the individual's general outlook on life. it may be the case, for example, that some individuals are simply more negatively disposed toward most ideas they encounter and so the coincidence of negative perceptions of immigrants and negative perceptions of politics may simply be a result of this more general negative predisposition. 31 in addition, in explaining attitudes toward politics, early research on perceptions of politics pointed to factors like anomie, or normlessness, related to personal insecurity (which, in turn, is connected to a loss of intrinsic values that give meaning and direction to life). 32 That is, it is perhaps not just general pessimism that may explain negativity toward immigrants and politics but also the more contemporary phenomenon of general alienation. although the analysis is unable to control entirely for these potential factors, it does control for general unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life. in addition, a control is included for the frequency of meetings with friends, primarily because this is an indicator of social capital (to be discussed below) but also because it is likely to capture some degree of alienation and thus anomie. 30 note that i have also investigated the impact of having center-right governing coalitions and having a far-right party in the governing coalition on the relationship between concern about immigration and political trust, but the effect did not even achieve basic statistical significance in the case of center-right coalitions and was very weak (although statistically significant) in the case of coalitions containing a far-right party, and so discussion of this analysis is omitted from this article. using the Comparative Manifesto project data, i have also investigated the possibility that a lack of parties (far right or mainstream) that address the issue of immigration strengthens the relationship between concerns about immigration and political trust. That is, perhaps individuals are more distrusting when there are no parties that represent their views on the immigration issue. While this interaction was statistically significant, the difference between countries with stronger versus weaker representation on the immigration issue, in terms of the relationship between concern about immigration and political distrust is very small, with a strong, positive slope between concern about immigration and political trust for countries that do have parties that devote considerable attention to this issue in their platforms and for countries where less attention is paid to this issue. Thus, these results have been omitted. 31 on some of the effects of pessimism on attitude formation, see uslaner 2002. 32 For example, eckart and Durand 1975. it should be noted, however, that research on the role of anomie in the rise of the far right indicates that this is a weak explanation for the latter; see Koopmans 1996. existing academic literature points to several other explanations for differing levels of both political trust and political distrust. The multivariate analyses below incorporate controls for many of these variables. For example, scholars have linked distrust in politics to social capital, including voluntary and other informal participatory networks and interpersonal trust. 33 Controls for social capital are included in the multivariate models, using interpersonal trust and the frequency of meeting with friends as indicators of social capital. 34 in addition, many researchers have pointed to the role of economics in explaining differences in individual-level and aggregate-level perceptions of political institutions. if the economy is performing poorly or if people perceive that the national economy or their own personal economic circumstances are declining (or are likely to decline), support for political institutions and leaders is likely to be reduced, at least in the short term. 35 Controls are therefore included for perceptions of national and personal economic situations and actual economic circumstances at both the country level and the individual level (see the appendix).
perceptions of the functioning of political institutions are also important: if governments are viewed as fair and open, if politicians can be held accountable, and if individuals perceive governments to be performing well along various policy dimensions, individuals are more likely to trust. 36 in addition, one of the main findings in recent analyses of attitudes to government institutions has been that the actual functioning of political institutions has a strong bearing on how individuals perceive those institutions. 37 Corruption, absence of the rule of law, poor public service provision, inefficient bureaucracy, and institutional instability are likely to mean that citizens are less trusting of political institutions and elites. Thus, where possible, controls for perceptions of institutional policy performance and actual performance have been included in the models below (see the appendix). 38 33 Brehm and rahn 1997;Mishler and rose 2005;Zmerli and newton 2008. 34 note that previous drafts of this article included voluntary participation as an indicator of social capital, but the relationship between this variable and political trust was consistently insignificant, so this draft substitutes another indicator later added to the social capital construct in putnam 2001socializing with friends. 35 Clarke, Dutt, and Kornberg 1993;newton 2006;anderson andGuillory 1997. 36 Miller andlisthaug 1990;Miller and listhaug 1999;Weil 1989;Weatherford 1992;evans and Whitefield 1995;Mishler androse 1997, 2001;newton 2006. 37  analyses also point to the effects of being electoral "losers"-that is, having voted for a party that fails to get into government-and indicate that electoral losers may experience some lessening of confidence in the political system, at least in the short term, with winners having a more positive attitude toward the political system. 39 Controls are therefore incorporated for this variable.
