The Six Country Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey (SCIICS) is a large-scale telephone survey conducted in 2008. The aim was to collect comparable data across European countries (the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Sweden) with different integration policies as well as...

Ethnic diversity is typically measured by the well-known Hirschman-Herfindahl Index. This paper discusses the merits of an alternative approach, which is in our view better suited to tease out why and how ethnic diversity matters. The approach consists of two elements. First, all existing...

In this paper we develop and test an encompassing theoretical framework for the explanation of the geographical and temporal spread of extreme right violence. This framework combines internal precipitating factors related to ethnic competition, social disintegration, and political opportunity...

The question addressed in this paper is how to explain the dramatic rise of Pim Fortuyn's right-wing populist party during the campaign for the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in 2002. Fortuyn succeeded in attracting by far the most media attention of all political actors and his new...

This paper investigates how integration policies and welfare state regimes have affected the socio-economic integration of immigrants, focusing on eight European countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Belgium. It presents comparative...

The paper investigates effects of host-country orientation and cultural difference of migrants on their socio-economic integration in Germany, using SOEP data for the years 1988-2006. We analyze unemployment and employment durations of male and female migrants, as well as transitions from...

Minorities' claims for rights increasingly clash with majorities who wish to retain and defend "national" cultural and religious traditions. Debates around minarets in Switzerland, burqas in France, Saint Nicolas' companion "Black Pete" in the Netherlands, and about freedom of speech versus...

Students of social movements have long struggled with the question how relatively abstract political opportunities, such as elite divisions, affect unorganized activists without much knowledge of politics. We argue that the relationship between institutional opportunities and decisions to...

"Closing borders is naive, the virus will come regardless" - this was the policy assumption that was repeatedly stated until mid-March by the WHO, the EU, as well as responsible authorities in Germany and other countries. Meanwhile, other states had started closing their borders to travellers...

Multiculturalism has taken a life of its own, swinging too far in one direction. The authors claim that the rapidly changing reality calls for a new majority-minority theory and argue that the moral justifications for cultural minority rights should also apply to majority groups. They present...