Workshop: Public Views of Immigration and Diversity: Causes and Consequences for Policy

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For elected officials, the making of immigration policy can be a politically risky undertaking. Questions about immigration – how many should be allowed to come, who should be allowed to come, and on what terms – cut to the core of what political communities are about. In democratic societies, political elites mobilize public sentiment to gain office, and they depend on public support to stay there and, ultimately, make policy.

This workshop will bring together leading scholars of public opinion with policy practitioners to share and discuss cutting-edge work analyzing what people in modern, immigrant-receiving countries think about immigrants and immigration, why they think it, and how knowing the answers to these questions shapes the policy-making process. Research presentations will focus on immigration attitudes in Canada, Europe, and the United states. In addition to discussing latest research, workshop participants will reflect on how their work sheds light on broader relationships between researchers, media, the punditocracy, and the political class.