in addition, the models control for having voted for a far-right party in the most recent general election and for left-right self-placement. Taken together, these variables are likely to be strong proxies for any potential automatic correlation between concern about immigration and political distrust resulting from the ideological confluence of these attitudes. left-right self-placement is likely to capture the potential ideological confluence between political dissatisfaction and hostility to immigration, with those on the far right expected to be more negative about political institutions and politicians and about immigration. Those who actually voted for the far right are, of course, very likely to be hostile to immigration and to politics because of ideas stoked by farright party rhetoric.
in terms of additional controls included in the analysis, it is possible that the long-term-country-of-immigration variable is capturing cross-national differences other than those intended. For instance, governance quality in the shorter-term immigration countries may, on average, be lower than in longer-term immigration countries. as already noted, the analysis here controls for governance quality (again, see the appendix for the measure of this). in addition, the group of countries that have not been long-term countries of immigration are likely to have a different level of welfare protection than longer-term countries of immigration such as Sweden, Denmark, the netherlands, and the uK. That is, the long-term-country-of-immigration dummy variable may produce a spurious result because it is capturing differences in social welfare protection. a control is introduced for this variable in the analysis below.
Thus, any relationship between concern about immigration and distrust of politics that remains after including all of these controls is the relationship that takes into account these potential causes of spuriousness -general pessimism, alienation, automatic ideological confluence of political distrust, and concern about immigration, including individuallevel support for the far right, being an electoral winner, perceptions of government performance, perceptions of the economy, and social capital.
as discussed above, the analysis further incorporates country-level data on the mobilizing effect of far-right parties, thus controlling for this potential source of spuriousness as well. The analysis further controls for household income, age, education, and gender. 40 it is expected that with the many predictors of specific support included in the modelparticularly winning and losing, perceptions of government performance, and perceptions of the economy-at least some of the remaining covariation between concerns about immigration and political trust will be connected to more general orientations toward the political system and will not be limited solely to attitudes toward the current government.

the analysis: univariate and bivariate
The analysis conducted in this article is based on the european Social Survey, rounds 1-4. 41 The dependent variable, political distrust, is measured via an 11-point scale presented to respondents after the following statement: "using this card, please tell me on a score of 0-10 how much you personally trust each of the institutions i read out. 0 means you do not trust an institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust.
[country]'s parliament? the legal system? politicians?" The coding for these items was reversed so that high values represent higher levels of distrust. 42 as discussed above, if a relationship is found between concern about immigration and political distrust across these multiple indicators of the latter, this will be taken as a potential indication that the effects are unlikely to be limited to specific support for the particular set of incumbents in power at the time of the survey (and this is precisely why the three indicators have not been combined into a single index here). also note that the analysis excludes the newer democracies of Central and eastern europe (Cee), because it is likely that the survey questions about immigration capture a very different phenomenon in the Cee countries than they do in Western europe, particularly 40 noncitizens and ethnic minorities have been omitted from the analysis below. These individuals were identified by their responses to the following questions: "Do you belong to a minority ethnic group in [country]?"-with "belong" referring to "attachment or identification" and "are you a citizen of [country]?" The exclusion of these individuals produced a loss of 5,101 observations, out of a total of 120,080, or 4 percent of the total number of observations. The results of the statistical analyses reported below are very similar to those that include minorities and noncitizens, however (which is not surprising given the relatively small numbers of these). 41 available at http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/. Fieldwork for round 1 was conducted in 2002-3, for round 2, in 2004-5 (except in italy, where it was conducted in early 2006), for round 3, in 2006-7, and for round 4, in 2008-9. 42 note that the later rounds of the survey also included political parties in this list, but this item was not included in round 1 and thus has been omitted here. attitudes to conationals coming from neighboring countries as a result of historical border changes. 43 Table 1 provides the means and standard deviations for each of the indicators of political distrust. 