爱豆传媒

Xenophobia and Nationalism in Europe provides an evidence-based understanding of people’s views of European politics and their determinant factors. Specifically, the book aims to clarify the reasons for people’s support for right-wing political parties and anti-immigrant sentiment. Newspapers and TV news channels often attribute the prevailing political sentiment in Europe to the anger of people suffering from poverty; however, academic arguments have been more skeptical with some hesitating to link the shift to the political right to such personal predicaments and some even rejecting the notion as having no clear academic basis. So, there has long been a discrepancy between popular social beliefs and academic common knowledge.
 
In this book, based on data from public opinion surveys conducted after the European refugee crisis, we argue that the shift to the political right and the rise in xenophobic sentiments are strongly influenced by noneconomic factors such as culture, customs, and social norms. The first half of the book focuses on a cross-national statistical analysis; however, since the book was written with a general audience in mind, it does not include advanced econometric analysis. For example, the analysis is limited to a classical multiple regression analysis that does not include interaction-terms that general readers may find difficult to interpret.
 
Furthermore, this book provides a detailed analysis of the views of people who actually support right-wing parties in various European countries, what circumstances encourage people to lean toward the right, and why centrist parties are leaning toward the right. Specifically, through individual case studies of France, Latvia, and Poland, as well as the author's own polling, the book explores the background of people who support right-wing parties and the groups that are most likely to be affected by election campaigns.
 
Although this book is based on an academic debate, it is not an academic book. It is a popular science book that analyzes a topic of great social interest from an academic perspective and methodology. It was also written with the intention of being readable to undergraduate students, and we believe that it will be a good first step for students to further their own analysis.
 
It is well known that Japan is gradually becoming a nation with many immigrants. It may be that Japan is gradually beginning to resemble European society in some respects, including the fact that the political and social landscape in urban areas is quite different from that in the rural areas of Japan. As the author, I hope the reader uses this book as a springboard to think about what kind of society we should build in the future or to analyze society in order to do so.
 

(Written by NAKAI Ryo, Professor, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology / 2024)