Immigration phobia is a paradoxical global phenomenon: neither theories that link conflict to symbolic and realistic threats, nor the ‘contact hypothesis’ can systematically explain intense anti-migrant alarmism and exclusionism toward marginally small migrant minorities. Through a careful comparative study of immigration attitudes in the Russian Far East, the EU, and the United States, this book is the first to demonstrate that concerns about national identity and economic interests associated with migration are themselves ignited by a unique perceptual logic of the security dilemma. Regression analysis and case studies trace support for expulsion of migrants to human yearning for pre-emptive self-defense under uncertainty. Alarmism and hostility arise from ambiguities about immigration consequences and migrants’ motivations. Framing migration as a national security problem is therefore logical, but counterproductive. The book instead recommends managing migration through economic incentives and new institutions at the global, national, and local level.

• Innovative theory of anti-migrant hostility (‘the immigration security dilemma’) • The identification of ‘immigration phobia’ as a global phenomenon that confounds existing explanations of ethnic conflict • First empirical test of the security dilemma theory with survey data