You might think that most people have misperceptions about immigration. Yet many false beliefs are merely low-confidence guesses, rather than firmly held views. Drawing on new Swiss survey evidence, Philipp Lutz and Marco Bitschnau show that this distinction has important implications for understanding public opinion, and for the quality of democratic debate
Most people hold deep-seated misperceptions about immigration, painting its nature, effects, and governance in excessively dark colours. This reflects concerns about out-group threat and tends to be resistant to correction efforts. It is also, argue Marco Bitschnau and Philipp Lutz, highly problematic for democracies
Postdoctoral Researcher, Chair of Sociology, Universität Konstanz
Marco holds a BA in Sociology, Politics, and Economics from Zeppelin University, an MPhil in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, and a Certificate in International Affairs and Strategy from Sciences Po Paris.
He gained his PhD from the University of Neuchâtel, where he was a research fellow of nccr – on the move.
In 2021–2022, he was a visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
Marco’s research interests relate to questions of migration, mobility, identity, and social conflict.
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