Documents van der Brug, Wouter 2 results

"This article asks whether the trend towards greater inequality in European countries has led to an increase in euroscepticism. Traditionally amongst the most equal societies, West European countries have recently witnessed a stark increase in income inequality. European integration is often presented as one of the main driving factors of this development. This raises the question whether Europeans blame the EU for the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and consequently develop eurosceptic attitudes. A multilevel analysis of 79 pooled Eurobarometer survey waves across 12 countries from 1975 to 2009 confirms that increasing income inequality boosts euroscepticism especially amongst the low educated. The findings are consistent with previous research on the link between income inequality and democratic legitimacy. They also provide empirical support for a new educational divide in the wake of European integration and globalisation, and deepen our knowledge on the predictors of EU support."

"In the context of large-scale migration within and into Europe, the question of whether and under which conditions immigrants should be granted access to social benefits in the country of destination is of high political relevance. A large body of research has studied natives' attitudes towards giving immigrants access to the welfare state, while research on attitudes of immigrants themselves is scarce. Focusing on the impact of self-interest, we compare immigrants and native citizens in their attitudes towards granting immigrants access to the welfare state. We identify three mechanisms through which self-interest can influence these attitudes: immigrant origin, socio-economic status and – for first-generation immigrants only – incorporation into the host society. We test our expectations using cross-national data from the European Social Survey round 2008. The findings suggest that self-interest is indeed one of the factors that motivate attitudes towards welfare state restrictiveness among natives and immigrants, but also point at relevant exceptions to this pattern."