Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/295127 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies [ISSN:] 1469-9451 [Issue:] Latest Article [Publisher:] Taylor & Francis [Place:] London [Year:] 2023 [Pages:] 1-23
Publisher: 
Taylor & Francis, London
Abstract: 
Past research suggests that disease outbreaks drive prejudice towards minorities as they increase economic and disease threats. Based on an open-ended survey question distributed to 7,902 German residents over the course of one year of the Covid-19 pandemic (April 2020 to April 2021), we investigate the link between life-threatening events and ethno-racial prejudice. We find that pandemic-related threats only drive respondents’ tendency to scapegoat ethno-racial groups if they hold left and center leaning ideologies. However, for far-right supporters who are the most likely to attribute the spread of Covid-19 to ethno-racial groups, pandemic-related threats do not affect that attribution. We further find that threat theories are of limited relevance for explaining which ethno-racial groups are targeted: respondents held Chinese accountable at the beginning of the pandemic but quickly shifted their attention to immigrants – a salient figure in pre-Covid-19 rightist rhetoric. We show that ideology, more than pandemic-induced threat, continues to drive prejudice and demonstrate the under-utilized advantages of using open-ended survey questions for understanding the dynamics of intergroup prejudice.
Subjects: 
COVID-19 pandemic
Race/ethnicity
Political ideology
Threat
Far-right
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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