The Danish government’s Ghetto-discourse: An investigation of the consequences for inter-ethnic relations

Abstract

This study investigates how stigmatizing labels used to define ethnically diverse residential areas in the political discourse affects inter-group relations. For this, we examine how the Danish government’s official use of the label “ghetto” influence threat and attitudes towards immigrants. Utilizing a combination of a correlational study (N = 538) and a survey experiment (N = 548) among a representative Danish sample, we find a strong positive relationship between finding the ghetto-label appropriate and prejudice. In the experiment, we find that certain people develop prejudice in response to the ghetto-label, but that this effect is generally not mediated by threat and only appears when threat is statistically controlled for. A small minority of respondents who either do not consume media or are extremely left-wing do, however, respond with more threat to the ghetto-label. These results imply that situational factors are important for whether or not the ghetto-label causes threat, but that factors beyond threat might be responsible for the relationship between the ghetto-label and prejudice.