Introduction
Migration policy is highly conflictual in the European Union (EU), among both governments and citizens. Following a decade of gridlock (Zaun, Reference Zaun2018), EU leaders have agreed to further tighten the migration framework in 2024. As far as the divisions in public opinion are concerned, numerous studies show that identity is a crucial determinant of citizens’ immigration preferences (Hainmueller and Hopkins, Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2014). The literature on identity and immigration attitudes typically analyses national expressions of identity (Sides and Citrin, Reference Sides and Citrin2007; Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021). This, however, ignores the growing European foundation of political contestation in migration politics. We address this shortcoming in the study of identities and immigration attitudes and advance a European perspective, which is pertinent for at least three reasons: (a) migration policy is strongly Europeanised through Schengen and Dublin; (b) several identity elements discussed in the national context include transnational, European elements; and (c) the inquiry of European identities allows us to analyse public opinion beyond national idiosyncrasies.
We focus our analysis on how European identities relate to immigration attitudes. The few existing studies, which include European identity as an explanatory variable for immigration attitudes, provide mixed evidence (McLaren, Reference McLaren2001; Kessler and Freeman, Reference Kessler and Freeman2005; Curtis, Reference Curtis2014; Vasilopoulou and Talving, Reference Vasilopoulou and Talving2019; Basile and Olmastroni, Reference Basile and Olmastroni2020; Karstens, Reference Karstens2020a). The inconclusive findings also stem from an underdeveloped specification of European identity. Most of the literature distinguishes between citizens who have integrated some (not further specified) form of a European identity versus those with exclusively national identities. This explicitly defines European identity in opposition to a national sense of belonging, thereby overlooking the multidimensionality of self-identification. A few more recent studies move beyond this dichotomy by defining distinct forms of European identities (Pichler, Reference Pichler2008; Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018; Voicu and Ramia, Reference Voicu and Ramia2021). We build on this strand of literature, which typically conceptualises two European identities, namely, a civic and cultural form, and we link these identity types to immigration attitudes.
Civics are defined by their identification with the EU, its institutions, and the liberal values it embodies, such as democracy and the rule of law, while culturals self-identify with a European historical and religious heritage. Our key contribution is the study of how these two types of European identities explain immigration attitudes. For this inquiry, we do not study attitudes towards different reasons for migration, such as war, natural disasters, or the search for economic opportunities. Rather, we are interested in how Europeans evaluate immigrants based on the personal characteristics of the immigrants, including their values, country of origin, religion, gender, and education. Accordingly, our investigation shows how these personal characteristics of immigrants are related to the identities of Europeans. We extend the scholarship by also theorising and studying how shared values between immigrants and Europeans matter to explain admission decisions by Europeans.
To this end, we develop two sets of expectations, following, among others, the literature on social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, Reference Tajfel, Turner, Austin and Worchel1979; Bruter, Reference Bruter2003; Kalin and Sambanis, Reference Kalin and Sambanis2018). First, we theorise that value congruence matters: Europeans are more open towards immigrants who share European values (and they prefer those who share their specific set of values). Second, culturals particularly prioritise Christians and women with children because of their proximity to family and religious ideals, and they are more likely to reject immigrants from culturally distant countries, such as Afghanistan. Our hypotheses on value congruence are novel, while our other expectations build on existing research pointing to more hostile views against Muslims and preferences for women and well-educated immigrants (Bansak et al., Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2016, Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2023; Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021; König, Reference König2024). A principal strength of our analysis is the precise measurement of civic and cultural European identities and the rigorous inquiry of value congruence between Europeans and immigrants.
The empirical analysis relies on data from original experimental surveys. For the case selection, we draw on Eurobarometer data, which covers all 27 EU member states. The main empirical analyses of experimental data fielded in seven EU countries build on a set of conjoint questions linking attitudes to characteristics of immigrants. The findings support our novel hypotheses on value congruence: shared values matter strongly for both European identity types, while civics make a nuanced differentiation by more strongly prioritising immigrants with civic values. The perceived closeness of immigrants, based on personal characteristics, also significantly influences admission decisions. EU citizens prefer immigrants from Ukraine and the UK, while the rejection is highest for Afghans and Muslims. These effects are particularly pronounced among culturals (which generally hold more restrictive immigration attitudes). Civics, on their part, have a stronger preference for women with children and well-educated immigrants. Europeans from both identity types, however, are less likely to admit immigrants who are perceived to be more distant, which raises serious questions about the role of humanitarian reasons and solidarity in migration politics.
