Seminar series Beyond cosmopolitanism Public support for immigration Add to calendar 2026-02-03 14:00 2026-02-03 16:00 Europe/Rome Beyond cosmopolitanism Sala del Capitolo Badia Fiesolana YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Feb 03 2026 14:00 - 16:00 CET Sala del Capitolo, Badia Fiesolana Organised by Department of Political and Social Sciences In the framework of the Swiss Chair Seminar Series, this event features a discussion with Rahsaan Maxwell (NYU). Immigration is a major political controversy in Western Europe, but there is an asymmetry with more political strength on the anti as opposed to pro-immigration side. In this book, I make sense of the asymmetry by examining support for immigration in contemporary Western Europe. Most research frames support for immigration as a component of cosmopolitanism. This supposedly explains the political weakness of immigration support, because cosmopolitans are a small subset of the population that ignore their immigration preferences when they conflict with more fundamental identities and self-interest. I offer a different perspective and argue that we need to go beyond cosmopolitanism as a framework for understanding pro-immigration preferences. My argument operates on three levels. First, the population of Europeans who support immigration goes well beyond the stereotypical cosmopolitan demographics of young, urban, post-secondary educated professionals. Second, we need to go beyond thinking of pro-immigration attitudes as a superficial form of cosmopolitanism, because they are associated with meaningful and tangible forms of commitment. Finally, we need to go beyond embedding support for immigration in a cosmopolitan framework. Many people combine genuine support for some aspects of immigration with mixed preferences that include skepticism and restrictionist attitudes about other aspects of immigration. Register