What a Difference a Year Makes: Changes in Refugee Threat Perceptions in Flanders, Belgium

Since 2014, many refugees and asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East have arrived in Europe. At the same time, we also observe that the public’s attitudes toward this group are becoming increasingly negative. Because of the rapid increase in refugees and asylum seekers in a short period of time, these attitudes may change rapidly. However, little research has investigated to what extent attitudes toward this group shift over a short term. The purpose of this study with repeated cross-sectional design is to find out to what extent threat perceptions toward refugees have changed over the course of 10 months, from September/October 2017 (Time 1) to June/July 2018 (Time 2), in Flanders, Belgium. This region is chosen for its specific political and refugee context. Results indicate that perceived safety threat has increased between Time 1 and Time 2. There are no clear changes in reported realistic or symbolic threat. There are no significant gender differences, but we do find that older and lower educated respondents experience greater safety threat than younger and highly educated respondents. With these results, we contribute to a better understanding of attitude change in a volatile refugee and political context.