Lupo, Giampiero2020-01-252020-01-252010Lupo, G. (2010). "Is immigration detrimental for social trust in the European Union? A three-level model of cultural heterogeneity and citizenship regime as social capital predictors". International Journal of Social Inquiry, 3(1), 67-96.1307-83641307-9999https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/164127http://hdl.handle.net/11452/7018A first draft of the paper has been presented at the “Migration and Social Theory Graduate Conference”, Trento, June 12 – 13, 2009.This paper deals with the effects of citizenship regimes on the relationship between immigration and social capital, in the European Union. The study questions previous researches that reported a negative effect of immigration on social capital without taking into account contextual factors, like citizenship regimes, that may affect the interconnections between the two variables. The implementation of a Three-level Model, analyzing Eurobarometer and Eurostat datasets and crossing individual, national and citizenship regime’s levels of analysis, permits to report two notable results: first, immigration is not always detrimental for social trust; second, more integrative citizenship regimes alleviate the negative effects of immigration on social trust. These findings suggest that creating a legislative environment that facilitates the inclusion of different ethnic groups into the society in order to avoid the worst consequences of ethnic heterogeneity, like isolation, clashes and a decline in social trust should be of great importance to policy-makers.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessCitizenship researchImmigrationSocial capitalInterpersonal trustEuropean UnionArticle679631