Planteamiento de políticas y objetivos de la gestión HSE

As mentioned above, it follows from the uncertainty hypothesis that shocking events should cause a negative shift in attitudes toward immigrants. Figure 3.1 and Figure 3.2 display average immigration policy preferences and cultural attitudes by week from the murder (similar figures for the other cases are reported in Figure A.5 through Figure A.8 in the Appendix). The graphs show that attitudes tend to vary over time, although there does not seem to be a clear effect of the murder.

This impression is confirmed by a series of t-tests. As shown in Table 3.4, there are no negative effects of the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Stockholm bombings, or the Charlie Hebdo attack on policy preferences, nor on more cultural attitudes toward immigrants. If anything, shocking events can have a positive effect on public opinion, as the positive effect for cultural attitudes in the Swedish case shows. Although coefficients reach only marginal statistical significance, we observe a similar positive effect of the bombings on policy preferences in Sweden, as well as on cultural attitudes after the attack in France. These results are further confirmed by a multivariate model controlling for a number of demographics (Table A.2). Importantly, while the t-test statistics could be biased by the difference in education level in the pre- and post-event group in Sweden, the positive effect of the bombings on cultural attitudes holds when controlling for education level in the multivariate model.

Interestingly, the 2014 wave of the ESS (2014) includes a variable measuring policy preferences for Muslim immigration in particular. Responses are measured on a 4-point scale, which I recoded so that a higher score expresses a higher openness to Muslim immigrants. As shown in Figure 3.3, respondents who were interviewed after the attack display a higher openness to Muslim immigrants. A t-test confirms that this difference is statistically significant (t (230) = -2.15, p = .03). Given the difference in reachability

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Mean policy preferences by week

-10 -5 0 5 10 15

Weeks from the Van Gogh murder

Figure 3.1: Average immigration policy preferences by week from the murder of Theo van Gogh. -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2

Mean cultural attitudes per week

-10 -5 0 5 10 15

Weeks from the Van Gogh murder

Table 3.4: T-test statistics for the difference in means on policy preferences and cultural attitudes toward immigrants before and after shocking events (restricted bandwidths).

Sample Scale Before After t df

Theo van Gogh Policy −0.05 0.03 −0.93 414 Cultural 0.08 0.00 0.96 414 Stockholm bombings Policy 0.03 0.24 −1.47 205 Cultural 0.03 0.48 −3.41 *** 209

Charlie Hebdo Policy 0.01 0.16 −1.35 236

Cultural 0.00 0.21 −1.83 240 * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

between the pre- and post-attack sample, this result should be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless, based on these results, we cannot conclude that shocking events lead to more negative attitudes toward immigrants.

2.59 2.82 0 1 2 3

Openness to Muslim immigrants

Before Charlie Hebdo After Charlie Hebdo

Figure 3.3: Openness to Muslim immigrants before and after the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Of course, if we do not observe changes in average attitudes toward immigrants, that does not necessarily imply that attitudes remained unaffected. It could be, for example, that certain groups of people are more sensitive to the effects of shocking events than others, leading to more polarized opinions. Given the nature of t-tests as a comparison of means, such effects are likely to go unnoticed. To further study this possibility, I now repeat the analysis for different subgroups.

I consider subsamples based on media use (high is a score of 2 or higher on the newspaper reading scale (political TV news in the Charlie Hebdo case)), political orientation (left is a score of 4 or lower on the left-right scale; right is a score of 6 or higher), education level (high is a score of 3 or higher on the education level scale), employment status (whether a participant has a job or is enrolled in education), and urbanization (urban is a score of 1 or 2 on the urbanization scale). Results for the Theo van Gogh case are reported in Table 3.5. Similar analyses for the other cases are reported in Table 3.6 and Table 3.7. As I discuss in more detail below, the analyses by subsamples reveal three different effects of shocking events: whereas we observe no significant effect of the murder of Theo van Gogh for any of the subgroups, we observe parallel positive shifts for several subgroups in the Swedish case, while the Charlie Hebdo analysis points at a mechanism of polarization.

Table 3.5: T-test statistics for the difference in means on policy preferences and cultural attitudes toward immigrants in the 14 days before and after the murder of Theo van Gogh for different subsamples.

Sample Scale Before After t df

Left-wing Policy 0.33 0.29 0.23 124

Cultural 0.47 0.29 1.42 124

Right-wing Policy −0.14 −0.11 −0.27 183

Cultural −0.01 −0.10 0.75 183

High education Policy 0.15 0.16 −0.09 222

Cultural 0.31 0.14 1.62 222

Low education Policy −0.26 −0.14 −0.83 190

Cultural −0.16 −0.19 0.24 190 No job or education Policy −0.20 −0.27 0.46 172 Cultural −0.10 −0.09 −0.08 172

Job or education Policy 0.07 0.21 −1.28 239

Cultural 0.23 0.06 1.59 239 High newspaper use Policy −0.01 −0.02 0.11 209 Cultural 0.18 0.05 1.16 209 Low newspaper use Policy −0.09 0.09 −1.34 203 Cultural −0.02 −0.05 0.23 203

Urban Policy 0.08 0.23 −0.80 106

Cultural 0.06 −0.09 0.82 106

Non urban Policy −0.10 −0.02 −0.75 306

Cultural 0.09 0.03 0.66 306 * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

As shown in Table 3.5, the murder of Van Gogh does not seem to affect public opinion on immigrants, whether people are left- or right-wing, live in urban or rural areas, and regardless of their education level, employment status, and newspaper use.

