Workshop on Immigrants, Integration and European Union Public Opinion Research

With the contributions of TOBB ETU Political Science Department lecturer Assoc. Dr. Cengiz Erişen and Izmir University of Economics, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Assoc. Dr. Turkey Cigdem Kentmen,  Academy of Sciences (TUBA) conducted a workshop on March 11, 2016. Rachid Azrout from the University of Amsterdam, Elif Erişen from Hacettepe University, André Krouwel from Vrije University in Amsterdam, Marcel Lubbers from Radboud University and Marco Steenbergen from the University of Zurich attended the workshop.

 In the workshop; studies on the attitudes of Muslims and migrants and their impact on EU integration policies were shared in this sensitive period, where Syrian migrants endangered their lives to cross the borders of the European Union (EU), Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks in November 2016, and anti-Muslim movements such as the Patriotic Europeans (PEGIDA) rising in Europe.  

The results of the workshop were announced and discussed in the EU. For example, the work of Rachid Azrout, which he asserted that EU citizens do not approach in the same way to all immigrants, for example, showed that the Dutch have different threat perceptions towards immigrants from Poland and Turkey. It was found out that Polish immigrants are considered an "economic threat" while the Turkish immigrants "threaten the common identity". Marco Steengerben, shared a study based on public opinion polls conducted in the UK, that argues citizens who consider Islam as a threat to British culture, are mainly opposed to EU integration as well. It was emphasized that while people with authoritarian personalities and right-wing ideologies consider migrants as threats to the country's culture, commitment to national identity and threat of immigrants to ethnic identity increases the vote for right-wing parties. The surveys conducted after the Paris attacks in November 2015 have also shown that Muslim migrants have increased the perception of political and social threats in Europe. On the other hand, the fact that immigrants living in Europe embraced more and more European identities as their identities were despised became one of the noteworthy findings in the research of the workshop participants. 

The articles presented in the workshop will be combined and published as a special issue in an academic journal.