Innvandring og velferdsstatens politiske bærekraft

• Finseraas, Henning; Hanson, Torbjørn; Johnsen, Åshild Auglænd; Kotsadam, Andreas & Torsvik, Gaute (2019). Trust, ethnic diversity, and personal contact: A field experiment. Journal of Public Economics. 173. doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.02.002. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We study how close personal contact with minorities affects in-group and out-group trust in a field experiment in the armed forces. Soldiers are randomly assigned to rooms with or without ethnic minorities. At the end of the recruit period, we measure trust by using a trust game. Results indicate that close personal contact with minorities increases trust towards a generic immigrant. We replicate the result that individuals coming from more ethnically diverse areas trust minorities less, but random assignment to interact with minority soldiers removes this negative correlation. We conclude that social integration involving personal contact can reduce negative effects of ethnic diversity on trust.

• Finseraas, Henning & Kotsadam, Andreas (2017). Does personal contact with ethnic minorities affect anti-immigrant sentiments? Evidence from a field experiment. European Journal of Political Research. 56(3), s. 703–722. doi: 10.1111/1475-6765.12199. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article explores the causal effect of personal contact with ethnic minorities on majority members’ views on immigration, immigrants’ work ethics, and support for lower social assistance benefits to immigrants than to natives. Exogenous variation in personal contact is obtained by randomising soldiers into different rooms during the basic training period for conscripts in the Norwegian Army's North Brigade. Based on contact theory of majority–minority relations, the study spells out why the army can be regarded as an ideal contextual setting for exposure to reduce negative views on minorities. The study finds a substantive effect of contact on views on immigrants’ work ethics, but small and insignificant effects on support for welfare dualism, as well as on views on whether immigration makes Norway a better place in which to live.

• Hansen, Kristian Kjærgaard & Jensen, Carsten (2017). Politized coalitions : Social affinity and the politics of redistribution. Comparative European Politics. doi: 10.1057/cep.2015.13. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Does the structure of inequality in a society matter for the amount of redistribution from rich to poor? New, groundbreaking research indicates this to be the case: Where the market income of the middle class is comparably close to that of the poor, a cross-class coalition between the two groups emerges. This cross-class coalition will tend to favor a generous welfare state and extensive redistribution. We add to this in two ways. First, we complement the theoretical framework by highlighting the role of the politicization of multiculturalism. We posit that the social affinity between the middle class and the poor is lower when multiculturalism becomes politicized. Second, we provide new information on the mechanism by which social affinity affects redistribution. When the income of the middle class is comparatively close to the income of the poor, more people vote for left-leaning parties; yet as multiculturalism becomes politicized, this effect disappears.

• Bay, Ann-Helen; Finseraas, Henning & Pedersen, Axel West (2016). Welfare Nationalism and Popular Support for Raising the Child Allowance: Evidence from a Norwegian Survey Experiment. Scandinavian Political Studies. 39(4), s. 482–494. doi: 10.1111/1467-9477.12067. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Refugee and labour immigration have placed the issue of immigrants’ access to welfare benefits high on the political agenda. This article explores how voter preferences for increases in the child benefit change when respondents are reminded about immigrants’ access to benefits. The survey experiment shows that information about newly arrived immigrants’ access to child benefit has only a small impact on support for increasing the child allowance. By contrast, information about labour migrants’ access to benefits for children living in another European Union country has a strong impact, and the observed sensitivity to this cue is not to the same extent confined to respondents who otherwise support welfare dualism.

Se alle arbeider i NVA