The Politicization of Migration and Welfare: How Political Discourse and Social-structural Facts Shape Social Policy Preferences in Reconfigured Societies

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Julian Garritzmann; Professor Dr. Alexander Schmidt-Catran
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Political Science
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439346934

This research project investigates how political discourse and social-structural facts jointly shape social policy preferences in reconfigured societies, focusing on the politicization of migration and welfare. The study builds on findings from the first funding phase, which revealed that social identities and threat perceptions influence social policy preferences, but that objective structural facts about migration alone do not automatically affect these attitudes. Therefore, we propose that the political framing of migration and welfare in the political party discourse is an important element to understand how the migration-welfare nexus shapes public opinion towards social policy. The project has four key objectives: (1) develop a fine-grained empirical measure of the politicization of migration in relation to welfare policies, (2) analyze the interaction between social-structural facts and politicization in shaping public perceptions, (3) examine how these dynamics vary across different welfare states and social policy areas, and (4) conduct survey experiments to provide causal evidence on these relationships. This project contributes to the literature by integrating perspectives from political science and sociology, addressing key debates on welfare state support, group threat perceptions, and political framing. The results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and will provide insights into the broader societal consequences of migration and welfare policies in diverse political contexts. Within the RISS research group it contributes to the general understanding of how the politicization of social structure shapes individiuals' social identities, perceptions, and attitudes.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5173: Reconfiguration and Internalization of Social Structure (RISS)
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Christian Czymara