Replication Data for: The diffusion of racist violence in the Netherlands: Discourse and distance

This article illuminates the unanticipated but intense waves of xenophobia that have swept through Western Europe over the last decade. The author makes use of a unique dataset and diffusion models to simultaneously investigate the geographical and temporal development of waves of racist violence in the Netherlands during the turbulent period 2001–03, when the country lost its reputation as a multicultural paradise. The results provide evidence for the fact that previous riots enhance the legitimacy of violence elsewhere, especially if they are visible in the mass media, resonate with public debates on immigration and take place in nearby regions. Opposing previous research on mobilization, the analysis suggests that proxies for ethnic competition, deprivation and political opportunity structures are not significantly related to the outbreak of violence; only population size adequately predicts where violence starts. Together these findings suggest that waves of xenophobia develop in two steps: they start in large cities and subsequently spread to nearby places through geographically clustered networks and to more distant counties once they become visible and resonate in the mass media, turning violence from local deviance into a supra-local phenomenon. This process sheds light on how scales of protest shift and explains why seemingly tolerant regions can suddenly become xenophobic hotbeds.本文揭示了近十年间席卷西欧的、始料未及且愈演愈烈的排外主义浪潮。作者采用独特数据集与扩散模型（diffusion models），同步探究2001至2003年动荡时期荷兰境内种族主义暴力浪潮的时空演化特征——彼时荷兰正丧失其作为多元文化天堂的声誉。研究结果证实，此前发生的骚乱会强化其他地区暴力行为的合法性，尤其当骚乱通过大众媒体曝光、与移民议题的公共讨论产生共鸣，且发生在邻近区域时。本次分析与既往动员研究的结论相悖，结果显示：族群竞争、社会剥夺与政治机会结构（political opportunity structures）的代理变量（proxy）均与暴力事件的爆发无显著关联，唯有人口规模能够有效预测暴力事件的发生地点。综合上述研究结果可知，排外主义浪潮的演化分为两个阶段：首先在大城市爆发，随后通过地理集群网络向邻近地区扩散；而当浪潮通过大众媒体曝光并引发广泛共鸣后，便会蔓延至更远的县域，将暴力行为从地方性越轨行为转化为超地方性现象。这一过程阐释了抗议活动的尺度如何发生转变，同时解释了看似包容的地区为何会突然沦为排外主义温床。