Projects / Programmes
Understanding immigration and integration through interdisciplinary models of social dynamics
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.03.00 |
Social sciences |
Sociology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S000 |
Social sciences |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
modeling, simulations, networks, complex systems, immigration, integration, globalization
Researchers (12)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
Immigration is among the foremost social and political issues of our time. Responding justly to the moral imperative of accepting immigrants, their inflow into Slovenia and other EU countries has become ubiquitous. But newcomers often bring cultural assumptions and practices that differ sharply from the traditional norms of the host society. How will immigrants be perceived by the natives depends on a number of factors, the critical among them being the relationship between the rates of their inflow and their integration in the host society. When the inflow is low the host majority welcomes the newcomers as they become the integral part of the host society and enrich its diversity. But when the inflow rate suddenly increases without the corresponding increase of the integration rate, host majority can become less welcoming to the point of hostility towards new immigrants. This is clearly verified by recent record votes of rightwing populist parties in several EU countries that promised to close borders completely to immigration. However, historic record teaches us that growth of rightwing populism that is not kept in check can lead to dire consequences, when closed borders become the least of our worries.
How to simultaneously respond to the moral and human imperative of accepting and integrating new immigrants, while guaranteeing political and social stability and preservation of democracy in our country and in EU? To answer this question we should gain a better quantitative understanding of the intricate interplay between the processes of immigration and integration in the European societies.
The goal of this project is to develop a novel interdisciplinary framework for predictive modelling and analysis of complex social phenomena, such as the processes of immigration and integration. Our framework will be built by integrating the theoretical knowledge about immigration from social sciences while relying on the powerful modelling apparatus from statistical physics and data science. Scientifically this represents a highly interdisciplinary endeavour, where social, natural and computer sciences play their roles, enhanced by the unprecedented availability of data on people's behavioural patterns and practices.
We believe that our project is very timely as it raises an important issue whose systematic quantitative analysis is long overdue. Being able to reliably predict the cumulative effects of the current and future immigration crises is of paramount importance to academic community and policymakers alike. Results of this project will better equip the lawmakers for taking the legislative actions that will reverse any undesired consequences of immigration and design strategies for preventing them from happening in the future. On the purely scientific front, our work will demonstrate the usefulness and power of synergy between various sciences in quantitative approach to complex social phenomena.
Significance for science
Our goal is integrate theoretical knowledge about immigration from social sciences with powerful modeling apparatus from statistical physics and data science in order to develop a novel interdisciplinary framework for predictive modeling and analysis of complex social phenomena. We therefore propose an innovative, interdisciplinary methodology of social statistical physics, combining elements of complex networks and evolutionary games. Scientifically this represents a highly interdisciplinary endeavor, where social, natural and computer sciences play their roles, enhanced by the unprecedented availability of data on people's behavioral patterns and practices. To our best knowledge no such synergy exists as of yet, so our project is likely to demonstrate its usefulness on a concrete example. We hence believe our project to be scientifically relevant in at least two independent ways: (i) new theoretical and applicative results on dynamics of immigration and integration, (ii) new modus operandi for constructive interdisciplinary synergy between very different scientific fields.
Significance for the country
We believe our proposal is very timely and of huge importance because it raises several important topics: (i) in the midst of globalization modern societies face unprecedented trends in migrations and abrupt shifts in political and cultural landscapes, whose quantitative analysis is long overdue, (ii) we hope to obtain a multitude of theoretical results substantiated by the most recent data on the influence of migratory movements on society and its politics. Indeed, as Europe is faced with the unprecedented social circumstances, some societies unfortunately respond with making fences on their borders, sending a signal that their critical point is dangerously close. Our proposal aims at elucidating the mechanisms leading to this and suggest strategies for reversing them and preventing them from happening in the future. We believe that these topics are of substantial interest to academic community and policymakers alike. By understanding how a society reacts to an increasing inflow from the outside and how a state of mutualism slips into a state of antagonism, lawmakers may be better equipped to take legislative actions that will prevent undesired consequences.
Most important scientific results
Interim report,
final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report,
final report
