Public opinion toward immigration and the EU: How are Turkish immigrants different than others?

Abstract

Public preferences on immigration and attitudes toward the European Union (EU) have been shown to be closely related. In this article, it is argued that, to better understand this relationship, people's opposition to immigration should be differentiated based on the ethnicity of the prospective immigrant group. Specifically, in the case of Germany, Turkish immigrants constitute a special case. The results of the original survey experiment conducted in Germany suggest that, controlling for other explanations, categorizing immigration attitudes by ethnic group reveals that fear of EU enlargement and future Turkish immigration is actually a more important reason for Euroskepticism than has been shown so far. That is, people's opposition to immigrants from Turkey explains their overall Euroskepticism much better than their attitudes toward immigrants from within EU member states, suggesting that their attitudes are informed by opposition to further enlargement rather than a general dislike of multiculturalism.