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Despite compelling theoretical arguments, research has failed so far to provide conclusive empirical evidence on the relationship between preferences for redistribution and attitudes towards immigration. We argue that social scientists risk making erroneous inferences if the causal link connecting an independent variable to a given outcome is not carefully modelled. This is particularly true in the presence of multiple and partly offsetting intervening variables. We argue that there are at least four motivations linking attitudes towards redistribution and preferred levels of immigration. We observe a statistically significant association between attitudes towards redistribution and preferred levels of immigration, but only after the motivations have been explicitly integrated into the empirical analysis. If the motivations are not explicitly modelled, no systematic relationship between attitudes towards redistribution and preferred levels of immigration can be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent studies have shown that variation in political attitudes and participation can be attributed to both genes and the environment. This finding raises the question of why genes matter to participation, and by which pathways. Two hypotheses suggest that feelings of civic duty and sense of political efficacy intermediate the relationship between genes and political participation and, thus, that these traits have a common heritable component. If so, how robust are the relationships across cultural contexts? Utilizing two new twin studies on political traits, one in Denmark and one in the United States, we show that the heritability of political participation and political efficacy is remarkably similar across cultures. Moreover, most of the covariation between efficacy and political participation is accounted for by a common underlying genetic component. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]