ABSTRACT
Scholars seeking to understand anti-migration sentiment typically focus on Western Europe, where the rise of populist right-wing parties, the occasional explosion of violence committed by or against migrants, and the adoption of public policies targeting migrants all combine to draw attention to the subject. Looking only where the backlash is strongest, though, can lead to faulty conclusions—not only because selecting cases by the intensity of the outcome will bias analysis (King, Keohane and Verba 1994, 129–36), but also because a single region will tend to be dominated by a particular image of the outsider. Does the research set in Western Europe provide behavioral evidence about how individuals react to newcomers in their community, or just about how Europeans react to the Muslim in a context when Western and Islamic cultures are at odds globally? Generalizing about the public reaction to migrants requires carrying similar research questions to multiple settings.
