Existing research indicates that supranational identification in the European Union (EU) is associated with greater individual acceptance of international migration, pointing to a cosmopolitan logic in European identity. At the same time, social identity theory suggests a communitarian logic, as citizens who self-identify as Europeans should positively distinguish members of the European community and exhibit a higher acceptance of migrants from other EU member states than of other types of migrants. ...
Existing research indicates that supranational identification in the European Union (EU) is associated with greater individual acceptance of international migration, pointing to a cosmopolitan logic in European identity. At the same time, social identity theory suggests a communitarian logic, as citizens who self-identify as Europeans should positively distinguish members of the European community and exhibit a higher acceptance of migrants from other EU member states than of other types of migrants. The goal of this article is to test which of these two logics prevails in European identifiers’ migration attitudes. For this purpose, we develop a set of multilevel regression models of recent Eurobarometer data (2014-2017) to explore the effects of European identification on individual preference for internal migrants in the EU. The paper’s main contribution is to show that adding a cosmopolitan layer of identification to the pre-existing national identities does not preclude the logic of identity demarcation in supranational communities. Instead, these processes become more complex. As illustrated by the case of perceptions of migrants from different origins, European identification entails both cosmopolitan and communitarian effects for individual attitudes. These findings challenge the prevailing normative understanding of European identity as inherently inclusive.
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