Pew poll on European attitudes on immigration
interesting, but flawed, by Ann Corcoran 6/20/18
Pew
Research is trying to figure out attitudes in Europe about immigration I
suspect to gauge the political mood of the electorate. Pew on the hunt for Europe’s nationalists…..
I
predict that Sweden, the country with the least nationalist spirit, goes down
first!
I
was amused to see that the survey did not ask questions in Hungary, Poland, the
Czech Republic etc. where they might have found large numbers of respondents
blow up the survey with high scores. Including those countries (with huge
contrasting pro-nationalism scores) surely also would have encouraged more
bravery in Western Europe. Pew wouldn’t want that!
Because
I have to move on, I’m just going to give you the bare bones news here, but
please look at the survey questions. Glaringly missing, I thought,
were any questions along the lines of: I am not willing to support the welfare needs (housing, healthcare etc)
of an ever-increasing number of migrants. Although there were questions about
attitudes about certain lazy workers, there were no questions along the lines
of the cost of welfare for a never-ending flow of impoverished third-worlders
to Europe.
From Pew Research: Nationalist and anti-immigrant attitudes in Western
Europe have been an issue in a number of recent national elections around the
region, particularly after the influx in the past few years of refugees from
predominantly Muslim countries. But Western Europeans vary by country when it
comes to having positive or negative views about immigrants and religious
minorities, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
To
better examine the prevalence of these attitudes, the Center developed a scale to measure the extent
of Nationalist, anti-Immigrant and anti-religious Minority (NIM) sentiment. The NIM
scale combines answers to 22 survey questions on a wide range of issues
including views on Muslims, Jews and immigrants, as well as immigration policy.
Respondents’
scores increased if they said that immigration to their country should be
reduced; that they were unwilling to be neighbors or relatives with Muslims or
Jews; that immigrants from certain regions are not honest or hardworking; that
Islam is fundamentally incompatible with their national culture and values;
that being born in their country is important to being “truly French,” “truly
German,” etc.; and for expressing a host of other sentiments on related topics.
The higher the score, the more likely a respondent had expressed
nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-religious minority sentiments during the
survey. Scores on the scale range from 0 to 10.
Relatively
few adults in every country surveyed score above 5 on the scale. But there is
considerable variation across countries. In Sweden, just 8% of those surveyed scored
higher than 5, the lowest amount in any country, while in Italy, 38% did, the
highest share in any country. In most countries, the share scoring 5.01 or
higher was between 15% and 25%. For example, in both Norway and France, 19% of
respondents scored 5.01 or higher.
See
the graph (below), but again see the survey questions designed (I think) to keep the NIM
numbers low due to their sharp tone. And, as I said, there are no
questions about citizens financially supporting a migrant flow that shows no
end in sight. I think the NIM scale would be far different if questions about
welfare had been included.
But,
for Pew, and other Left-leaning organizations, it is all about anti-immigrant,
anti-religious minority sentiments rather than about simple commonsense about
whether countries and peoples can sustain the welfare costs of hundreds of
thousands of needy people flowing in.
Survey was done in 2017. Guess it
predicted the mood of the electorate for Austria and Italy which both elected
“Nationalist” governments!
See
my ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive and my huge Sweden archive too!
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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