CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Armstrong, Abraham |
|---|---|
| Title | Immigration, Welfare, and Social Solidarity: Sociological Approaches to the 'Progressive's Dilemma' |
| Summary | This research seeks to contribute to scholarly debate surrounding the ‘progressive’s dilemma’: the contention that there is a negative relationship between immigration and support for social welfare policies. Taking the concept of social solidarity as its theoretical starting point, it will use a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with members of trade unions and community groups in the United Kingdom to interrogate some of the core assumptions underlying this debate. It will ask how the concept of social solidarity is understood, what threats and obstacles to social solidarity exist, and how conceptions of solidarity intersect with attitudes towards immigration, diversity, and support for the welfare state. I argue that immigration is only one factor within a broader context of declining social trust, increasing social isolation, and diminishing support for public services that emerged throughout the discussions. As such, I suggest that the proposition of a straightforward trade-off between diversity and solidarity likely obscures more than it reveals. A study of the latent meanings of the dataset, however, revealed that ethnic and national forms of solidarity were often perceived to be more salient than other forms of social identity. This suggests that it may prove more difficult to persuade voters and taxpayers that immigrants should be considered members of the same community of deserving recipients who are entitled to welfare assistance. |
| Supervisor | Dr. Ana Mijić |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/armstrong_abraham.pdf |
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