Tim S Müller

The so-called 'Welfare Magnet Hypothesis' (WMH) suggests that the generosity of welfare institutions in destination countries acts as a pull factor for migration. However, evidence for this claim is mixed. Existing research focuses on the conditions in destination countries, but less on explanatory factors in origin countries. Specifically, migration is analyzed mainly from the perspective of OECD countries as potential destinations, rather than from a global perspective, and research often ignores that migration flows are not mutually independent, which can lead to an overestimation of the effects of welfare spending. We explicitly address these shortcomings by using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to model migration flows between 160 countries worldwide and treating indicators of welfare spending in origin and destination countries as main explanatory variables of interest. Our first main result is that welfare attraction effects almost completely vanish when we control for a broad range of explanatory variables suggested by the gravity model (GDP, population size, geographic distance, democracy levels, and common languages). Secondly, migration preferences of low-and high-income groups do not mediate any attraction effects of social spending, as predicted by the WMH. Thirdly, flows between countries with more similar spending levels are more likely than flows between very low and very high spending countries, supporting a status maintenance motive among migrants. In conclusion, we find insufficient evidence to maintain the idea that welfare spending has a meaningful impact on migration flows.

Autoren: Tim Müller und Jochen Müller

Mit Resilienzfaktoren gegenüber Radikalisierung sowie mit der Entwicklung von Methoden zur Resilienzförderung und Ichstärkung von Jugendlichen hat sich in den vergangenen drei Jahren
das Forschungsprojekt „Radikalisierungsbezogene Resilienz im Jugendalter“ befasst. Es wurde vom Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM) durchgeführt
und von ufuq.de unterstützt. Auf Grundlage der Projektergebnisse (Müller et al., 2023) soll im Folgenden zunächst ein allgemeiner Blick auf die Bedeutung von Resilienz in der Praxis universeller
Prävention geworfen werden. Im zweiten Teil wird ein sogenannter Self-Affirmation-Ansatz zur Resilienzerhöhung vorgestellt und diskutiert, was sich für die pädagogische Arbeit und
die universelle (Islamismus-)Prävention daraus ableiten lässt.

Autor:innen: Nevin Uca, Nora Kleffmann, Aziz Dziri, Tim Müller

Im Rahmen dieser retrospektiven Studie wurden sechs qualitative Interviews mit Befragten geführt, die während ihrer Jugendphase in Berlin oder Bonn gelebt hatten und sich in einem radikalisierungsfördernden Umfeld befunden hatten. Anhand des Interviewmaterials wurden rückblickend subjektive Deutungen einer möglichen Widerstandsfähigkeit in Bezug auf eine abgewendete Radikalisierung herausgearbeitet. Es konnten relevante Faktoren zur Resilienzstärkung identifiziert werden,die über die bisherigen Befunde der Übersichtsliteratur hinausgehen.
Insbesondere strukturelle Möglichkeiten der demokratischen
Partizipation sowie berufliche und ehrenamtliche Angebote, die als sinnstiftend und gerechtigkeitsfördernd wahrgenommen wurden, wurden als wichtige Ressourcen der Kompensation und
zur Bewältigung bestimmter Belastungen genannt.

This study examines the effectiveness of a self-affirmation intervention to improve academic achievement for students with a “double-jeopardy status” of belonging to two potentially disadvantaged groups at the same time: girls with a minority background. The method established in the U.S. is adapted to the German cultural context and evaluated for its immediate and medium-term efficacy on math achievement among girls as well as among ethnic minority youth after the transition to secondary school. We applied a double-blind pre-post experimental design with randomized treatment allocation in 11 schools (N = 820, seventh graders with various ethnic backgrounds). Following the intervention of a brief in-class writing assignment about their personal values, students performed a standardized mathematics test. A follow-up achievement test, but no intervention, was administered eight weeks later to assess the midterm effectiveness of the treatment. Between assessments students received a written feedback about their scores in the math test. The multi-level linear model results show that (1) double-jeopardy in math performance exists, as shown by independent negative effects of female gender and Turkish or Arab minority group membership; (2) Girls from all ethnic backgrounds and students with Turkish immigrant background in the intervention group performed significantly better in the mathematics test immediately after the intervention than their peers in the control group. (3) Eight weeks later, the intervention effect only persisted for students with minority ethnic backgrounds: Turkish and Arabic students in the intervention group scored significantly higher in the standardized mathematics test compared to their peers in the control group. (4) We found no support for a triple interaction effect of treatment, ethnic background, and gender. That is, girls with a Turkish or an Arabic background did not benefit more from the self-affirmation intervention than other minority or female students. Results are discussed in relation to self-affirmation theory and how such interventions can be applied in secondary school mathematics curricula.

Residential segregation along ethnic categories has been associated with social disadvantages of minority group members. It is considered a driving factor in the reproduction of social inequalities and a pressing issue in many societies. While most research focuses on neighbourhood segregation in the United States, less is known about the origins of ethnic enclaves in European cities. We use complete data of residential moves within Stockholm municipality between 1990 and 2003 to test whether ‘ethnic flight’ or ‘ethnic avoidance’ drives segregation dynamics. On the macro level, we analyse the binary infrastructure of natives’ and immigrants’ movement flows between 128 neighbourhoods with exponential random graph models, which account for systemic dependencies in the structure of the housing market. On the micro level, we analyse individual-level panel data to account for differences between native and immigrant in- and out-movers. Our results show strong support for ‘ethnic avoidance’ on both levels—native Swedes avoid moving into neighbourhoods where ethnic minorities live. This is even more pronounced when controlling for socio-economic factors. At the same time, there is only little support for ‘ethnic flight’ on the micro level—native Swedes are only marginally more likely to move out of neighbourhoods where many immigrants live.

