Diversity and welfare state legitimacy in Europe. The challenge of intra-EU migration

It has convincingly been argued that in the United States, immigration is detrimental to welfare state support. In Europe, on the other hand, there is little evidence for such a negative relationship. This article examines whether a particular type of immigration – rapidly escalating intra-European Union (EU) immigration – reduces public support for the welfare state. We argue that because EU states cannot discriminate against resident EU nationals from other countries in the field of social security, intra-EU immigration will negatively affect attitudes towards welfare spending. To test this expectation, we use data from the European Social Survey of 2008, among other sources. The results of our multilevel analyses document a negative relationship between intra-EU immigration and welfare state support, supporting our hypothesis.

已有颇具说服力的论证表明，在美国，移民对民众的福利国家支持度存在负面影响。而在欧洲，鲜有证据表明存在此类负相关关系。本文旨在探讨一类特定的移民——即快速增长的欧盟内部（intra-European Union, EU）移民——是否会削弱公众对福利国家的支持。我们提出，由于欧盟成员国无法在社会保障领域歧视来自其他成员国的常住欧盟公民，因此欧盟内部移民会对公众的福利支出态度产生负面影响。为验证这一理论预期，我们除采用其他数据来源外，还使用了2008年欧洲社会调查（European Social Survey）的数据。本研究的多层分析结果证实，欧盟内部移民与民众对福利国家的支持度之间存在负相关关系，从而验证了本文的研究假设。