When do Anti-Immigrant Attitudes Matter? Examining Country-Level Variation in the Association between Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Support for Capital Punishment

Using survey data from 70 countries across all continents, we explored the macro-level contexts that intensify the association between anti-immigrant attitudes and punitiveness. Specifically, we examined whether group threat and cultural backlash theories successfully identify the key macro-level factors that moderate the association between anti-immigrant sentiments and support for capital punishment. Estimating multilevel models with random slopes and cross-level interactions, we assessed whether variation in theoretically relevant constructs for group threat theory—i.e., immigration stock—and cultural backlash theory—i.e., political climate, or egalitarian democracy—moderate the association between anti-immigrant attitudes and punitiveness. While the results provide some support to group-threat theory, they suggest that other processes besides the size of the immigrant population are at work. Aligned with the cultural backlash hypothesis, anti-immigrant attitudes are more strongly associated with support for capital punishment in countries with a more left-leaning political climate, higher levels of education expenditure, and better democratic functioning. Our results illuminate the value of comparative research to move beyond identifying universal sources of punitiveness and towards a more nuanced understanding of the circumstances in which anti-immigrant attitudes are more likely to consolidate as sources of punitiveness and foster support for punitive expansion.