Immigration, Integration, and Naturalisation: New Immigrants, Policy Decisions, and Citizens’ Responses

The way migration flows and immigrant integration are regulated has become of crucial interest in both scholarly and public debates. While there is now ample research on the general question of whether more or less migrants should be allowed to access one’s country we still know very little about how specific regulations are perceived by citizens and how they impact on their attitudes and behaviours and thus, ultimately, their acceptance of newcomers. This project aims at providing evidence-based answers to the following question: What are the consequences of immigration, integration and naturalisation policies for citizens’ attitudes and actual behaviour related to the acceptance of new immigrant groups? In order to reach our intended research goals we will design a survey including different survey experiments which will be conducted among the general native population in Germany. The experiments will allow us to identify the causal impact of policies on attitudes and behaviour in a more thorough way. To get a more nuanced picture of policy effects we will confront respondents with policies by means of survey vignettes. Finally, to get a grasp of the rational interests of ordinary citizens we will measure the effects of policies on attitudes towards migrants as a function of the degree of agreement with these policies and as a function of whether these policies change the status quo for natives (or not).