The European dimension of identity
Much of the scholarly work on identity is grounded in social identity theory, which posits that identity formation involves a stylised process of self-categorisation into a group, identification with that group, and the comparison with others. It refers to the process by which individuals recognise ‘the characteristic(s) shared by those with whom one psychologically belongs’, which may result in ‘multiple potential social identities’ (Citrin et al., Reference Citrin, Wong, Duff, Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder2001, 73). The identification with a specific group leads to the definition of an ‘us’ and consequently to a demarcation from others not belonging to this in-group, resulting in a distinction between the in- and out-group (see, eg Hainmueller and Hopkins, Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2014; Kalin and Sambanis, Reference Kalin and Sambanis2018; Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021). This distinction is subject to an evaluative process, which relates positive characteristics to the in-group, while the perception of the out-group is not necessarily neutral because the out-group may be associated with stereotypes and negative perceptions (Tajfel, Reference Tajfel1981; Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018; Royuela, Reference Royuela2019). As, for example, with regard to immigration, this negative perception can result in a feeling that immigrants are perceived as a threat to the economic interests or cultural identities of the host societies (Sides and Citrin, Reference Sides and Citrin2007; Wright, Reference Wright2011; Hellwig and Sinno, Reference Hellwig and Sinno2017). If so, individuals may adopt the view that the in-group should be protected from the out-group, which further contributes to negative attitudes towards immigration. The preferences resulting from this process are remarkably stable over time (Kustov et al., Reference Kustov, Laaker and Reller2021).
A much-studied distinction between in-groups and out-groups relates to nationalism (Eastwood and Greenfeld, Reference Eastwood, Greenfeld, Boix and Stokes2009; Erhardt et al., Reference Erhardt, Wamsler and Freitag2021). Studies going beyond national boundaries in the European context build on the contrast between European and national identities (McLaren, Reference McLaren2004; Del Ponte, Reference Del Ponte2021). The distinction between European and national identities assumes that there is only one form of identification with Europe and also ignores that local, national, and European identities are related to one another. Individuals do not exclusively identify with their nation-state or some form of Europe. Rather, national and European identities co-exist, interact, and are multifaceted (Romaniszyn, Reference Romaniszyn, Spohn and Triandafyllidou2003; Duchesne and Frognier, Reference Duchesne and Frognier2008; Guglielmi and Vezzoni, Reference Guglielmi, Vezzoni, Westle and Segatti2016; Dalton, Reference Dalton2021). This aligns with the described process of self-categorisation into several groups (Citrin et al., Reference Citrin, Wong, Duff, Ashmore, Jussim and Wilder2001), leading to individuals having multiple identities simultaneously (Roccas and Brewer, Reference Roccas and Brewer2002). However, these multiple identities are not equally salient at all times and are activated in relation to the environment in which they evolve (Lustick and Miodownik, Reference Lustick and Miodownik2002), as the sense of belonging to a specific group can be triggered by particular situational cues or contextual factors. When citizens act as voters, for example, they adapt their identities to align with their preferred political positions (Egan, Reference Egan2020), policies (Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018), and political institutions such as electoral rules (Posner, Reference Posner2005). Crises can also affect identities: in Europe, for example, citizens expressed stronger attachment to the common European cause following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Steiner et al., Reference Steiner, Berlinschi, Farvaque, Fidrmuc, Harms, Mihailov, Neugart and Stanek2023; Nicoli et al., Reference Nicoli, van der Duin, Beetsma, Bremer, Burgoon, Kuhn, Meijers and de Ruijter2024).
Related to identities is also the concept of citizenship, which typically has a territorial and jurisdictional component. More recent studies on citizenship emphasise the multilevel dimension, stating that citizenship is a ‘patchwork of different statuses operating simultaneously’ at the subnational, supranational, and transnational level (Maas, Reference Maas, Shachar, Bauböck, Bloemraad and Vink2017, 644). Like identity, citizenship is a constantly evolving concept with varying facets. In addition to local and subnational expressions, there is also a supranational citizenship with the EU as the most advanced example thereof (Maas, Reference Maas2005). This literature is a further testimony to the pertinence of the multilevel perspective in the European context. If we return to identities, a more recent strand of the literature explicitly theorises different forms of European identity (Pichler, Reference Pichler2008; Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018; Voicu and Ramia, Reference Voicu and Ramia2021; König, Reference König2024). Our investigation builds on these studies, which submit that Europeans self-identify with a socially constructed collective of Europeans (Bruter, Reference Bruter2005; Risse, Reference Risse2010). A main insight of this literature is the absence of one single form of European identity that supersedes national and local identities (Pichler, Reference Pichler2008; Hooghe and Marks, Reference Hooghe and Marks2018; Clark and Rohrschneider, Reference Clark and Rohrschneider2021; Voicu and Ramia, Reference Voicu and Ramia2021). In a nutshell, two conceptions of Europeanness stand in contrast to each other: a civic identification with the EU and a cultural identification with Europe (Bruter, Reference Bruter2003; König, Reference König2024).
Our theoretical conceptualisation is also similar to the distinction between a civic and ethno-cultural identity applied in the context of national identity studies (Kohn, Reference Kohn2017; Erhardt et al., Reference Erhardt, Wamsler and Freitag2021; Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021; Piwoni & Mußotter, Reference Piwoni and Mußotter2023; König, Reference König2024). The literature studying the influence of national identity on immigration preferences submits that an ethno-cultural understanding of the nation tends to be more closely associated with restrictive immigration attitudes compared to the civic conception of national identity (Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021), although the directionality of the effect of the latter is contested (Schildkraut, Reference Schildkraut2013). In any case, aligning with the idea of multiple identities and multilevel citizenship, Lindstam et al. (Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021, 111) point out that ‘competing conceptions of the in-group are not confined to the nation’.
