Prominence and exclusivity: Identity and opposition to immigration in a multinational context

ABSTRACT

Using a framework derived from Identity Theory, this work focuses on the extent to which attitudes towards immigration are structured by the prominence and exclusivity of national identity. Prominence refers to the value of an identity relative to others. Exclusivity is when the prominence of a single identity negates all other comparable identities. Prominence and exclusivity are relevant for understanding attitudes towards immigration in that they imply degrees of flexibility on the very dimension of identity that most distinguishes immigrants—nationality. Catalonia, an autonomous region of Northwestern Spain that is home to multiple autochthonous identities and a recent large influx of immigrants, allows the role of identity exclusivity and prominence to be directly assessed. Using a representative survey of attitudes towards immigration collected in 2010 (n = 1389), results show that, contrary to expectations, exclusive and prominent identifiers (i.e. only Spanish or only Catalan) are not significantly more opposed to immigration. Future work should consider national identity to be a relevant contextual dimension not for its independent predictive power, but because of its intersection with other salient predictors such as education, employment and class.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration
• Identity Theory
• public opinion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term non-immigrant will be used throughout to refer to those who are not international immigrants, synonymous with native, indigenous and autochthonous. Similarly, the immigrant refers to international immigrants, synonymous with foreign-born and first-generation.

2. For a complete review of IT, see Stryker and Burke (2000).

3. Notable exceptions are Maddens, Billiet, and Beerten (2000), Billiet, Maddens, and Beerten (2003) and Escandell and Ceobanu (2010).

4. Although Rodón and Franco-Guillén (2014) devote a substantial amount of text to assessing national identity, the work is primarily focused on contact theory and its relevance in the context of Catalonia. Escandell and Ceobanu (2010) focus directly on the concept of national and sub-national identity and their implications for anti-immigrant sentiment.

5. The term referendum is used here, although the vote was never sanctioned by the Spanish state and, as a result, some refer to it as a consultation or popular participation instead.

6. Catalan perception of Immigration/Percepció dels Catalans i Catalanes sobre la immigració (survey no. 638). This survey is publically available (upon formal request) and technical documentation can be found at http://www.ceo.gencat.cat/ceop/AppJava/export/sites/CEOPortal/estudis/monografies/contingut/immigracio.pdf.

7. The focus on general, single-question measures of attitudes towards immigration is a deliberate deviation from other work in Catalonia that uses a composite measures of labour market insecurity and Islamophobia (Rodón and Franco-Guillén 2014). The intention is to avoid conflating determinants of attitudes (e.g. labour market competition and religious intolerance) with the attitudes themselves.

8. In your opinion, the number of immigrants that are presently in Catalonia are … /En la seva opinió, el número d'immigrants que hi ha actualment a Catalunya és … 

• (1) Insufficient (more needed)/Insuficient (calen més)

• (2) Acceptable/Acceptable

• (3) Elevated/Elevat

• (4) Excessive/Excessiu

9. In general, do you believe that immigration is … /En termes generals, creu vostè que la immigració és … 

• (1) Very positive/Molt positiva

• (2) Positive/Positiva

• (3) Neither positive nor negative (don't read)/Ni positiva ni negativa (no llegir)

• (4) Negative/Negativa

• (5) Very negative/Molt negativa

10. This interpretation of exclusivity is not unique to this work. Although concerned with institutional outcomes such as decentralization, others have referred to the same question to assess whether citizens in a sub-state community identity are exclusive or dual identifiers (Moreno, Arriba, and Serrano 1998).

11. A continuous measure of identity is not preferable and precludes the identification of prominence and exclusivity as distinct constructs.

12. See Fitjar (2009) for an overview of the history and application of the Moreno Question.

13. H1a: Relative to an equally shared identity, exclusive identifiers are more opposed to immigration.

H1b: Relative to any other non-exclusive identity, exclusive identifiers are more opposed to immigration.

14. The likelihood ratio χ² test of model 3 compared to model 1, for all outcomes, indicated that model 3 is a significantly better fit and the preferred model for interpretation.

15. As seen in the descriptive statistics in Table 1, little variation is observed between identity groups in terms of demographic characteristics (age, sex and nativity), which is reflected in the lack of statistical significance between model 1 and model 2. As a result, the interpretation will focus on model 3, which controls of socio-economic status, the primary compositional difference between identity types.

16. The probabilities and related confidence intervals reflect differences between identity groups assuming that other covariates are at their means. Although similar, this presentation of the results is different than a formal test of difference in estimated coefficients, which are the differences net of systematic variation in other covariates.

17. H2a: Relative to an equally shared identity, identifiers who consider one identity to be more prominent are more opposed to immigration.

H2b: Relative to an exclusive identity, identifiers who consider on identity to be more prominent are less opposed to immigration.

18. H3: Greater opposition among exclusive national identifiers relative to exclusive sub-national identifiers is explained by socio-economic privilege.

19. Franco, Malhotra, and Simonovits (2014) find that in a sample of social science experiments, null findings are 60% less likely to even appear in written form.