Nature Human Behaviour
Volume 1, Issue 7, 2017

Europeans support a proportional allocation of asylum seekers (Article)

Bansak K. , Hainmueller J. , Hangartner D.*
  • a Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
  • b Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
  • c Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, United States, Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland, Department of Government, London School of Economics, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland

Abstract

What type of common asylum regime would Europeans support? We conducted a survey asking 18,000 citizens of 15 European countries about their preferences regarding different mechanisms for allocating asylum seekers across countries. A large majority supports an allocation that is proportional to each country's capacity over the status quo policy of allocation based on the country of first entry. This majority support is weakened but persists even among a randomly assigned subset of respondents who were made aware that moving to proportional allocation would increase the number of asylum seekers allocated to their own country. These results suggest that citizens care deeply about the fairness of the responsibility-sharing mechanism, rather than only the consequences of the asylum policy. The findings also highlight a potential pathway towards reform of the Common European Asylum System.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85034448397&doi=10.1038%2fs41562-017-0133&partnerID=40&md5=74859d56c94d8849caff08c4e0713922
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0133
ISSN: 23973374
Cited by: 5
Original Language: English