The nexus between attitudes towards migration and the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from 11 European countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has a profound impact on the everyday lives of people around the world. This includes economic issues, social isolation and anxieties directly related to the coronavirus. Some of these phenomena relate to social disintegration, which in turn has been linked to negative outgroup sentiments. However, the tenuous connection between pandemic developments and international migration processes calls into question whether a link between pandemic concomitants and immigration-related attitudes exists empirically. Arguments based on political cues and media effects even suggest that the widespread focus on the COVID-19 pandemic suppresses the issue salience of immigration and negative immigration sentiments. To test these propositions, we employ data from a newly collected cross-sectional study carried out in November and December 2020 in 11 European countries. We distinguish between general migration-related threats and blaming the pandemic on immigration as outcome variables. The results suggest that pandemic-related concerns increase both threat perceptions and perceptions that immigration is driving the pandemic, but more clearly so for the latter. On the macro level, we find that where the pandemic is more severe, respondents are less likely to blame immigrants. This suggests that a country-level suppression of salience of immigration is indeed taking place

Gjennomføringen av regjeringsskifte etter Stortingsvalg. Inneholder Grunnloven tilstrekkelige ansvars- og kontrollregler for å sikre gjennomføringen av et regjeringsskifte etter Stortingsvalg?

MasteroppgaveJUS399MAJURMAJUR-

Bedrohungsgefühle und die Befürwortung selektiver Einwanderungskriterien im internationalen und temporalen Vergleich

Das Thema Zuwanderung ist seit langem ein zentraler Gegenstand gesellschaftlicher und politischer Debatten. Hierbei werden nicht nur die möglichen gesellschaftlichen Folgen von Zuwanderung diskutiert, sondern auch, welche Kriterien von Zugewanderten für die Aufnahme in ein Land und für die Mitgliedschaft in der Gesellschaft gefordert werden. Solche Präferenzen werden auch durch migrationsbezogene Bedrohungsgefühle beeinflusst, wie etwa der Befürchtung, Immigration sei schlecht für die Wirtschaft des Aufnahmelandes. In diesem Artikel betrachten wir, inwieweit sich die Mechanismen hinter Bedrohungsgefühlen und der Befürwortung selektiver Einwanderungskriterien zwischen 2002 und 2015 verändert haben. Für die Bedrohungsgefühle beleuchten wir zudem, inwiefern sich auf der Länderebene Verschiebungen über die Zeit ergeben haben

Ausmaß und Ursachen von zuwanderungsbezogenen Bedrohungswahrnehmungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland

Auch 30 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung lassen sich in vielerlei Hinsicht Unterschiede zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland feststellen. Diese betreffen ökonomische, politische wie soziale Dimensionen, und damit auch die hier im Fokus stehenden Einstellungen und Wahrnehmungen zur Zuwanderung. In diesem Artikel gehen wir der Frage nach, wie sich diese Unterschiede hinsichtlich verschiedener migrationsbezogener Wahrnehmungen ausgestalten, und inwieweit es auch innerhalb beider Landesteile regionale Varianz gibt. Die hierfür verwendeten Daten stammen aus den Jahren 2014-15 sowie 2018-19. Darüber hinaus ergründen wir für den letztgenannten Zeitraum, inwiefern sich diese Unterschiede jeweils durch Differenzen in der Bevölkerungszusammensetzung, der wirtschaftlichen Situation und der zahlenmäßigen Präsenz Zugewanderter erklären lassen

Community- delivered infant- parent psychotherapy improves maternal sensitive caregiving: Evaluation of the Michigan model of infant mental health home visiting

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a home- based psychotherapeutic Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH- HV) intervention for enhancing parenting sensitivity; a secondary aim was to evaluate whether the use of video feedback was associated with greater treatment response. Participants were N = 78 mothers and their children (age at entry ranged from prebirth to 24- month old (M = 9.8, SD = 8.4), who were initiating IMH- HV services with community mental health- based therapists (N = 51). Dyads were assessed during extended home visits via standardized interviews and observational and questionnaire methods within the first month of treatment (baseline), and again 6 and 12 months thereafter. Following each of these extended home visits, study evaluators completed a standard Q- sort to capture observations of maternal sensitivity during the visit. Therapists completed fidelity checklists used to derive the total number of IMH- HV sessions received (i.e., dosage) and frequency with which therapists provided video feedback. Results indicated a dose- response relationship between number of sessions and maternal sensitivity, and that video review with parents independently contributed to improved maternal sensitivity. Discussion focuses on the effectiveness of this community- based psychotherapeutic home visiting model for enhancing parenting, as well as the value of video feedback as a specific therapeutic strategy.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154891/1/imhj21840_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154891/2/imhj21840.pd

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative: Investigating Immigration and Social Policy Preferences. Executive Report.

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of selective model reporting and lack of replicability. The heterogeneity of countries obscures attempts to clearly define data-generating models. P-hacking and HARKing lurk among standard research practices in this area.This project employs crowdsourcing to address these issues. It draws on replication, deliberation, meta-analysis and harnessing the power of many minds at once. The Crowdsourced Replication Initiative carries two main goals, (a) to better investigate the linkage between immigration and social policy preferences across countries, and (b) to develop crowdsourcing as a social science method. The Executive Report provides short reviews of the area of social policy preferences and immigration, and the methods and impetus behind crowdsourcing plus a description of the entire project. Three main areas of findings will appear in three papers, that are registered as PAPs or in process

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors