Rate My Professor Lauren McLaren

Professor Lauren McLaren is Professor of Politics in the School of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, a position she has held since joining the university in Autumn 2018. She earned her PhD from the University of Houston in 1996 and previously taught at the Universities of Glasgow, Nottingham, and Oxford, as well as Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and American University in Washington, DC. Serving as Research Director for the Politics department, her research centers on public attitudes towards immigration and ethnic minorities in European democracies, including the United Kingdom. Her investigations cover blaming minorities for the spread of COVID-19 in the UK, short- and long-term public responses to immigration, generational differences in attitudes to immigration, and the role of authoritarianism and perceived threats in shaping public opinion on immigration. She has been awarded an ESRC grant to study generational differences in immigration attitudes across Europe and contributes to the Governments, Parties, Parliaments and Public Opinion (G3PO) research cluster, which examines how public concern about immigration relates to distrust in politics.

McLaren's scholarly output includes influential books such as Immigration and Perceptions of National Political Systems in Europe (Oxford University Press, 2015), Constructing Democracy in Southern Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Italy, Spain and Turkey (Routledge, 2008), and Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Among her highly cited articles are Anti-immigrant prejudice in Europe: Contact, threat perception, and preferences for the exclusion of migrants (Social Forces, 2003, over 1600 citations) and Public support for the European Union: cost/benefit analysis or perceived cultural threat? (The Journal of Politics, 2002, over 1100 citations). Recent publications include Does Immigration Produce a Public Backlash or Public Acceptance? Time-Series Cross-Sectional Evidence from 30 European Democracies (British Journal of Political Science, 2021, with C. Claassen), Blaming Minorities During Public Health Crises: Post-COVID-19 Substantive and Methodological Reflections from the UK (Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2024, with P. Tsatsou and Y. Zhu), and Diversity and Perceptions of Immigration: How the Past Influences the Present (Political Studies, 2020, with A. Neundorf and I. Paterson). She convenes and teaches modules including Political Analysis and Comparative Public Opinion, and supervises PhD students on topics related to immigration attitudes and media framing.