Introduction: The so-called European refugee crisis is driven by people fleeing from the consequences of climate change, human rights violations, wars, and poverty. Changing migration patterns aggravate social tensions and hostility towards displaced people, instigated and exploited by political right-wing populism in many European host countries.
Purpose: This study examined the role of the political-economic ideology of neoliberalism in psychological processes of moral disengagement from inhumane treatment of refugees and the resulting erosion of civic engagement for human rights of migrants in Austria and Germany. Its core assumption was that the individualistic, competitive, instrumental logic of neoliberal capitalism justifies collective moral disengagement from the suffering of asylum seekers.
Methods: A purposive online survey among students and employed persons in Austria and Germany (N=276; mean age 29 years) was analyzed using multiple regression and bootstrapping. Neoliberal ideological beliefs were measured with a validated 24-item scale (subdimensions: individualism, competition, instrumentality). A 16-item scale initially developed in Australia was adapted to assess moral disengagement from the treatment of refugees in the European context. Civic engagement was captured with nine dichotomous items adapted from a feminist activism checklist, including influencing others, circulating petitions, attending protests, donating money, political volunteering. Included control variables were age, gender, education, income, and subjective social status.
Results: Moral disengagement from the treatment of refugees fully mediated the negative relationship between neoliberal ideological beliefs and civic engagement for the human rights of migrants. A significant positive interaction suggests an unexpected compensatory relationship of neoliberal ideology and moral disengagement. Limitations include a non-representative convenience sample and reliance on self-report measures.
Conclusions: Roots of politically lamented moral disengagement and lacking concern of citizens for the basic human rights of refugees are found in the socially corrosive ideology of free-market capitalism, emphasizing complete self-reliance, competition for resources, and instrumentality of humans for economic ends.