Pew Research is trying to figure out attitudes in Europe about immigration I suspect to gauge the political mood of the electorate.
Pew on the hunt for Europe’s nationalists…..
I was amused to see that the survey did not ask questions in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic etc. where they might have found large numbers of respondents blow up the survey with high scores. Including those countries (with huge contrasting pro-nationalism scores) surely also would have encouraged more bravery in Western Europe. Pew wouldn’t want that!
Because I have to move on, I’m just going to give you the bare bones news here, but please look at the survey questions. Glaringly missing, I thought, were any questions along the lines of:
I am not willing to support the welfare needs (housing, healthcare etc) of an ever-increasing number of migrants.
Although there were questions about attitudes about certain lazy workers, there were no questions along the lines of the cost of welfare for a never-ending flow of impoverished third worlders to Europe.
From Pew Research:
Nationalist and anti-immigrant attitudes in Western Europe have been an issue in a number of recent national elections around the region, particularly after the influx in the past few years of refugees from predominantly Muslim countries. But Western Europeans vary by country when it comes to having positive or negative views about immigrants and religious minorities, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
To better examine the prevalence of these attitudes, the Center developed a scale to measure the extent of Nationalist, anti-Immigrant and anti-religious Minority (NIM) sentiment. The NIM scale combines answers to 22 survey questions on a wide range of issues including views on Muslims, Jews and immigrants, as well as immigration policy.
Respondents’ scores increased if they said that immigration to their country should be reduced; that they were unwilling to be neighbors or relatives with Muslims or Jews; that immigrants from certain regions are not honest or hardworking; that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with their national culture and values; that being born in their country is important to being “truly French,” “truly German,” etc.; and for expressing a host of other sentiments on related topics.
The higher the score, the more likely a respondent had expressed nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-religious minority sentiments during the survey. Scores on the scale range from 0 to 10.
Relatively few adults in every country surveyed score above 5 on the scale. But there is considerable variation across countries. In Sweden, just 8% of those surveyed scored higher than 5, the lowest amount in any country, while in Italy, 38% did, the highest share in any country. In most countries, the share scoring 5.01 or higher was between 15% and 25%. For example, in both Norway and France, 19% of respondents scored 5.01 or higher.
See the graph (below), but again see the survey questions designed (I think) to keep the NIM numbers low due to their sharp tone. And, as I said, there are no questions about citizens financially supporting a migrant flow that shows no end in sight. I think the NIM scale would be far different if questions about welfare had been included.
But, for Pew, and other Left-leaning organizations, it is all about anti-immigrant, anti-religious minority sentiments rather than about simple commonsense about whether countries and peoples can sustain the welfare costs of hundreds of thousands of needy people flowing in.
See my ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive and my huge Sweden archive too!