In sum, a growing and extensive scholarship studies the European dimension of identity and distinguishes between civic and cultural conceptions of Europeanness (Risse, Reference Risse2010; Glencross, Reference Glencross2020). This research is rich in conceptual and theoretical analyses, also because it can build on a vast literature on national identities, multilevel citizenship, and social identity theory, while, at the same time, few thorough empirical investigations of European identities exist. One reason for this lacuna is that established data provide only crude measures of civic and cultural European identities. A principal strength of our inquiry is that we distinctively conceptualise civic and cultural European identities and precisely measure them empirically with original data. Before we turn to this analysis, we investigate Eurobarometer data to get a first glimpse at the broader distinction between civics and culturals for all EU countries. The main motivation of the following analysis is to derive a country selection for our main empirical investigation, which we have to restrict to seven countries due to limited resources.
Observational data analysis and case selection
While standard Eurobarometer data do not allow for a nuanced measurement of European identities and immigration attitudes, they provide a broad coverage of all 27 EU countries. Also, they include two questions, which could be considered as (crude) proxies for civics and culturals, namely, whether respondents feel (a) attached to Europe and (b) to the EU. We code respondents who are ‘very attached’ to the EU but not to Europe as civics, and vice versa for culturals. With these data and coding, we can first provide a broad overview regarding the general immigration attitudes of culturals and civics and, second, derive an empirically informed selection of countries for the subsequent main analyses.
Culturals hold more restrictive immigration attitudes
The cultural conception is more rigid in its discrimination between the in-group and out-group, compared to the civic, because the othering (ie the definition of who does not belong to the European community) is based on a stronger demarcation line between the in-group and out-group (Blinder and Markaki, Reference Blinder and Markaki2019; Lindstam et al., Reference Lindstam, Mader and Schoen2021; König, Reference König2024). This rigid demarcation is not limited to European identities but also characterises national identity when conceived in cultural terms, where belonging is often tied to ancestry, heritage, or ethno-cultural markers (Smith, Reference Smith1998). In contrast, civic identity is based on values to which all individuals can subscribe (Wright et al., Reference Wright, Citrin and Wand2012). This suggests that culturals hold more restrictive attitudes towards immigration than civics (very generally speaking). To evaluate this hypothesis, we use as a dependent variable the Eurobarometer question asking respondents whether immigration of people from outside the EU evokes a positive or negative feeling in them. The answer categories are ‘very positive’, ‘fairly positive’, ‘fairly negative’, and ‘very negative’. The main explanatory variable is a broad distinction between culturals and civics, on the basis of the Eurobarometer, measured as attachments to Europe or the EU on a scale from 1 to 4.Footnote 1 Besides the European identity variables, we include in the model measures for exclusive national identity (ie respondents who are ‘fairly attached’ or ‘very attached’ to their country but not to Europe and the EU), gender, place of residence (rural or urban), age, left-right self-placement, and education. We run a linear regression with country-fixed effects for the analysis of the difference between civics and culturals (while controlling for individual-level factors and country differences).
As expected, the estimates reported in Figure 1 show that civics are more supportive of immigration than culturals. Having a strong attachment to the EU correlates positively and strongly with a favourable attitude towards immigration from outside the EU (0.27) compared to individuals with a cultural European identity. This difference between civics and culturals is particularly notable as we also account for individuals’ national identity, which, not surprisingly, is also a very strong predictor of restrictive immigration attitudes.Footnote 2
Figure 1. Linear regression estimates with country-fixed effects (positive effects indicate that a factor is associated with less restrictive immigration attitudes). Data: Eurobarometer 93.1 (European Commission, 2022a).
Country case selection
Due to limited resources, we had to restrict the data collection for our main empirical analysis with our own data to seven countries. For the selection of these seven countries, our attempt was to cover a broad range in terms of the distribution of culturals and civics among all 27 EU countries. With this strategy, we avoid biases stemming from the country case selection. To that end, we estimate the average attachments to Europe and the EU for all 27 EU countries using the Eurobarometer data. Figure 2 shows the distribution of EU member states along the two axes, displaying the mean attachment to Europe and the EU.
Figure 2. Mean attachment to the EU and to Europe for EU member states in 2022. Data: Eurobarometer 96.3 (European Commission, 2022b).
The countries line up on the diagonal from weak to strong cultural and civic identities, suggesting that the two dimensions are not orthogonal. In the upper left corner are the populations of Sweden and Finland, which are, on average, more strongly attached to Europe than they are to the EU, reflecting Nordic Euroscepticism (Raunio, Reference Raunio2007). The lack of countries in the lower right corner shows that no population is, on average, more attached to the EU than to Europe. For the analysis with our own original data, we selected France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden (coloured red in Figure 2).Footnote 3 Hungary and Poland represent countries with high attachments to the EU and Europe, while the Greeks have a low attachment to Europe and to the EU. The citizens of France, Germany, and Italy have, on average, moderate attachments to Europe and the EU. As discussed above, the Eurobarometer questions do not measure precisely the civic and cultural forms of European identities. Rather, they serve as approximations, and the data analyses suggest that we find differences in general immigration attitudes between culturals and civics, and they help us to derive a systematic selection of seven countries for our main analysis.