44 The overall mean scores indicate that distrust of politicians is higher on average than distrust of parliament or the legal system. The means also point to relatively higher levels of distrust of parliament in portugal, Germany, and the uK, with lower levels of distrust in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, norway, Switzerland, and the netherlands. These results provide some support for the idea that the relationship between political distrust and actual levels of immigration is not likely to be very strong, as discussed above. 45 The cross-national differences in scores for distrust of politicians and the legal system are roughly similar to those for distrust of parliament. in terms of individual-level bivariate correlations between concern about immigration and distrust of politics (analysis not shown), the average pearson correlation coefficient between these is 0.29 (across all of the indicators of political trust), but this ranges from 0.38 for distrust of parliament in norway, with similarly high correlations in Britain, Belgium, the netherlands, and Sweden, to lows of 0.16 to 0.21 in Southern europe and ireland. The pearson correlation coefficients for politicians and the legal system have a similar pattern, providing initial support for proposition 3 (that is, a weaker relationship between concern about immigration and political trust in newer immigration countries). at the country level the correlation between level of concern about immigration and political distrust (pearson's r) ranges from 0.51 in the case of distrust of the legal system to 0.70 for distrust of parliament. The relationship, that is, is fairly strong. This is compared with the correlation between distrust of the european parliament and concern about immigration, for instance, which is only 0.20 and is not statistically significant (whereas the former pearson correlation coefficients are statistically significant). This implies that the connection between concern about immigration and political distrust appears to be limited to perceptions of national 43 See, for instance, Wallace 2002, 607-9; note that i have also conducted the analysis with these countries included and the results are very similar to those reported here, although the relationship between concern about immigration and political distrust is somewhat weaker than when the analysis is limited to non-Cee european countries. 44 as will be seen below in the variance components analysis, the amount of cross-time variation is fairly limited and so i omit illustrations of this due to space limitations. 45 That is, actual levels of migration per capita in portugal are at the lower end of the migration statistics, whereas Switzerland, for instance, has the highest levels of migration. as noted in footnote 28, i have investigated this relationship more systematically, using varying indicators of levels of immigration; these analyses confirm that there is no systematic relationship between levels of immigration and political trust.
institutions. This may be taken as one indication that the relationship between concern about immigration and distrust of national institutions and politicians is not spuriously driven by general unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and so on, since the relationship between immigration concern and distrust of the ep should be as strong as (or stronger than) the relationship between the former and distrust of national politicians and institutions if another variable were driving the relationship. 46

multivariate analyses
The multivariate analyses are conducted using hlm on the four rounds of the ess. Given that some of the variables discussed above are measured at the country level (specifically, history with migration, far-right mobilization, economic conditions, quality of governance, and level of 46   social welfare protection) and that the four rounds of the ess have been combined, a technique that takes into account the potential underestimation of standard errors because of lack of uniqueness across observations is required. Multilevel modeling is used to solve this problem, 47 with a three-level model with the individual at level 1, variables that are measured at the country level and that vary across the four rounds of the ess (country-round) at level 2, 48 and variables measured at the country level that do not vary across the four rounds at level 3. 49 in order to further guarantee robustness, the analysis also controls for the ess round using dummy variables. a model with none of the theoretical predictors included was first estimated, in order to examine the variance components of the dependent variable. The model examined is where π 0jk = β 00k + r 0jk and where β 00k = γ 000 + u 00k.
The top portion of Table 2 illustrates the variance components across the three indicators of the dependent variable. as seen there, most of the variance in distrust across all indicators of the latter is at the individual level, with only 1 percent at level 2 and 8-12 percent at level 3. The remaining sections of the table illustrate the amount of variance at each level that is explained with each subsequent model presented below. The model containing the level 1 independent variables to be estimated is as follows: Distrust ijk = π 0jk + π 1jk Concern about immigration ijk . . . + e ijk. (2) 47 Steenbergen and Jones 2002;raudenbush and Bryk 2002. 48 This includes far-right popularity and level of spending on social protection. 49 This includes being a long-term country of migration, governance quality, gdp per capita and unemployment rate; for a similar approach to analyzing the ess data, see van der Meer 2010. equation 3 illustrates the effect of level 2 variables on the intercept of equation 2: π 0jk = β 00k + β 01k Far-right popularity jk + β 02k Social Welfare Spending jk + r 0jk. (3) equation 5 illustrates the effect of popular far-right parties on the slope of concern about immigration in equation 2: π 1jk = β 10k + β 11k Far-right popularity jk +r 1jk .