Table 3.6: T-test statistics for the difference in means on policy preferences and cultural attitudes toward immigrants in the 14 days before and after the Stockholm bombings for different samples.

Sample Scale Before After t df

Left-wing Policy 0.17 0.47 −1.21 56

Cultural 0.34 0.65 −1.42 57

Right-wing Policy 0.10 0.02 0.37 96

Cultural 0.07 0.30 −1.01 98

High education Policy 0.16 0.32 −1.07 164

Cultural 0.17 0.57 −3.01 167

Low education Policy −0.43 −0.39 −0.08 39

Cultural −0.44 −0.20 0.60 40

No job or education Policy −0.13 0.48 −1.81 43

Cultural −0.19 0.60 −2.50 * 45

Job or education Policy 0.08 0.20 −0.76 160

Cultural 0.10 0.46 −2.42 * 162

High newspaper use Policy 0.16 0.40 −1.40 102

Cultural 0.15 0.61 −2.64 ** 105

Low newspaper use Policy −0.09 −0.03 −0.25 101

Cultural −0.08 0.27 −1.69 102

Urban Policy 0.21 0.25 −0.19 71

Cultural 0.28 0.70 −1.99 * 72

Non urban Policy −0.07 0.23 −1.62 132

Cultural −0.10 0.35 −2.67 ** 135 * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

The analysis by subsamples for the Stockholm bombings confirms the positive effect of the event on cultural attitudes reported in Table 3.4. Although the small sample sizes as well as the demographic differences between the two groups make that we should interpret these effects with caution, the analyses by subgroup suggest that this positive effect occurs regardless of participants’ demographic group. While we do not observe effects of the event for participants depending on their partisanship and education level, the t-tests

reveal significant effects for subgroup based on employment status and urbanization, with positive shifts regardless of participants’ score on these variables. While these results are in line with those presented in Table 3.4, the direction of this effect is surprising as we would expect more negative attitudes toward immigrants after a terrorist attack.

The only subgroup for which we do not observe a parallel positive shift for participants with high and low scores alike is newspaper use: respondents who spend more time reading the newspaper display more positive attitudes after the bombings. This result could be related to the higher education level in the post-event sample. Alternatively, there could be an effect of media framing – a mechanism that could potentially also account for the surprising direction of the observed effects. I will discuss this point in more detail in the next section.

Table 3.7: T-test statistics for the difference in means on policy preferences and cultural attitudes toward immigrants in the 21 days before and the 14 days after the Charlie Hebdo attack for different samples.

Sample Scale Before After t df

Left-wing Policy 0.39 0.63 −1.23 73

Cultural 0.21 0.86 −3.58 *** 73

Right-wing Policy −0.19 −0.01 −1.25 99

Cultural −0.17 −0.14 −0.13 103

High education Policy 0.08 0.29 −1.73 185

Cultural −0.02 0.32 −2.59 ** 188

Low education Policy −0.26 −0.33 0.30 49

Cultural 0.05 −0.18 0.90 50

No job or education Policy −0.28 0.05 −1.25 82

Cultural −0.19 −0.01 −0.85 83

Job or education Policy 0.20 0.26 −0.43 152

Cultural 0.12 0.32 −1.45 155

High TV exposure Policy 0.16 0.40 −1.40 102

Cultural −0.32 0.10 −2.24 * 88

Low TV exposure Policy −0.09 −0.03 −0.25 101

Cultural 0.17 0.29 −0.80 150

Urban Policy 0.10 0.34 −1.45 108

Cultural 0.17 0.37 −1.21 110

Non urban Policy −0.05 −0.01 −0.28 126

Cultural −0.13 0.06 −1.16 128 * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

In contrast to the Swedish case, it seems that the Charlie Hebdo attack had a positive effect on attitudes toward immigrants only for certain groups of people. This result points at a polarization effect. While attitudes toward immigrants remained unaffected on average (cfr. Table 3.4), the analysis by subsamples reveals that left-wing and highly educated respondents in particular displayed more positive (cultural) attitudes toward immigrants after the attack. While it is not surprising that education level and partisanship play into the relationship between shocking events and resulting attitudes, the direction of this effect is again surprising. Interestingly, there is again a media effect such that respondents with higher media exposure (in this case exposure to political news on television) display more positive attitudes toward immigrants after the attack.