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To thematize this, our study included a series of questions about immigration and the answers reveal markedly different patterns between the opinion of the elite and the citizenry. The cultural, economic and political elite shows quite open positions towards immigration, which is not necessarily the case in the rest of society. Indeed, 95% of the elite respondents believed that immigration strengthens cultural diversity (a figure that reaches 46% in the Chilean population) and 11% of the elite states that immigration increases unemployment (a figure that is 47% in the Chilean population.
For its part, about a third of the population agrees with the Singapore Phone Number List idea that immigration increases the risks of terrorism, while only 1% of the elite share this opinion. In summary, the data from this study show an important gap when thinking about and evaluating immigration. A large part of the elites show open positions towards the arrival of foreigners in the country, but an important fraction of the electorate is quite skeptical about the migratory phenomenon. This finding should be read as a wake-up call that shows that it is necessary to take into account the views of the public regarding this issue.
Comparative evidence shows that, if the elites choose to ignore the issue of immigration, radical populist right-wing political forces with xenophobic ideas may end up emerging, which have a serious impact on democratic coexistence. Consequently, an important challenge is to promote a constructive dialogue on immigration and the criteria for its regulation. Conflict The visualization of social conflicts has intensified in the public debate of today's Chile. On the one hand, the numerous marches led by students in the 2011 demonstrations were revitalized and even surpassed in the social outbreak of 2019, when they reached massive participation, and then continued to a lesser extent during the pandemic.
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