The Role of Cultural Conformity in the Syrian Migrant Crisis

Abstract

The Syrian conflict, which began as a crackdown on peaceful protests but soon escalated to full-scale violence, led to roughly 6.3 million Syrians fleeing abroad in the immediate aftermath of the violence in 2011. This staggering influx of refugees towards nearby European nations soon became known as the Syrian Migrant Crisis, and it placed unique strains on the European Union, which had to grapple with the humanitarian and economic ramifications of those refugees. The Syrian Migrant Crisis, as well as the corresponding response from European nations, has been widely studied, with many scholars contending that concerns over economic stagnation and healthcare access led to the refusal of many European nations to accept high numbers of Syrian refugees. However, there has not been significant analysis of the response of European nations to Syrian Migrant Crisis through the lens of cultural conformity and the tightness-looseness theory, a theory proposed by Michele Gelfand, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, which states that culturally tighter groups are more ethnocentric and less tolerant of diverse groups. With the tightness-looseness theory in mind, this paper analyzes the significance of cultural conformity, and how that importance has impacted European policy making and translated into the reluctance of European nations to accept Syrian refugees. Political polarization and a rise in nationalistic political policies are identified as impacts of cultural conformity, and this paper proposes that additional government outreach, rather than strict guidelines or refugee quotas, be implemented to combat misinformation and polarization surrounding Syrian migrants.