(5) equation 6 illustrates the effect of being a long-term country of migration on the slope of concern about immigration in equations 2 and 5: β 10k = γ 100 + γ 101 long-Term Country of Migration k + u 10k. Table 3 reports the coefficients for the three-level model excluding any interaction effects. These results indicate that after controlling for fairly powerful predictors of distrust in politics, concern about immigration has a statistically significant effect on distrust in politics, with maximum effects of 1.7 on the 11-point measure of distrust in parliament, 1.3 on distrust in politicians, and 1.4 on distrust of the legal system. other relatively strong effects include dissatisfaction with the country's economy, interpersonal (dis)trust, and dissatisfaction with the health and education systems in the country. indeed dissatisfaction with the country's economy has stronger effects than concern about immigration across all three indicators of political distrust, and the strength of the latter three variables listed above is roughly similar to that of concern about immigration. among the weaker effects in the model are dissatisfaction with one's personal income and one's actual income, the winner effect, voting for a far-right party in the most recent general election, left-right self-placement, frequency of meeting with friends, general unhappiness, dissatisfaction with life, household income, age, education, and gender (see the appendix for the range and coding of each of these). in short, although not the strongest effect in the model, concern about immigration is far from being the weakest either.
perhaps more interesting is that concern about immigration continues to display a significant relationship with political distrust after controlling in particular for unhappiness, life dissatisfaction, voting for a far-right party, and left-right self-placement. This is important because, as discussed above, the latter two variables capture some of the potential ideological confluence of the two issues of immigration and distrust that have been witnessed in many european countries and the former two capture general pessimism. That is, the effect of concern about immigration on political trust remains-even after taking into account this potential automatic correspondence via voting for the far right and via left-right self-placement, as well as pessimism, attitudes to the economy, and attitudes to government provision of health and educational services. among the level 2 and level 3 variables, the only ones that achieve even the most basic generally accepted level of statistical significance (p ≤ 0.05) are social protection expenditure, which reduces distrust across all three indicators of the dependent variable; living in a longterm country of immigration, which increases distrust in parliament, as predicted; and gdp/capita, which is (unexpectedly) associated with increased distrust in parliament. political distrust does not, however, appear to be driven by the level of popularity of far-right parties, quality of governance, or unemployment level. 50 The variance components results reported in Table 2 indicate that the model in Table 3 accounts for 19-24 percent of the variance in the dependent variable at the individual level, 20-60 percent of the variance at level 2 (country-round), and 67-95 percent of the variance at level 3 (the country level).
The hypothesized interactive effects discussed above will now be estimated. Because of the potentially severe multicollinearity produced by including too many interactive terms in the model (particularly since concern about immigration is included in all of these interactions), each of the interactive effects discussed above-concern about immigration interacted with the long-term-country-of-immigration dummy and with far-right popularity-was estimated separately. Tables 4 and 5 50 Because of potential problems caused by entering too many level 2 and level 3 independent variables simultaneously, i also conducted analyses in which each of the level 2 and level 3 variables was entered into the individual-level model separately (that is, with no other level 2 or level 3 predictors). The results from that exercise indicate that the World Bank Governance indicators (see the appendix) and gdp per capita were statistically significantly related to distrust in parliament, but the relationships were both positive: better quality of governance was associated with slightly more distrust of parliament and higher gdp per capita was also associated with higher levels of distrust. in general, though, in this analysis, it appears that political distrust may not be related to governance quality, or not in the expected way, in contrast to the findings of rohrschneider 2005. in addition, unemployment level appears to be unrelated to political trust. Thus, consistent with the findings of Mcallister 1999, actual economic circumstances are only weakly related to political trust, and here they appear to be related in the opposite way to what would be predicted, as noted above. display the coefficients for each of these interactive terms. Both interactions are statistically significant except in the case of far-right popularity and distrust of politicians. The effects of these interactions are displayed in Figures 1 and 2. 51 The interaction between concern about immigration and being a long-term country of immigration is as predicted (Figure 1). in countries with long postwar immigration experiences, differences over whether immigrants pose a problem for the nation-state also seem to play a role in dividing those who have less or more confidence in political institutions and elites. note that the level of social welfare protection also plays an independent role in reducing political distrust in these models.
