Immigrants share democratic basic values, international study finds

Migrants in Europe support the core values ​​of democracy, according to a new study by a research team led by Professor Marc Helbling, a sociologist at the University of Mannheim specializing in migration and integration and board member of the Mannheim Center for European Social Research (MZES).

Together with Dr. Fabian Gülzau (Expert Council on Integration and Migration, SVR) and Dr. Sandra Morgenstern (University of Mannheim, MZES), Helbling analyzed data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the German SVR Integration Barometer. “Our results show that immigrants support fundamental democratic principles to the same degree as people without a migrant background,” emphasizes Helbling.

The open access study entitled “Liberal democratic values ​​among immigrants in Europe: processes of socialization and adaptation” was published in the European Journal of Political Research in October 2025.

Strong support for fundamental democratic values ​​across Europe

The study results show that both migrants from democratic origin countries and those from authoritarian countries strongly support basic democratic norms, such as free elections, equal rights, protection of minorities and independent courts. On the ESS scale of 0 to 10, the average level of support for these values ​​across Europe is 8.56 for migrants. For non-migrants, the support level is 8.48. For Germany in particular, the Integration Barometer data with a scale from 0 to 3 shows very similar values, more precisely 2.67 and 2.66.

“In any case, these very high average values ​​hardly differ between different groups of people,” explains Helbling.

The experience of democracy in the country of origin has a positive effect

The research team found a small but statistically significant difference between immigrants from highly authoritarian countries, such as Eritrea, Saudi Arabia or Iran, on the one hand, and migrants from more democratic countries, such as India, Turkey or Romania, on the other hand.

“People who have lived for many years in a very authoritarian system tend to develop slightly weaker democratic attitudes. Conversely, people who have lived for a long time in more democratic countries show slightly more support for democracy. The difference, however, is very small,” explains Helbling. “In principle, fundamental democratic beliefs are shared across cultural and national borders and, as a rule, solidify with increasing democratic life experience,” summarizes the social scientist.

Problematic minorities within all groups

Despite the generally high level of support for democracy, there is a small minority among immigrants who reject it. According to the researchers, this group’s share represents a mid-single-digit percentage.

This value is almost exactly the same as that of people without a migration background, emphasizes Helbling. “Our analyzes show that anti-democratic attitudes are not specifically a migration-related phenomenon. There are critical minorities within all population groups.”

Scientific context

The study draws on two large datasets: The European Social Survey (ESS, wave 10) includes detailed survey data from tens of thousands of people, including more than 2,000 first-generation migrants, from 30 European countries. The Integration Barometer (wave 4) of the German Expert Council for Integration and Migration (SVR) is based on surveys of around 15,000 participants in Germany, of which around 7,000 are people with a migration background and around 4,000 are first-generation migrants. Both surveys measure fundamental dimensions of liberal democratic values.