The Imagined Community in Europe and the United States

Via The Monkey Cage, Jack Citrin and John Sides are introducing a new paper they have authored looking at the current/historical attitudes towards immigration in the US and Europe. Both Europe and the US are confronting historic challenges of immigration and cultural integration.

What are American and European attitudes toward immigration? Do they differ? Clearly, the centrality of immigration in “settler societies” such as the United States — both in terms of the literal populating of the country and in terms of its founding myths — is greater than in most, if not all, European countries. But does this make the United States “exceptional” in how immigrants are viewed?

well worth the read.

see also: European Social Survey, Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Survey