Alexander Yarkin, Brown University

"Learning from the Origins: Immigrants' Networks, Political Preferences, and the European Refugee Crisis"

Abstract

This paper documents real-time cross-border spillovers of political preferences and social norms. Leveraging the across- and within-country variation in reactions to the European Refugee Crisis, I show how the opposition towards non-European refugees spreads from countries involved in the Crisis to 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrants tracing their origins to these countries. Learning from the origins activates during the periods of increased issue salience and contributes to the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties. Combining data from Google Trends, Facebook, and social surveys, I show that (i) network homophily, (ii) lack of immigrants' integration into host communities, and (iii) social media ties are likely mechanisms behind the spillover effects. Currently in process is data collection from the online survey experiment, which will allow disentangling competing mechanisms.

Contact person: Pablo Selaya