Them against us: dynamics of intergroup conflict during the European refugee crisis

Thesis

This thesis focuses on the expansion of conflict between natives and refugees during the European refugee crisis in Germany. While connected by the common theme, each chapter explores a different manifestation of conflict in the form of a stand- alone article. The first article investigates the spatial and temporal clustering of anti-refugee attacks to illustrate why some places and some moments in time are more prone to violence than others. Results underline the role that threatening events play in reshaping the ecologies of intergroup conflict. Events that are seen as particularly threatening, such as the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults, can increase the amount and change the distribution of subsequent attacks—mobilising new, previously peaceful communities to behave aggressively towards local refugee populations. The second article also explores the corrosive impact of threatening events, but focuses instead on how such events shape the everyday lives of majority and minority groups. Studying attitudinal changes among both the German and the resident refugee population, the article finds that exposure to terrorism exacerbates anti-refugee sentiment among German respondents, while increasing experiences of discrimination and mental distress among refugees. These results highlight a crucial but often overlooked aspect of intergroup conflict: how the lives of blamed minority groups—against which much of the increase in vitriol, discrimination, and violence is directed—are impacted by threatening events. The third article examines what happens when refugees and Germans live side-by-side, sharing the same neighbourhood. The study combines real-estate listings with information on when new refugee shelters opened throughout Munich—a city disproportionately exposed to the refugee crisis—to scrutinise whether the arrival of refugees affects a hosting neighbourhood’s perceived desirability. Results from the difference-in- difference design find no evidence that a refugee shelter opening decreases the prices of nearby properties. Although most Germans, when asked, prefer not to have a refugee as their neighbour, such attitudes do not seem strong enough to affect actual decisions over where to live. The process of occupying the same space and thus encountering refugees on an daily basis may even sensitise residents to the precarious situation of refugees and therefore reduce anti-refugee sentiment.

Authors: Frey, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-4jqerrdrg
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: violence; group conflict; refugee; threatening events; attitudes; immigration
• Subjects: Political Sociology