Theoretical considerations and expectations
As discussed above, we build on the different strands of literature on national identity, social identity, and multilevel citizenship with the ambition to advance the conception of European self-identification. The following theorises more clearly the civic and cultural European identity types, and how they relate to immigration attitudes.
Civic European identity
The civic conception of European identity is based on a set of common values and is linked to the EU as a political entity (Pichler, Reference Pichler2008). Article 2 of the EU Treaty defines these shared common values as ‘human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities’. This definition of common norms provides the most basic formulation of the shared values. EU citizenship is the formal expression of joint citizenship in the European in-group, which includes, beyond Article 2, political and legal rights and is supposed to foster a sense of EU identity (Weinar, Reference Weinar2019; Geddes et al., Reference Geddes, Hadj Abdou and Brumat2020). Risse (Reference Risse2010, 51) offers a broader definition, referring to ‘a modern, democratic, secular, and cosmopolitan value community’.
Civic European identity is thus linked to the EU as the supranational entity setting the space and parameters for the construction of the in-group (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, Reference Genschel and Jachtenfuchs2018; Royuela and López-Bazo, Reference Royuela and López-Bazo2020). Accordingly, citizens of EU member states are expected to shift parts of their identity to the EU as an additional ‘venue for political activities and loyalty’ through transnational interactions and the substantial shifts of government authority to the EU (Fligstein et al., Reference Fligstein, Polyakova and Sandholtz2012, 107). In this process, they develop the perception that citizens of other EU member states are their fellow Europeans (Kuhn, Reference Kuhn2015; Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018). Civic European identity is based on the fundamental values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, freedom, and equality, and links the in-group to the institutions and jurisdiction of the EU.
Cultural European identity
The cultural conception builds on the adherence to a historical and religious heritage that is specific to Europe (Risse, Reference Risse2010; Bergbauer, Reference Bergbauer2018; Glencross, Reference Glencross2020). From this perspective, the people of Europe share a common culture with several components. One of which is the religious reference to Christianity as an essential feature of Europeanness (McLaren, Reference McLaren2007). The view that Turkey is a ‘Muslim country that does not belong to Europe because it does not share its cultural heritage and its Christian tradition’ reflects this (Risse, Reference Risse2010, 52). Another component is the glorification of the Westphalian order of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a model for a successful system of interstate relations (Glencross, Reference Glencross2020). Culturals also refer to historical eras, such as the Age of Enlightenment or the Renaissance (Risse, Reference Risse2010; Pichler, Reference Pichler2008). Precisely pinpointing the cultural elements is challenging because the different references are politically constructed, and their interpretation varies. Nonetheless, the shared basic elements of culturals are that Europeans are perceived to share a common heritage, which has religious and historical components.
A distinctive feature of this cultural construction is that European identity is not bound to the EU. The people of Europe are believed to form a community stemming from a common historical and religious heritage, not through shared institutions. Radical right parties have also adopted such a narrative by emphasising ‘Europe for Europeans’ (Checkel and Katzenstein, Reference Checkel, Katzenstein, Checkel and Katzenstein2009, 2), as in contrast to the ‘civic-liberal inclusiveness of European identity’ (Pytlas, Reference Pytlas2021, 339). The definition of the in-group thus relies on a cultural conception of ‘closeness’ or ‘cultural match’ with historical and religious connotations (Maier and Rittberger, Reference Maier and Rittberger2008; Fligstein et al., Reference Fligstein, Polyakova and Sandholtz2012, 258).
How European identities relate to immigration attitudes
The empirical findings on how European identity relates to immigration attitudes are mixed. While one strand of research submits that some form of European identity influences attitudes towards immigration and migration policy (McLaren, Reference McLaren2001; Curtis, Reference Curtis2014; Blinder and Markaki, Reference Blinder and Markaki2019; Basile and Olmastroni, Reference Basile and Olmastroni2020; Karstens, Reference Karstens2020b), others find very small or no effects (Kessler and Freeman, Reference Kessler and Freeman2005; Vasilopoulou and Talving, Reference Vasilopoulou and Talving2019; Karstens, Reference Karstens2020a). Part of the mixed evidence stems from underdeveloped theoretical conceptualisations of European identities (and empirical limitations). With our distinct theoretical definition of two identity types, we go beyond existing scholarship. Our analysis follows the literature studying the characteristics of immigrants as measures of attitudes (Bansak et al., Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2016; Bansak et al., Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2023; Valentino et al., Reference Valentino, Soroka, Iyengar, Aalberg, Duch, Fraile, Hahn, Hansen, Harell, Helbling, Jackman and Kobayashi2019; Ford and Mellon, Reference Ford and Mellon2020; Arias and Blair, Reference Arias and Blair2022; Abdelaaty and Steele, Reference Abdelaaty and Steele2022). On the most general level, our theoretical argument submits that the definition of the in-group sets the parameters of who belongs to the community and thus explains attitudes towards immigrants. Building on this premise and the two conceptions of cultural and civic European identities, we derive several expectations about value congruence of immigrants and the mismatch of their personal characteristics with the in-group.