For far-right popularity, there is very little difference between countries with strong far-right parties and those without these parties, in terms of the relationship between concern about immigration and distrust of politics. however, the relationship is slightly stronger where there is a popular far-right party, as expected, and the effect is most powerful in the case of distrust of the legal system (see Figure 2). 52 The empirical analyses thus generally confirm propositions 1 and 3 and provide weak support for proposition 5; proposition 2 receives support in the case of distrust of parliament and proposition 4 is not supported. Clearly, then, divisions regarding the impact of immigration on the national community do appear to divide europeans regarding their perceptions of the political systems, with those who think immigration is having a detrimental effect on the national community also appearing to feel more strongly that their national political systems are failing them. it is argued here that this is likely so because these political systems are perceived to be failing to carry out the most basic of functions-protection of the national community. Those who feel more positively about the impact of immigration, however, also remain more positive about the political system as a whole. Moreover, the fact that the relationship holds for perceptions of politicians, parliament, 51 The figures were created by setting all nondichotomous variables at their means and substituting actual values for concern about immigration, long-term country of immigration, and far-right popularity, using the coefficients provided in Tables 4 and 5. all dichotomous variables were set to 0. For Figure 1, far-right popularity was set at its mean, and for Figure 2, the long-term country of immigration variable was set at 1. 52 actual voting percentages may not adequately capture the potential mobilizing effects of farright parties, particularly in places with electoral systems that make it difficult for these parties to have much electoral success. i have, therefore, also investigated the impact of propensity to vote for a far-right party using european election Study data. Those results indicate a statistically insignificant relationship between propensity to vote for a far-right party and political distrust (and the interaction between propensity to vote for a far-right party and concern about immigration is also statistically insignificant).  and legal systems indicates that the effect of concern about immigration is likely to pertain to perceptions of the political system as a whole rather than only to perceptions of the individuals running the system or of elected institutions. in addition, this effect is more pronounced in countries with long histories of postwar immigration-countries where the impact of immigration presumably has been the subject of debate for much longer and where governments initially engaged in active recruitment of migrant labor. The effect is also slightly more powerful in countries with a strong far-right presence, although it is important to note that it also exists where the far right is weaker. Because of the potential for endogeneity here-particularly that the key independent variable, concern about immigration, may, in fact, be caused by the dependent variable, political distrust-an instrumental variables analysis has been conducted using the first round of the european Social Survey, where there are adequate instruments for measuring figure 1 long-term country of immigration, concern about immigration, and political distrust concern about immigration. The results of the multilevel analysis using the instrumental variables confirm those reported above. (These results will be provided upon request.) it should be noted that the author has also investigated the issue of causal order in the British case using the panel component of British election Studies data for both 2001 and 2005. These findings further confirm that causality runs in the direction hypothesized here. 53 The implications of these findings will now be discussed in the conclusion.
conclusion This article has argued that one of the potential consequences of concern about immigration is negative perceptions of political institutions and politicians and that this relationship is not simply spurious and 53  figure 2 far-right popularity, concern about immigration, and political distrust may not simply be a result of far-right rhetoric, pessimism, or unhappiness. instead, the construction of the modern european state, with its emphasis on common culture and identity, has made it extraordinarily difficult for many citizens in these states to reconcile the functioning of their national political systems with the incorporation of newcomers who are perceived (1) not to share the same culture and values and (2) to be having a negative impact on the economic prospects of fellow citizens. That is, concern about immigration is not simply accidentally or coincidentally related to political distrust but is likely to be one of the causes of the latter. Because the effects appear for elected officials and an elected institution (parliament) as well as for an unelected branch of the political system (the legal system), one sees some indication that these effects may not be limited solely to blaming the current government but may indicate instead more general support for the system. The findings also indicate that this divide is stronger in countries with longer postwar experiences with immigration. also of interest here are the weaker findings, particularly for the level 2 variables. namely, far-right mobilization appears to have more limited effects than might be expected on the relationship between concern about immigration and political trust. The relationship between concern about immigration and political distrust appears to exist regardless of the presence or absence of powerful far-right parties, lending further support to the argument of the article, that many europeans generally have fears about the impact of immigration on their national communities and that in many cases this weakens their feelings of connectedness to their political systems and elites and leads them to feel negatively about a political system that appears to be failing to protect the national community. This relationship is not necessarily solely stoked by the far right, but it does seem to be stronger in countries with longer experiences of post-World War ii migration.
