Societal Decline and Xenophobia

Xenophobia is often explained in terms of either deprivation or relative deprivation. While deprivation can have many causes – a currently popular explanation of deprivation is the theory of the losers of modernization and globalization – its effect on xenophobia is generally explained as a consequence of insecurity and vulnerability induced by a weak socio-economic position. Relative deprivation, while sometimes treated as a superior operationalization of deprivation, is in fact a quite different phenomenon since it presupposes a comparison of one self or one’s in-group with other people and other groups (and hence an in- vs. out-group perspective). It is the perception that one is unfairly treated, and the expectation that one will be unfairly treated compared to others. Both variables – deprivation and relative deprivation – explain xenophobia in terms of personal and expected future experience. High levels of xenophobia are expected in people who are insecure, feel vulnerable and feel unjustly treated compared to relevant others. In that way the indirect causes of xenophobia are situated in inequality, processes of exclusion, discrimination, and status loss.

This paper wants to confront those explanation with one based, not on personal experience, but on the perception of societal evolution: the extent of declinism or the belief that society is in decline.

The different explanation will be tested on the basis of a random probability sample of 2000 inhabitants of Belgium, aged 25 tot 35.

We find that socioeconomic insecurity and vulnerability has no direct or indirect effect on xenophobia, while declinism has a very strong and relative deprivation a medium sized effect.