Attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in Asia and the Pacific: a quantitative assessment of current theoretical models beyond western countries

This article empirically assesses the validity of current theoretical models of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper takes representative data from the World Values Survey and implements a multilevel model to test five of the main theories in the literature: the human capital theory, the social capital theory, the political orientation theory, the contact/group threat theory and the economic competition theory. The results from the analysis lend credence to the important effects of human capital, social capital and political-ideological variables on respondents’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy. However, the results provide mixed and weak evidence for the contact/group threat theory and the role of economic determinants. Importantly, economic determinants tend to be more powerful in shaping people's attitudes toward immigration policy than shaping attitudes toward immigrants as people. Altogether, this article sheds new light on the validity of current theoretical models based on western countries for other areas of the world. Finally, the results from the paper also support the usefulness of non-economic, as opposed to purely economic, models in the understanding of individuals’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region.     

Police attitudes towards fellow officers' misconduct: the Swedish case and a comparison with the USA and Croatia

There is a long tradition of research into police integrity in the USA. Over the last few decades the focus of this research has shifted from regarding police misconduct as an individual problem to viewing it as an occupational/organisational one. Very little research has been conducted in this area in Scandinavia, however. This article presents findings from a Swedish questionnaire survey of levels of intolerance for corruption and other forms of misconduct within the Swedish police force. The study was conducted as part of an international project. Thirteen percent of Swedish police officers were included in the sample. Attitudes towards police misconduct are characterized by a high degree of consistency. The more seriously a behaviour is viewed, the more severely officers feel it should be sanctioned and the more willing police officers are to report it. Levels of intolerance towards theft are very high, whilst this intolerance is more moderate in relation to the use of excessive force, and is more or less non-existent when it comes to using a police car to ferry a fellow officer to work. At the same time, the patterns visible among the officers' responses are indicative of both ego-defence and of the existence of a code of silence. The article also compares the Swedish findings with responses from similar surveys conducted in the USA and Croatia. Differences between the circumstances in which the studies were conducted make comparisons between the different police forces difficult. The most conspicuous trend, however, is that different types of misconduct are ranked almost identically across the three countries.     

Early Exposure to Violence in the Family of Origin and Positive Attitudes towards Marital Violence: Chinese Immigrant Male Batterers vs. Controls

This study examined self-reported early exposure to violence in the family of origin and positive attitudes towards marital violence as risk factors in court-referred Chinese immigrant male batterers (N = 64) versus controls (N = 62). Early exposure to violence was positively correlated with marital violence, but it alone did not differentiate the batterers from the controls, as both groups were widely exposed to it. While it was significantly correlated with marital violence in the batterer group, it was significantly correlated with depression in the control group. Positive attitudes towards marital violence were not only correlated with marital violence but also sufficient to differentiate the batterers from the controls. It also partially mediated the effect of early exposure to violence on marital violence. These two risk factors together accounted for 21.9% of the variance in marital violence over and above sociodemographic variables and marital dissatisfaction. Research and treatment implications based on these findings were outlined.

Social Disadvantage and Family Violence: Neighborhood Effects on Attitudes about Intimate Partner Violence and Corporal Punishment

Social disorganization theory asserts that neighborhood composition affects levels of violence within the community. The purpose of this article is to analyze the bivariate effects of social disorganization, crime, and collective efficacy, in addition to the individual factors of gender, race, and a history of child maltreatment, on the acceptance of using violence within the family. Data from the Norfolk Police Department (2000–2004), 2000 Census, and 2006 Norfolk Residents’ Attitudes about Crime Survey were used to determine differences in approval of family violence. Results indicated that approval for family violence is an individual-level phenomenon as well as a community-level occurrence. Various aspects of family violence elicit different levels of tolerance by both micro- and macro-level characteristics. Implications are discussed.     

Racism: Less is More

Racism has been in sharp decline in recent decades yet the word, as accusation, is used more than ever. The word/idea needs to be more restrictively defined and kept for when it is really needed. When almost everyone is a racist, no one is. To this end we need to distinguish more clearly between the greater comfort people often feel among familiar people and places and active hostility towards outsider ethnic groups. We also need a more discriminating language to describe the spectrum of discrimination. Prejudice, clannishness—even in some instances discrimination itself—should be regarded as sentiments and behaviours that are distinct from proper racism.     

Socioeconomic Inequalities and Attitudes toward Violence: A Test with New Survey Data in the Niger Delta

Although socioeconomic inequalities are assumed to increase the risk of conflict, the mechanisms behind how inequalities affect attitudes toward violence are poorly understood. The differences between individual (vertical) and group (horizontal) inequalities, and the role that perception of inequality plays, have not been investigated to any great extent due to limited data availability. This study aims at providing a better understanding of the effects of different kinds of inequality by testing new survey data collected in the Niger Delta. Using attitudes of acceptance of the use of violence as the dependent variable, the study compares the effects of horizontal and vertical inequalities and actual versus perceived inequalities. The effect of access to oil resources is also tested for horizontal inequalities (actual and perceived). The results show that both vertical and horizontal inequalities matter for the acceptance of violence. While relatively deprived individuals are more likely to support violence, among groups it is the relatively privileged. However, in oil regions, the more deprived groups are more likely to support violence. In general, perceived inequalities appear to be more important than actual inequalities.     

Affective polarization and the salience of elections

In this article we analyze the effects of election salience on affective polarization. Campaigns and elections epitomize the moment of maximum political conflict, information spread, mobilization, and activation of political identities and predispositions. We therefore expect that affective polarization will be higher just after an election has taken place. By the same token, as elections lose salience, affective polarization will diminish. We analyze this question using CSES data from 99 post-electoral surveys conducted in 42 countries between 1996 and 2016. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the timing of survey interviews with respect to the election day as an exogenous measure of election salience. The empirical findings indicate that as elections lose salience affective polarization declines. The article further contributes to the debate on the origins of affective polarization by exploring two mechanisms that may account for this relationship: changes in ideological polarization and in the intensity of party identification. Both are relevant mediators, with ideological polarization seemingly playing a more important role.     

All in Favour? Attitudes of Stakeholders and Drug Users Towards Judicial Alternatives

Different judicial alternative sanctions and measures exist on the three levels of the criminal justice system. These alternative sanctions and measures can be applied to a specific target group, namely drug users. The current study is a qualitative assessment of the application and execution of alternative measures and sanctions for drug users, based on semi-structured face-to-face interviews in which stakeholders (magistrates, judicial assistants and social workers) and drug users were asked for their attitudes towards these sanctions and the factors that influence them in their convictions and beliefs. In conclusion we can state that the interviews have increased the insight in the attitudes of decision makers, social assistants, judicial assistants and drug users towards alternative sanctioning. From the interviews we learn that there are strong similarities between the three profiles, which provide for a strong basis for the continued functioning of alternative sanctioning.

Adapting to party lines: the effect of party affiliation on attitudes to immigration

Public opinion on immigration is increasingly relevant for political behaviour. However, little is known about the way in which citizens’ political allegiances in turn shape their attitudes to immigration. Abundant existing evidence suggests that voters often take cues from the parties they support. Using panel data from the Netherlands and Sweden, this article investigates the dynamic relation between attitudes to immigration and party preferences. The longitudinal nature of the data allows for making stronger claims about causal mechanisms than previous cross-sectional studies. The analysis shows that voters who change their preference to the Radical Right become stricter on immigration, whereas voters changing to the Greens become less strict on immigration over time. This confirms that citizens’ support for anti- and pro-immigration parties results in a ‘radicalisation’ of their views on immigration along party lines. A similar ‘spiral’ of radicalisation can be found around the issue of European integration.