The effect of reduced trust is, in turn, potentially very serious, in that positive orientations toward political systems make governance possible, as discussed above. That is, the perceived threat posed by immigration presents the prospect of some degree of weakening of governments and governance because of the increasing disconnectedness between political elites and institutions on the one hand and citizens on the other.
Some of the potential confounding explanations for this relationship deserve further exploration in future research. it is possible, for instance, that modern life is increasingly associated not just with largescale immigration but also with phenomena such as alienation and anomie, which, as discussed above, may be producing negative reactions to immigration and to political institutions. although the analysis presented here has attempted to control for this possibility, more work using better indicators of these constructs could certainly be done. The same is true for personality factors and general outlook like optimism and pessimism. in addition, it is important to note that the analysis points to the conclusion that a higher level of social welfare protection helps to reduce political distrust; it may thus be the case that government adoption of these types of policies can ameliorate some of the negative effects of concern about immigration. More work on this possibility could also be fruitful. at the very least, however, this article has highlighted the need to consider the potentially negative effects that public concern about immigration may be having on perceptions of political systems in europe.
appendix: measurement of variables in the analysis level 1 variables (all in the european social survey, rounds 1-4) distrust in politics "using this card, please tell me on a score of 0-10 how much you personally trust each of the institutions i read out. 0 means you do not trust an institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust. Firstly . . . reaD ouT [country]'s parliament? the legal system? politicians?" The coding of these items was reversed such that high scores represent distrust.
concern about immigration "Would you say it is generally bad or good for [country]'s economy that people come to live here from other countries? please use this card. Bad for the economy (0) The coding of all three of these items was reversed and the items were combined into a single index, with values ranging from 0 to 10, which was the average score given by each respondent for all three items. interitem correlation (pearson's r) ranged from 0.58 to 0.65. average Cronbach's alpha was 0.83 (minimum alpha was 0.75 for the netherlands). The items also load onto a single factor in every country. note that these items were chosen because they are the ones available across all four rounds of the ess. however, the items appear to capture the main relevant concerns related to immigration-economic and identity concerns, 54 plus the more general worries about the impact of immigration on the country. unhappiness "Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are? please use this card. extremely unhappy (0), extremely happy (10)." The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent unhappiness.
dissatisfied with life "all things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays? please answer using this card. extremely dissatisfied (0), extremely satisfied (10)." The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent dissatisfaction.
social capital: frequency of meeting with friends "using this card, how often do you meet socially with friends, relatives or work colleagues? never (1), less than once a month (2), once a month (3), Several times a month (4), once a week (5), Several times a week (6), every day (7)." The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent rarely meeting with friends. social capital: interpersonal (dis)trust using this card, generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? please tell me on a score of 0 to 10, where 0 means you can't be too careful and 10 means that most people can be trusted.
using this card, do you think that most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair? Most people would try to take advantage of me (0), Most people would try to be fair (10).
Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are mostly looking out for themselves? please use this card. people mostly look out for themselves (0), people mostly try to be helpful (10).
