How does immigration exhibit a perceived group threat to the national ingroup of Germany?

Abstract

In this study I aimed to understand more clearly how immigration exhibits a perceived group threat to the national ingroup of Germany and to what extent does this fuel a radical right-wing outlook. To accomplish this, I went through various sources to gather evidence of how immigration was creating an impact on several factors including, economy, culture, social harmony and integration, and political integrity and from these sources determine whether the affect immigration is causing can be justified as threats or dangers towards the national ingroup. The results obtained led me to conclude that no significant evidence demonstrated that immigration was significantly and negatively affecting the quality of life of the national ingroup, that there was evidence of cultural threat posed by ethnic groups replacing local culture aspects, but instead showed positive evidence of cultural integration, however there was substantial evidence proving that there exists social tensions amongst the ethnic groups which may lead to violence, vandalism and an atmosphere of danger and so this aspect can be justified as posing a potential threat to the ingroup. The relation between Muslims and terrorism remains unfortunately real, even if the ingroup does not believe that foreigners justify terrorist acts, they maintain a conservative attitude towards the ethnic and a general sense of worry and tension when found in the presence of Muslim immigrants drawing attention in the vicinity and although no hard evidence proves that a significant amount of Muslim immigrants pose the threat of being terrorists, I cannot ague that this sense of threat is not real given the sensitivity of the topic and how relevant it is today. In conclusion I did not identify enough substantial evidence to conclude that there is a real threat posed by immigration towards the ingroup and neither any evidence proving that a significantly large proportion of the ingroup does correlate immigration with a perceived threat, but the perception remains prevalent in certain groups, which may cause ripple affects and unsatisfactory conditions for the ingroup and as a result of any extreme negative circumstances revolving around immigration, one can notice that the ingroups sympathy is converted more towards the radical right-wing spectrum as their interests become more in line or use this to protest against left-wing actions that they were not satisfied with, as seen with the loss of electoral votes from Merkel’s supporters and lack of electoral participation following the situation of the Berlin terror attack. All in all, a subject that should be taken more seriously and more research should be carried out to further understand and cope with the concerns of both the ingroup and outgroups to promote harmonious integration.