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Immigrants' economic progress, on the one hand, serves as an indicator of successful integration and should serve to mitigate natives' concerns about potential economic or welfare state–related burdens of immigration. On the other hand, the fact of immigrants improving their social status may also induce perceptions of competition and group-related relative deprivation. This study examines whether immigrants' progress leads either to improved attitudes toward immigrants or to a greater perception of immigration-related threat. Specifically, I focus on how individuals' egalitarian values and experiences in intergroup contact condition their responses to immigrants' economic progress. Using data from the European Social Survey 2014, combined with country-level change scores in income gaps between natives and immigrants, I find that respondents who encountered negative experiences in intergroup contact respond to immigrants' progress with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment. A survey experiment manipulating exposure to information about group-specific income trends mirrors this finding. The results have important implications for debates about immigrants' integration and the economic motives underlying immigration-related attitudes.

Public policies addressing societal problems typically aim to change citizens' behaviors and attitudes. While scholars frequently link cross-national differences in specific policies with individuals' attitudinal or behavioral outcomes, the specific operating mechanisms often remain veiled. The policy feedback literature provides an explanatory framework for how policies affect citizens' political orientations and behavior, which in turn has an impact on subsequent policy developments. This article provides an overview of policy feedback mechanisms, and reviews comparative empirical studies that link policy indicators and forms of individual-level political engagement. As illustrative examples, Ihave focused on social policies and immigrant integration policies as two widely publicized policy areas. Since the identification of policy effects is challenging for anumber of methodological reasons, Ialso discuss advances related to empirical design. ZusammenfassungPolitische Ma ss nahmen, die gesellschaftliche Probleme angehen, zielen in der Regel auf Verhaltens- und Einstellungsanderungen der Burgerinnen und Burger ab. Auch werden innerhalb der empirisch-vergleichenden politischen Soziologie landerubergreifende Unterschiede in Institutionen und Policies zur Erklarung von Einstellungs- und Verhaltensunterschieden genutzt. Allerdings werden dabei die Vermittlungsmechanismen zwischen Politik und Individuum oftmals nicht hinreichend spezifiziert und getestet. Die Policy-Feedback-Literatur bietet einen Theorierahmen, um Policies mit politischen Orientierungen und Verhaltensweisen zu verknupfen. In dem vorliegenden Artikel wird ein uberblick uber Policy-Feedback-Mechanismen und entsprechende empirische Studien gegeben. Zur weiteren Verdeutlichung werden vergleichende Untersuchungen zur Wirkung von wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Sozialpolitik sowie Integrationspolitik auf politisches Engagement vorgestellt und diskutiert. Da die Identifizierung kausaler Effekte im Rahmen der Policy-Forschung eine Herausforderung darstellt, wird abschlie ss end auf methodische Weiterentwicklungen eingegangen.

Immigrants and ethnic minority members typically hold lower levels of social trust than majority members due to fewer socio-economic resources and a higher risk of discrimination. While institutional factors are a strong predictor for different levels of social trust across countries, we know little about whether and how institutional and political contexts influence group-related differences in trust within societies. This study examines how institutional fairness and anti-discrimination policies influence social trust gaps between natives and immigrants as well as ethnic minority members. Offering a nuanced perspective, I argue that regulations promoting equal treatment may also have unintended consequences on ethnic minority trust by increasing the sensitivity towards remaining inequalities and discriminatory practices. Multilevel models test the theoretical arguments using repeated cross-sectional survey data from European countries merged with time series information on political context. The results show that an increase in institutional fairness is related to widening social trust gaps. Findings from additional tests on potential mechanisms suggest that institutional fairness promotes norms of equal treatment which in turn magnify the extent to which ethnic discrimination impedes social trust.

The enactment and implementation of European Union Directives on antidiscrimination have received substantial scholarly attention. However, there is little knowledge about whether and how antidiscrimination measures influence citizens' experiences and perceptions of discrimination. This study investigates the relationship between antidiscrimination policies, citizens' knowledge in this policy area, and their handling of discrimination. Using data from a standardized policy indicator and repeated cross-sectional survey waves of EU countries, I first examine the relationship between antidiscrimination policy and societal levels of knowledge about victims' rights. Subsequently, multilevel models test how differences in policy and knowledge levels predict individuals' reported levels of experienced and perceived discrimination. The results show that people who live in countries with effective antidiscrimination laws know more about their rights to equal treatment than those from countries with less effective policies. For the most part, policy differences across countries are unsystematically related to discrimination-related outcomes. However, an increase in knowledge levels over time is associated with higher reports about witnessed discrimination, lower sociotropic perceptions of discrimination, and less individual self-identification with a discriminated group. The findings suggest that, to the extent that antidiscrimination policies foster knowledge of the law, they contribute to citizens' awareness and empowerment against discrimination.

