Ethnocentrism, Economic Anxiety and Framing Effects: The Rejection of Refugees in Romania

Politicians and the public in many post-communist EU member states have been remarkably reluctant to accommodate asylum seekers, comply with international conventions and relevant EU rules. Public statements by political leaders, the virulence of anti-refugee discourse in social media, and Eurobarometer survey data all suggest that social intolerance plays a large part in this. At the same time, previous research on the asylum- and immigration-related policy preferences mostly shows that identity-related considerations weigh more heavily in the public mind than economic considerations. We use recent data from two national representative surveys in Romania to examine the roots of popular attitudes, and conduct experiments with related theoretically relevant framing of the refugees from the Middle East to gauge what kind of media and political narratives encourage more welcoming attitudes towards them. The findings of our multivariate analyses indicate that the rejection of refugees is indeed mainly driven by intolerance, ethnocentrism and a sense of cultural threat. To a smaller degree, economic dissatisfaction also fuels rejection, and even the most economically satisfied are moved towards greater opposition by a framing that brings up the refugees' education levels, thereby suggesting that refugee reception has economic costs. While greater political knowledge, exposure to high-brow media and party sympathies are not significant predictors of refugee-related attitudes, people who are more trusting and believe in human solidarity are more open to asylum-seekers. Framing the refugee issue in terms of the Christian duty to help those in need significantly decreases opposition to refugee intake, regardless of religiosity.