The arguments on value congruence advance the literature on immigration attitudes, which has so far ignored that the values of immigrants affect the perception of citizens in their evaluative judgements. We submit that the extent to which the values of immigrants are congruent with Europeans’ values affects the admission decision. Both identity conceptions build on a set of values, which are shared by the in-group. Immigrants seeking to come to Europe can, to a greater or lesser extent, share the values of the in-group. Although there are value differences between civics and culturals, both refer to value-based proximity to the in-group, largely defined as European citizens. Europeans of both types of identities are thus expected to prefer immigrants who share European values linked to the EU and Europe. The more nuanced value congruence hypotheses further expect that civics and culturals prefer immigrants who share core values linked to their specific conceptions as civic or cultural Europeans. Accordingly, we formulate the following three value congruence expectations:
E1: All Europeans prioritise immigrants who share European in-group values.
E2: Civics prioritise even more strongly immigrants who believe in the values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, freedom, and equality.
E3: Culturals prioritise even more strongly immigrants who admire the European Christian and cultural heritage.
In line with other research, we submit that the mismatch of personal characteristics with the in-group matters. Europeans derive perceptions of the closeness of immigrants to the in-group from personal characteristics, such as the country of origin, religion, and family status. Immigrants deemed closer to the in-group are given priority. For example, immigrants from Afghanistan are more likely to be rejected, as they are perceived to be culturally more distant from Europe in comparison to immigrants from Ukraine or Albania. This is even more strongly the case for culturals, as the cultural conception provides for clearer heuristics for identifying the mismatch of an immigrant to the in-group based on personal characteristics. Besides the country of origin, women with children may be prioritised because they resemble the Christian family ideal. The strongest link for culturals, compared to civics, is to the religion of an immigrant in favour of Christians and against Muslims. Taking all of these considerations together, we formulate the following expectations:
E4: Europeans are more likely to reject immigrants from distant countries, such as Afghanistan, and they prioritise Christians and women with children.
E5: These effects of personal characteristics are stronger for culturals compared to civics.
Conjoint analysis
We fielded our surveys with Kantar from 15 March 2023 to 18 April 2023. The total sample includes 10,285 completed responses by individuals between the ages of 18 and 85 years who are citizens of the respective EU member states (slightly less than 1,500 respondents per country). More information on the survey can be found in the Appendix. The sampling strategy was based on quotas for age and gender, which were met, except for the oldest age bracket in Greece (75–85). Furthermore, we checked whether the shares of party sympathy per country corresponded to the party strength in the last election (to ensure that our sample is representative of the political landscape). This was the case for most parties and countries, with the exception of centre-right voters in Hungary and Poland, who are slightly under-represented. We present in the article the results from the unweighted sample as the main analysis and robust findings with stratified samples in Appendix D.
To precisely measure civics and culturals, our survey includes four questions about the different dimensions of the civic and cultural conceptions based on the theoretical elaboration discussed above (two for each). More precisely, we ask respondents how important on a scale from 1 (not important at all) to 5 (absolutely essential) the following two dimensions are for their identity as Europeans:
Civic: (a) a common belief in democratic institutions and the rule of law and (b) values such as respect for human rights, freedom, and equality
Cultural: (a) a common European cultural and historical heritage and (b) a common Christian tradition
To derive a relative estimate ranging from -8 (distinctively cultural) to 8 (distinctively civic), we estimate the sum of these two dimensions and the differences between the two scores. Accordingly, we classify respondents with negative values on this relative score as culturals and those with positive values as civics. This measure also lends itself to a straightforward classification of a reference group with a score of 0, which we call the undefined group, as respondents of this group subscribe to both sets of values to an equal extent. Our sample includes 1,139 culturals, 6,245 civics, and 2,284 with an undefined European identity. Civics thus clearly outnumber culturals, and a substantial share of respondents does not prioritise either civic or cultural values. Figure 3 shows the distribution of our respondents on the identity spectrum with different colouring shades for culturals, undefined, and civics. This distribution also aligns with the conception of an assimilationist and ethno-cultural understanding of identity presented by Schildkraut (Reference Schildkraut2013) in the American context.
Figure 3. Distribution of culturals, undefined, and civics.
Of course, identities are not unrelated to other factors, such as left-right political orientation, gender, or education. Figure 4 shows the distributions of self-placement on the left-right scale for civics, culturals, and the undefined. The differences are as expected (ie culturals are the most right-wing), but even for this political variable, for which we find the strongest correlation with the identity types, the differences are small. Appendix A2 reports how civics, culturals, and the undefined differ along political and socio-demographic characteristics, providing a clearer picture of who is part of these groups. Overall, we do find differences, as one would expect them, but these differences are small, suggesting that our identity-categorisation is not mimicking one specific variable but captures a genuine, independent factor. It is also important to emphasise that the common characteristic of the undefined is not that they do not share European values. Rather, they subscribe to the core values of culturals and civics to the same extent, meaning that they do not discriminate between the two sets of values, which makes this an excellent reference group for the investigation of the differences between culturals and civics (see Appendix A2).