The coding of all three of these items was reversed and the items were combined into a single index, with values ranging from 0 to 10, which was the average score given by each respondent for all three items. interitem correlation (pearson's r) ranged from 0.48 to 0.58; Cronbach's alpha was 0.76 and factor analysis confirmed that the items all load onto a single factor.
perceptions of economic performance unfortunately, the ess does not contain the array of indicators necessary for distinguishing between pocketbook versus sociotropic and retrospective versus prospective economic evaluations, so we rely on the following two indicators of perceptions of economic performance. "on the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]"? extremely Dissatisfied (0), extremely satisfied (10). The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent dissatisfaction; "Which of the descriptions on this card comes closest to how you feel about your household's income nowadays?" living comfortably on present income (1), Coping on present income (2), Finding it difficult on present income (3), Finding it very difficult on present income (4).
perceptions of government performance: disatisfied with health services and education system "Still using this card, please say what you think overall about the state of health services in [country] nowadays? extremely bad (0), extremely good (10)." The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent dissatisfaction. "now, using this card, please say what you think overall about the state of education in [country] nowadays? extremely bad (0), extremely good (10)." The coding of this item was reversed such that high values represent dissatisfaction.
winning and losing respondents who claim to have voted for a party that was in government at the time of the survey were given a code of 1; those who voted for parties not in the government were coded 0. note that in a handful of the counties, elections were held in the midst of the ess fieldwork. if the government changed after these elections, then winning and losing parties subsequently changed for the purposes of coding this variable, as appropriate.
voted for far-right (anti-immigration) party in last general election information regarding which parties held opposition to immigration as one of their key party platforms in each country and for the various years of the ess was compiled as discussed below, and respondents who claim to have voted for one of these parties in the most recent general election before the conduct of fieldwork were given a code of 1; everyone else was given a code of 0. if, as was the case in a few countries, an election was held in the midst of the ess fieldwork, the relevant election used for this coding changed, as appropriate. other controls left-right self-placement in politics people sometimes talk of "left" and "right." using this card, where would you place yourself on this scale, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right? household income "using this card, please tell me which letter describes your household's total income, after tax and compulsory deductions, from all sources? if you don't know the exact figure, please give an estimate. use the part of the card that you know best: weekly, monthly, or annual." note that in the cumulative round 1-3 file, this variable is coded on a 12-point scale, where in round 4, it is on a 10-point scale. To provide better comparability, the variable has been standardized such that respondents' scores represent the distance of their income categories from the mean value of the survey. age in what year were you born? (Mean age was forty-eight; standard deviation was eighteen.) education What is the highest level of education you have achieved? 0= not completed primary education; 1= primary or first stage of basic; 2= lower secondary or second stage of basic; 3=upper secondary; 4=postsecondary, nontertiary; 5=First stage of tertiary; 6=Second stage of tertiary. gender Coded by interviewer: 0=Male and 1=Female.
level 2 variables strong far-right presence This was measured by the percentage of the popular vote going to a party that has opposition to immigration as one of its main platforms in the national election preceding the fielding of the ess questionnaire. information about party platforms was generally obtained from multiple online election resources, as well as annual reviews of elections in the European Journal of Political Research. The full list of far-right parties and percentages of votes received in the year before the ess fieldwork in each country and each round is available at Mclaren 2011. social welfare protection This is measured by the total expenditure on social protection per head of population in ecu/euro, in the year before each of the rounds of the ess survey. Data are available from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/ portal/page/portal/social_protection/data/main_tables. level 3 variables long-term history of immigration as noted in footnote 27, Greece, Spain, portugal, italy, and ireland are given a code of 0 for this analysis, and all other countries are given a code of 1.

quality of governance
To measure overall quality of governance, the analysis relies on the World Bank Governance indicators, which are based on surveys of household and firm respondents, experts working in the private sector, ngos, and public sector agencies. 55 Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi define governance as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. 56 There are six indicators of governance that are strongly correlated with one another, with a minimum pearson's r of 0.60 for the period analyzed in this article, with an average interitem correlation of 0.80 and Cronbach's alpha of 0.94 and all items load onto a single factor in a principal components analysis. The six indicators are thus combined by taking the average score across all six for each country and each year. note that rohrschneider has conducted extensive validation of several components of this index and found them to be related to Transparency international corruption perception scores, with the number of european Court of human rights judgments against a country, and with public perceptions of the conduct of elections in a country. 57 economic conditions gdp/Capita, measured using the average oecd gdp/capita as the base is available from http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=naG, and unemployment rate in the year before the survey were both obtained from the oecd, available at http://titania.sourceoecd.org/vl =3262696/cl=11/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/06/02/01/index.htm.