We consider data where we have individuals affiliated with at most one organisational unit and where the interest is in modelling changes to these affiliations over time. This could be the case of people working for organisations or people living in neighbourhoods. We draw on dynamic models for social networks to propose an actor-oriented model for how these affiliations change over time. These models specifically take into account constraints of the system and allow for the system
to be observed at discrete time-points. Constraints stem from the fact that for example  not  everybody  can  have  the  same  job  or  live  in  the  same  neighbourhood, something which induces dependencies among the decisions marginally. The model encompasses two modelling components: a model for determining the termination of an affiliation; and a discrete-choice model for determining the new affiliation. For
estimation we employ a Bayesian data-augmentation algorithm, that augments the observed states with unobserved sequences of transitions. We apply the proposed methods to a dataset of house-moves in Stockholm and illustrate how we may infer the mechanisms that sustain and perpetuate segregation on the housing market.

New right-wing extremist parties all over Europe have been described as adopting a master frame that  combines xenophobia and anti-political  establishment  populism (Rydgren  2004).  In Sweden  the Sweden  Democrats  (Sverigedemokraterna,  SD) have emerged  as  the  dominating  new  right-wing extremist party that was able to more than double their share of votes from the 2010 to the 2014 parliamentary elections (2010: 5.7%, 2014: 12.9%). We conducted a vignette study in a representative  sample  of  the  Swedish  population  shortly  before  and  after  the  2014  national elections, which helps us to analyse the
social distance between the majority population and the Muslim  minority. We  are  explicitly  taking  into  account  the  prevalence  of right-wing  populist attitudes in the population and their support for SD in the 2010 and 2014 elections. Our results show that (1) anti-minority attitudes (held by 36% of the population) but not anti-establishment attitudes  (held  by  37%  of  the  population)  predict  increased  social  distance  to  Muslims and  even towards persons  that  are  only  presented  as  having  a  foreign  name,  (2)  SD  voters  hold  drastically more negative views about Muslims than does any other voter group, (3) the vote for SD is purely driven  by  anti-minority  sentiments,  not  anti-establishmentarism. In  conclusion,  while  SD  might present  its  cause  in  the  language  of  anti-establishment  populism and  their  voters might legitimise  their  voting  choice  by  this  principle, SD voters’ intentions are fundamentally rooted in xenophobia.

This paper examines the antecedents of preferences for the involvement of religious leaders in politics. Hypotheses derived from secularization theories as well as from RC-Frameworks are tested empirically using WVS data. Multilevel-Analysis is used in order to account for the nested structure of the data. Most cross-national differences can be explained by differences in levels of modernization and inequality, with modernization showing a strong negative and inequality showing a strong positive effect. Moreover, stronger state-church relations foster the acceptance of higher involvement of religious leaders in politics. The hypotheses of the RC-Framework are not supported by the evidence. The US' outlying position can be partly explained by high levels of social inequality .

Intergenerational social mobility research has a longstanding tradition. More recently, there has been a growing interest in a multigenerational perspective within this context. Our study investigates the role of extended kin using large-scale Swedish register data from 2001-2003. Findings reveal that aunts' and uncles' class does significantly affect someone's class position even when controlling for parental and individual characteristics. Higher class extended kin increases chances for upward social mobility while lower class extended kin decreases them. So far, it remained elusive how such " dynastic " effects come about. Our results favor a sociological explanation that emphasizes the transferal of social and cultural capital across generations: 1) women growing up in lower income neighborhoods benefit more from higher-class kin, and 2) extended kin effects decrease with geographic distance.

This thesis deals with the determinants and mechanisms of individual secularisation processes in a cross-national perspective. In this ‘collected volume’ of six stand-alone articles, I examine religious beliefs and behaviours as well as attitudes towards religion and
politics, whereby the validity of the main theories of religious change (classical secularisation theory, existential security hypothesis, supply-side explanations, historical/cultural approaches and conflict theories) are put to an empirical test. The main conclusion is that the
fundamental mechanisms suggested by secularisation theories are valid and that we can identify main determinants of religiosity worldwide. However, only a combination of existing approaches is capable of explaining a broad range of the phenomena observed.
Chapter 1 (co-authored with Nan Dirk de Graaf and Peter Schmidt) deals with the fundamental mechanisms that facilitate the socialisation of religious beliefs. Under conditions of high inequality, religion acts as a source of social capital that benefits the religious
socialisation of individuals outside of the family context. If levels of inequality fall, this ‘social value of religion’ is diminished and religious socialisation depends more strongly on parental efforts, thereby gradually leading to intergenerational secularisation. In Chapter 2
(co-authored with Anja Neundorf) we show that the state in Eastern Europe played a crucial role in de-establishing as well as re-establishing religious plausibility structures, which explains lower levels of religious belief in Cold War cohorts as well as the religious revival
after the end of the Cold War. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the topic of religion and politics and the mechanisms behind the support for the 9/11 attacks in the Muslim world. Levels of existential security and income inequality have a strong impact on the preferences for
religious politicians in a cross-sectional as well as in a longitudinal perspective. Moreover, religiosity and altruistic behaviour run the risk of being converted into pro-terrorist support
under conditions of high levels of inequality and low development levels. The final two chapters show that –in a world-wide comparison development levels, inequality and the Socialist history of countries explain 75% of the variation in religiosity between countries.
Furthermore, future developments in religious change will also be subject to changes in fertility. The main drivers of secularisation processes can be identified, but for the majority of
the world population these conditions are not met at present, nor will they be met in the near future.