Figure 4. Distribution of left-right self-placement by identity groups.
For the analysis of how culturals and civics relate to immigration attitudes, we rely on conjoint experiments in which we ask respondents whom they would rather give priority to being admitted to their country. Conjoint experiments are a powerful method to investigate multidimensional preferences (Hainmueller et al., Reference Hainmueller, Hopkins and Yamamoto2014, Reference Hainmueller, Hangartner and Yamamoto2015), and they have been applied in research on immigration preferences (Hainmueller and Hopkins, Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2015; Bansak et al., Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2016; Spilker et al., Reference Spilker, Nguyen, Koubi and Böhmelt2020; Jeannet et al., Reference Jeannet, Heidland and Ruhs2021; Letki et al., Reference Letki, Walentek, Dinesen and Liebe2025). The profiles of immigrants in our surveys are composed of the attributes theorised above, which are adherence to cultural or civic values, country of origin, religion, education, gender and family attributes, and education. Following the conjoint approach, we show pairwise comparisons and randomly vary the expressions of these attributes and the order in which they are presented. Each respondent evaluates seven pairs of hypothetical immigrant profiles, deciding which one they would rather see admitted.Footnote 4 Table 1 provides an overview of the immigrant attributes and possible expressions thereof, including the reference categories (in bold). Appendix G presents diagnostic checks following Hainmueller et al. (Reference Hainmueller, Hopkins and Yamamoto2014) and Leeper et al. (Reference Leeper, Hobolt and Tilley2020) for subgroup analyses and a power analysis for our main results.Footnote 5
Table 1. Profiles of immigrants in the conjoint survey
Findings
We report the average marginal component effects (AMCEs), as they allow for an evaluation of the causal effects of the different characteristics of immigrants on the admission decision. Comparing the AMCEs between culturals, undefined, and civics shows which characteristics of immigrants influence the choice of respondents to give priority in admission decisions and whether there are differences in these effects between the three groups of European (for the descriptive levels of preferences with respect to specific attributes, see the marginal means reported in Appendix D2). When comparing subgroups, AMCEs are sensitive to the chosen reference category, but they allow us to investigate the causal effects of immigrant attributes while still contextualising the general subgroup preference levels (Leeper et al., Reference Leeper, Hobolt and Tilley2020).
The main results of the conjoint analysis are reported in Figure 5 (see Appendix D1 for the estimation tables). The estimates in the left plot indicate whether (and by how much) the specific attribute increases or decreases the probability of a profile being chosen by culturals, civics, and the reference category. The right plot indicates whether the effects are statistically different for civics and culturals compared to the reference group (ie the undefined). The comparison to the reference group in the right plot is particularly relevant for our analysis, as it allows for a precise evaluation of whether we find statistically significant differences between culturals and civics.
Figure 5. Average marginal component effects (AMCEs) of immigrant profile attributes on support for admission (left plot). Estimates with 95% confidence intervals show changes in the probability of giving priority to the admission of immigrants with a specific attribute, compared to the reference attribute in that group (see Table 1 above). The right plot reports whether the effects for civics and culturals are statistically different compared to the reference category of the undefined.
Let us start with the novel hypotheses of this inquiry on value congruence. E1 predicts that Europeans prefer immigrants who share the in-group values associated with both conceptions of European identities. The empirical findings corroborate that adherence to the cultural or civic set of values strongly increases the probability of a positive admission decision in all subgroups. The marginal means further emphasise the importance and strength of these effects (see Figure A7 in the Appendix), as they show that all respondents prioritise immigrants whose values are known (and correspond to European values) over immigrants whose values are unknown. It is noteworthy that the preference for an immigrant with no indication of values is as low as for immigrants with no formal education, illustrating the substantive size of this effect. Europeans thus strongly prioritise immigrants who share cultural or civic European values, as theorised by E1.
If we further investigate, as stipulated by E2 and E3, whether civics more strongly prioritise immigrants with civic values and culturals those with cultural values, the results are more nuanced. The left plot of Figure 5 shows that for both subgroups (and the undefined), adherence to one or the other set of values is important, while civics make a difference between cultural and civic values. The effect of adherence to civic values is much stronger than the effect of cultural values, supporting hypothesis E2. Culturals (and the undefined), in contrast, do not differentiate between the two value sets. We thus do not find empirical evidence for E3. The right plot further supports this finding by showing that for civics (compared to the undefined), sharing civic values has a clear positive effect on their prioritisation of immigrants with civic values. We thus find evidence for the more nuanced formulation of the value congruence as far as the civics are concerned (E2) but not for culturals (E3). Taken together, adherence of immigrants to civic and cultural values is very relevant in admission decisions across the board, while civics make a more systematic distinction by giving stronger priority to immigrants with civic values.
