Visualizing Beliefs in Biological Racial Difference and Ordering across Europe

Abstract

The author plots the proportions of people in 20 European countries who believe in biological racial differences, contributing to debates about the role of race and racism in Europe: whether Europeans think in biological racial terms and whether thinking about racism is an adequate framework in the European context. The main new insight is simply providing concrete empirical evidence that beliefs in biological race are widely spread in Europe. Second, this visualization highlights that ideas about races being born “more hardworking” are a more socially acceptable and widely spread form of belief in racial differences than beliefs in races being born “less intelligent”. Third, it shows how the difference between the two types of biological racial beliefs organizes countries into an east-west axis, whereas no such division is apparent when looking only at the magnitudes of the proportions of people who hold racial beliefs.