The (Re)socialization of participatory political culture: Immigrants? political participation between their contemporary country and their ancestral country

We study the reproduction and change of participatory political culture by examining how immigrants' political engagement develops in the cross-pressure between their country of residence and their ancestral country. To explain patterns of political (re)socialization, we suggest a mechanism of proximity-conditioned social diffusion, which stipulates that immigrants' retention and adoption of a given participatory culture is a function of spatial and temporal proximity to native bearers of this culture, from which diffusion occurs. Analyzing the political participation of thousands of first and second generation immigrants in the European Social Survey (2002–2018), we find that immigrants come to adopt the participatory culture of their new country and lose that of their ancestral country through a symmetrical temporal process: having stayed longer in the destination country—either being a second generation immigrant or a first generation immigrant, who lived there longer—they adopt this participatory culture more strongly, while at the same time loosening their connection to the culture of the ancestral country. Spatial proximity to natives also conditions immigrants' adoption of the prevailing culture of the destination country as immigrants’ participatory inclinations resemble that of natives in their residential regions within the destination country

Public support for unequal treatment of unvaccinated citizens: Evidence from Denmark

While billions have been vaccinated against COVID-19, unvaccinated citizens remain a challenge to public health given their higher likelihood of passing on the virus. One way for governments to reduce this concern is to enact more restrictive rules and regulations for the unvaccinated citizens in order to incentivize them to become vaccinated and/or reduce their spread of the virus. However, such rule differentiation conflicts with liberal principles of equal treatment, thereby raising a trade-off between material (public health) and principled concerns. To gain legitimacy in trading off these difficult concerns, governments are likely to look to preferences in the general population. We therefore analyze to what extent unequal treatment of the unvaccinated in terms of differentiation of various rules and regulations finds support among the general public. In a pre-registered survey experiment, we investigate public support for various COVID-19 regulations (e.g., test fees, isolation pay, and hospital prioritization). In the experiment, we randomly assign respondents to evaluate regulations that either (i) apply to adults in general or (ii) only to those adults who deliberately have chosen not to be vaccinated. This design provides a valid means to assess support for unequal treatment of the unvaccinated by minimizing various concerns relating to survey responding. Furthermore, we examine how these preferences vary by individual vaccination status, trust in institutions, as well as over-time changes in severity of the pandemic. We find significantly (both statistically and substantively) higher support for restrictive policies when targeted exclusively toward the unvaccinated, which we interpret as support for unequal treatment of this group. We also uncover strong polarization in these preferences between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, but a much more limited role for trust and severity of the pandemic