Finally, E4 predicts that Europeans derive perceptions about immigrants from personal characteristics, such as the country of origin, and E5 stipulates that these effects are stronger for culturals compared to civics. The left plot of Figure 5 shows that being from Afghanistan and Albania has a negative effect (compared to India) on the admission decision, while being from Ukraine and the United Kingdom (UK) has a positive effect for respondents of all three subgroups. We find, as expected by E4, a clear selection pattern based on cultural closeness – with Afghanistan as the most distant country of origin, India and Albania in the middle, and the UK and Ukraine as closest (see also the marginal means in Figure A7 of the Appendix). That EU citizens evaluate Albanians like Indians is noteworthy, given that Albania has been granted EU candidate status.
When we zoom in on the differences among subgroups, we find two significant results in the right plot. First, the negative effect on admission decisions for Afghans is less pronounced for civics and strongest for culturals. This supports E5, which submits that culturals draw a stronger demarcation line based on the non-European origin of Afghan immigrants compared to civics. Second, if we look at the UK, we find an additional interesting difference: being from the UK leads to a more critical evaluation by civics and a strongly positive one by culturals. We did not anticipate this finding, which points to distinct territorial evaluations by Europeans that, nonetheless, align with our theoretical differentiation between culturals and civics. Culturals build more on Europe as a boundary and draw a stronger demarcation to immigrants from non-European countries, such as Afghanistan. Civics, on the contrary, integrate the EU as a relevant border in their supranational self-identification, as the more recent literature on multilevel citizenship suggests (Maas, Reference Maas, Shachar, Bauböck, Bloemraad and Vink2017). This may explain why civics, who are strongly tied to the EU institutions and its territory, have a more unfavourable view towards citizens from the UK, after Brexit. They take the withdrawal from EU membership negatively into account (also on the level of individuals). For culturals, however, the relevant territorial border is (non-)European, not (non-)EU, and therefore they have a positive stance towards immigrants from the UK.
Religion also matters as hypothesised by E4 and E5. All three subgroups are much more critical of Muslims and give priority to Christians, as compared to immigrants with no religion. This is in line with the established findings of an ‘anti-Muslim bias’ (Kalkan et al., Reference Kalkan, Layman and Uslaner2009; Bansak et al., Reference Bansak, Hainmueller and Hangartner2016; König, Reference König2024). What is interesting is that the effect of Christianity, as compared to no religion, is also strong for civics, who subscribe to values that have no religious connotation. In line with E5, this pro-Christianity effect is weaker among civics compared to the reference group (ie the undefined, see the right plot of Figure 5). We also stipulate that women with children resemble the Christian family ideal and might, therefore, be given priority (E4), particularly by culturals (E5). The findings show that a woman (with children) indeed has a higher probability of being given priority in admission than a man for all three subgroups. The effects of the gender and family attributes are, however, not significantly different among the subgroups, with one exception: women with children. Here, the effect is even stronger for civics (compared to the undefined and culturals), which is contrary to E5. Thus, when it comes to gender and family characteristics, our theoretical expectations with respect to the difference between civics and culturals do not hold. An explanation for why civics prioritise women with children so strongly could be that they attest a higher vulnerability to women with children and a stronger need for protection and help. Lastly, the literature has established that education and associated labour market skills are relevant for admission decisions (Hainmueller and Hopkins, Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2015; König, Reference König2024). Our results confirm this finding. All subgroups clearly prefer well-educated professionals, while this effect is strongest for civics.
To evaluate whether the reported differences between civics and culturals can be explained by other factors, we also separate our sample according to political orientation (left-right) and education levels and run the same conjoint analyses (see Appendix E). Three findings are noteworthy. First, the correlation between identity types and left-right political orientation is rather low (at 0.3). Second, while left voters have similar preferences as civics, the differences between left and right voters are much less pronounced compared to the differences between civics and culturals, particularly as far as the value congruence hypotheses are concerned. Third, we see even smaller effects in the comparison between highly and less educated citizens, suggesting that socio-economic determinants are less relevant for our analysis. These additional results, reported in Appendix E, suggest that other factors do not drive our results (but the results also show that identity is not unrelated to political and socio-economic factors). Finally, we run our main analyses for each country separately to test whether our findings are only observable in a subset of countries (see Appendix F). Overall, the results show again that the main effects are not driven by one or two specific countries in the sample.
Taking all of these findings together, we find strong evidence that Europeans prefer immigrants with similar values (E1). Civics put more emphasis on value congruence, as they are particularly benevolent with immigrants who share their civic values (E2), while culturals do not prioritise their cultural set of values (over civic values), which is evidence against E3. Europeans from both identity types evaluate immigrants based on their closeness to the in-group (E4). Ukrainians and UK citizens are most likely to be admitted, while the rejection is highest for Afghans and Muslims. As far as the distinction between culturals and civics is concerned, we find that culturals delineate more strongly in terms of the country of origin and religion (E5). However, we also find that civics are particularly benevolent towards women with children and well-educated immigrants, which was not anticipated by our theory.
