Department(s)
Social Science
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Abstract
Who supports allowing Syrian refugees into the United States? As a candidate, Donald Trump clearly opposed doing so. In contrast, religious leaders across the broad spectrum of religious traditions in the United States have drawn on sacred texts to call their people to action in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Many explicitly ask the government to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States. Thus, many Republicans may have experienced cross-cutting pressures. Analyses of three surveys from 2015 and 2016 found that party identification, ideology, support for Trump, partisan-news consumption, religious-service attendance, age, and education predicted support for bringing Syrian refugees to the United States. Overall, the partisan and ideological variables were far more predictive of attitudes than religious variables. These results raise important questions about refugee politics and contexts in which religious forces conflict with partisan and ideological forces.
Publication Title
PS: Political Science & Politics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096518000562
Recommended Citation
Newman, Brian, "Who Supports Syrians? The Relative Importance of Religion, Partisanship, and Partisan News" (2018). Pepperdine University, All Faculty Open Access Publications. Paper 191.
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/faculty_pubs/191