The demographic roots of European xenophobia

Abstract

The standard theories to account for large migrations across national borders rely on a rational model of behaviour, to analyse reasons for a group of people to leave their homes and for another country to welcome or to reject them. It is proposed here that such a model needs to be supplemented by an examination of irrational factors – either against a people’s own economic interests, or as the products of their unconscious processes – that underlie the current xenophobia of European countries, which are erecting new barriers to immigrants because a dramatic shift in their demography threatens to undermine support for ‘welfare state’ social measures. Up to now migrations have been analysed in terms of economic forces that draw immigrants to countries offering better opportunities, or of political threats that drive refugees to seek security in an open society. In past centuries, Europe was both a source of emigration to destinations such as North America and a recipient of immigrants from lands to the east. An equilibrium was reached because these flows balanced, while continental birth and death rates stayed relatively high.