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Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that in many European countries generally positive views about societal diversity predominate. Yet, as research has rather focused on negative attitudes towards immigration and diversity, less is known about positive attitudes and those who hold them. The paper makes a conceptual and an empirical contribution to filling this gap. We introduce a new concept, “diversity assent”, distinct from existing approaches, that captures residents’ attitudes to a diverse society. This concept is multidimensional, to capture both evaluations of diversity and attitudes towards institutional adjustments. The concept is then tested and applied to the German urban population, drawing from a large, purpose-built survey. We demonstrate that, while assent differs for the two dimensions, a sizeable majority of those who evaluate diversity positively also agree with representing diversity in official policy and institutions. We use descriptive and multivariate analyses to compare assenters and non-assenters as well as different groups within the assenters. Our analysis illustrates that different social and political factors drive support for the two dimensions of diversity assent.