Conclusion
This article contributes to the scholarship on civic and cultural expressions of European identities and advances the literature by studying how European identities explain immigration attitudes. Moreover, our analysis focuses on values, also with respect to the values of immigrants, and develops a set of hypotheses on value congruence between immigrants and European citizens. This analytical perspective submits that not only the personal characteristics of immigrants but also their values are critical factors for Europeans in admission decisions.
The empirical findings show that culturals hold more restrictive immigration attitudes than civics and that both identity types strongly rely on the distinction between the in-group and out-group in their admission decisions. The values and personal characteristics of immigrants matter, as expected, and they do so to a very substantial degree. Knowing that an immigrant shares either civic or cultural values increases the probability of a positive assessment by respondents across the board, while the congruence of an immigrant’s values with their own values is even more important for civics. Moreover, EU citizens prioritise immigrants from Ukraine and the UK (compared to Afghans, Albanians, and Indians), Christians over Muslims, women (with children), and well-educated professionals. The rejection of Afghans and Muslims is stronger among culturals, while civics discriminate more strongly based on education and gender, and they are more sceptical towards UK citizens (which may be related to Brexit and a negative evaluation of the EU withdrawal by civics).
Apart from the differences between civics and culturals, a main finding of our investigation is that othering is a powerful driver of admission decisions across the board, which is consistent with previous research (Hainmueller and Hopkins, Reference Hainmueller and Hopkins2015). The more distant an immigrant is perceived to be, based on personal characteristics and values, the less likely they are to be admitted by Europeans, also by civics. In other words, differences in European self-identification reveal interesting nuances, but the overall decision pattern of Europeans is a strong and predictable tendency to make admission decisions based on othering. Civics, in this respect, despite their more inclusive values, are not fundamentally different from culturals.
This takes us back to the basic question of how in-groups are defined, which is an inherently political process. In this analysis, we relied on the conception of political identities, which also means that there is a strong overlap between the perception of self-identification and the broader political orientations that European citizens have. The resulting self-identification as a civic or cultural European is related to fundamental divides between liberals and conservatives (or the left and the right, while the analysis of the data has also shown that this correlation is not strong). Clearly, such political views and identities are formed by the political context. As far as migration politics is concerned, the political environment is politicised by right-wing parties, media coverage, and external events, which all shape attitudes and influence the formation of in-group and out-group dynamics. As we have also emphasised in the discussion of identities, all of these processes unfold on the local, national, and European levels.
This dynamic, multilevel, and highly complex process of norm and identity formation is critical for a full-fledged understanding of immigration attitudes, and the study thereof will continue to be a key topic, as migration policy will likely be highly politicised in European politics, also in the years to come. The question arises whether the political debates on immigration (re)establish clear norms and criteria on humanitarian grounds and the principle of solidarity, which seem to be eroding. Establishing such norms eventually is the attempt to move migration policies and admission decisions beyond simple othering criteria. This is particularly relevant as far as admission policies are targeted at immigrants who are perceived to be more distant in terms of values, culture, religion, or socio-economic characteristics. Our findings highlight this point because Europeans (across the board) have a strong tendency to evaluate immigrants based on straightforward othering considerations. If the notions of solidarity and humanitarian reasons in debates on immigration continue to erode, migration policy will shift even further in the direction of evaluations based on simple othering considerations, as the results of this analysis suggest.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100261.
Data availability statement
The data of this study are available within the article’s supplementary materials. We received ethical clearance from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Social Sciences of the University of Bern (serial number 352022) for the survey, and all participants provided their consent prior to taking part in the survey.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the Annual Conferences of the SVPW in 2021 and 2023, EPSA 2021 and 2023, APSA 2022, and ECPR 2022 and the SVPW European Politics Workshop, Comparative Multilevel Citizenship Workshop at York University, and the IPW Research Seminar 2022. We are grateful to all participants and discussants for their valuable comments. We are particularly thankful to Philipp Lutz, Giorgio Malet, Frank Schimmelfennig, Dominik Schraff, Ronja Sczepanski, and Steffen Wamsler for their helpful feedback. We also would like to thank Mirco Good, John Gusset, Sarah Kuhn, and Monica Loi for their excellent research assistance. Special thanks go to Karel Ziehli, Maxime Walder, Natasha Wunsch, Jonas Tallberg, Edina Szöcsik, Aron Szekely, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, Giorgio Malet, Magnus Lundgren, Alsena Kokalari, Krzysztof Krakowski, Vally Koubi, Giada Gianola, Maximilian Filsinger, Gracia Brückmann, Endre Borbáth, Leandra Bias, and Daniel Auer for their expertise in setting up and fielding the survey. All errors remain our own.
Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist in relation to this work.
Notes on Contributors
Fabio Wasserfallen is Professor of European Politics and Director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research interests include European integration, the institutions and politics of the European Union, public opinion, policy diffusion, federalism, and direct democracy. ORCID-iD 0000-0002-5157-7163
Théoda Woeffray holds a PhD from the Institute of Political Science of the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her research interests lie in the fields of migration politics and European studies, with a particular emphasis on public opinion on immigration (policy) and the preferences of different political actors within the Schengen and Dublin frameworks. ORCID-iD 0000-0003-0219-5588
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