Immigration and Conflict in Europe

Explains why we observe clashes between immigrants and natives and between immigrants and state actors in some locations.

Rafaela M. Dancygier (Author)

9780521199070, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 September 2010

368 pages, 37 b/w illus. 4 maps 28 tables
24.1 x 16.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.64 kg

'[The] author offers a clear line of argument and systematically adds knowledge towards … a theory of … immigrant conflict in Europe … [She] pushes back the research frontier and opens multiple avenues for future research.' Hubertus Jürgenliemk, International Affairs

Contemporary debates give the impression that the presence of immigrants necessarily spells strife. Yet as Immigration and Conflict in Europe shows, the incidence of conflict involving immigrants and their descendants has varied widely across groups, cities, and countries. The book presents a theory to account for this uneven pattern, explaining why we observe clashes between immigrants and natives in some locations but not in others and why some cities experience confrontations between immigrants and state actors while others are spared from such conflicts. The book addresses how economic conditions interact with electoral incentives to account for immigrant-native and immigrant-state conflict across groups and cities within Great Britain as well as across Germany and France. It highlights the importance of national immigration regimes and local political economies in shaping immigrants' economic position and political behavior, demonstrating how economic and electoral forces, rather than cultural differences, determine patterns of conflict and calm.

Part I: 1. Introduction
2. A theory of immigrant conflict
Part II: 3. Patterns of immigrant conflict in Great Britain
4. Dynamics of racist violence
Part III: 5. Immigrant-native conflict in two London boroughs
6. Two faces of immigrant conflict in two Midlands cities
Part IV: 7. Economic integration, political exclusion, and immigrant conflict in Germany
8. Immigration and conflict across countries
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Comparative politics [JPB], Migration, immigration & emigration [JFFN]