Instrumental explanations of attitudes towards immigrants during the “refugee crisis”: Evidence from Italy

Has the refugee crisis changed the impact of different instrumental explanations of public views on immigration, and why? This study, focusing mainly on neighbourhood safety, contact theory and economic competition from a longitudinal perspective, investigates how and why theoretical approaches to public opinion on immigrants change during massive immigration flows. To this end, we take the example of Italy, where the refugee crisis affecting Europe since 2015 has generated an unprecedented number of arrivals, inflaming public debate and influencing both policy choices and party positions. By using the European Social Survey from the period 2003–2017, we show that in the context of an extreme event, such as the refugee crisis affecting Italy, the explanatory power of the economic competition approach increases, realigning the traditional north-south divide on negative views about immigrants.