Europe's migration crisis: Local contact and out?group hostility

Does a large influx of asylum seekers in the local community lead to backlash public opinion towards foreign populations? We assess effects seeker presence using original survey and macro-level municipality data from Austria, exploiting exogenous elements placement on level. Methodologically, we draw entropy balancing for causal identification. Our findings are threefold. First, respondents municipalities receiving report substantially higher exposure average, but largely without stronger contact that would allow meaningful interaction. Second, hostility average increased areas housed them. Third, this spilt over: general attitudes Muslims immigrants less favourable contexts with presence, while vote intention main anti-immigration party is higher. go beyond existing work by examining directly as mechanism, showing effect medium term, focusing broad set attitudinal behavioural measures. results point need design policy interventions minimise citizen against rapid migration inflows.