AbstractThis study examines citizens' support for state surveillance, contingent upon factors related to policy design and the context of implementation. While most people want to live in a secure environment, we argue in this study that the support of policies to reach this goal depends on their necessity, extensiveness and reliability. Results from survey experiments in four European countries show that citizens are ready to approve the introduction of far‐reaching state surveillance that includes measures of facial recognition and motion detection. Public support is further enhanced if these measures are to be targeted at potential criminals, rather than at all citizens (i.e., policy extensiveness), as well as if a safety threat is salient (i.e., policy necessity). Concerns about data security reduce support (i.e., policy reliability). While these conditions matter for the support of specific policies, they do not influence how trustworthy citizens consider government and other political authorities to be.

This study investigates how antidiscrimination policy and related policy knowledge influence citizens' support for the democratic system and its institutions. The article argues that antidiscrimination measures and knowledge about rights to equal treatment foster perceptions of government responsiveness, which increase political support among target groups and citizens who advocate egalitarianism. Utilizing a longitudinal design and more valid measures to resolve causality issues, the results of the empirical models show that increases in policy knowledge over time systematically predict higher political support, especially among individuals who hold egalitarian values. Individuals who are discriminated against express particularly high political support in contexts where antidiscrimination laws are expanded. Overall, the results amplify the role of policy knowledge as a key factor in studying policy feedback effects.

This study investigates how antidiscrimination policy and related policy knowledge influence citizens' support for the democratic system and its institutions. The article argues that antidiscrimination measures and knowledge about rights to equal treatment foster perceptions of government responsiveness, which increase political support among target groups and citizens who advocate egalitarianism. Utilizing a longitudinal design and more valid measures to resolve causality issues, the results of the empirical models show that increases in policy knowledge over time systematically predict higher political support, especially among individuals who hold egalitarian values. Individuals who are discriminated against express particularly high political support in contexts where antidiscrimination laws are expanded. Overall, the results amplify the role of policy knowledge as a key factor in studying policy feedback effects.

This study investigates how antidiscrimination policy and related policy knowledge influence citizens' support for the democratic system and its institutions. The article argues that antidiscrimination measures and knowledge about rights to equal treatment foster perceptions of government responsiveness, which increase political support among target groups and citizens who advocate egalitarianism. Utilizing a longitudinal design and more valid measures to resolve causality issues, the results of the empirical models show that increases in policy knowledge over time systematically predict higher political support, especially among individuals who hold egalitarian values. Individuals who are discriminated against express particularly high political support in contexts where antidiscrimination laws are expanded. Overall, the results amplify the role of policy knowledge as a key factor in studying policy feedback effects.

This study investigates how antidiscrimination policy and related policy knowledge influence citizens' support for the democratic system and its institutions. The article argues that antidiscrimination measures and knowledge about rights to equal treatment foster perceptions of government responsiveness, which increase political support among target groups and citizens who advocate egalitarianism. Utilizing a longitudinal design and more valid measures to resolve causality issues, the results of the empirical models show that increases in policy knowledge over time systematically predict higher political support, especially among individuals who hold egalitarian values. Individuals who are discriminated against express particularly high political support in contexts where antidiscrimination laws are expanded. Overall, the results amplify the role of policy knowledge as a key factor in studying policy feedback effects.

Tolerating others' opinions, even if disliked, is a cornerstone of liberal democracy. At the same time, there are limits to political tolerance as tolerating extremists and groups who use violence would threaten the foundations of tolerance itself. We study people's willingness to set limits to tolerance in case of violence and extremism (scope of tolerance)—under different conditions regarding ideological groups (left-wing, right-wing, religious) and offline/online contexts of free speech. Using data from a large-scale survey experiment conducted in Germany, we show that citizens clearly set limits to tolerance of different groups, especially if the latter have violent intentions, and that people tend to be more tolerant online than offline. Moreover, we find that citizens are more tolerant toward groups that are closer to their own ideological stance. However, violence disrupts such an ideological bias as respondents across the ideological spectrum exhibit low levels of tolerance toward violent groups—irrespectively of their political stance. Our findings highlight the importance of situational factors as foundations of judgments on the limits to tolerance.