ABSTRACT The coronavirus pandemic, which first impacted European societies in early 2020, has created a twofold crisis by combining a health threat with economic turmoil. While the crisis has affected all European societies very significantly, its impact varies across countries, social groups, and societal domains. In an effort to provide a first overview of the effect of the coronavirus crisis, in this editorial we discuss contributions of 58 papers published as part of this special issue. These early research papers illustrate the varied impact of the pandemic on various areas of social life. The first group of studies in this special issue analyzes the effect of the pandemic on social inequalities with respect to gender, ethnic otherness, education, and work. A second stream of research focuses on the psychological consequences of the pandemic, especially with respect to wellbeing and resilience. Thirdly, the crisis is discussed on a societal level, in regard to welfare states, social policies, and approaches to crisis governance. In a fourth line of inquiry, several studies have analyzed the impact of the pandemic on social solidarity and cohesion. A fifth strand of research is devoted to examining the role of culture and lifestyles. This review ends with a discussion of areas for future research trajectories.

ABSTRACT The major influx of refugees to Europe, especially in 2015, has led to immense solidarity, but also hostility among European citizens. In the wake of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ country differences in the willingness to help displaced people have become a salient issue of European integration. In this paper, we explain country differences in the public support for helping refugees across Europe at a critical time-point – spring 2016 – just after the influx of displaced people had peaked. Theoretically, we base our explanation of country differences on economic threat, inter-group contact, welfare state, and political framing theories. Using data from a Eurobarometer survey across the 28 EU member states, we show that solidarity with refugees varies significantly between countries. Controlling for individual characteristics of respondents and utilizing a multilevel design, we find that solidarity with refugees is highest in countries with an extensive welfare state and a historically high share of immigrants, whereas there is no effect of countries’ economic situation or strength of right-wing parties. On the individual level of respondents, however, we find that people with a more precarious economic background, little institutional trust, and a right-wing political orientation express lower solidarity with refugees.

ABSTRACT In the last decade, Europe has been affected by several crises, which had and still have detrimental consequences for the life of many people, suffering from unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. The special issue seeks to explore how these crises have challenged and promoted solidarities within and between European countries. In the introductory paper, first a typology of different types of solidarity – social, political and welfare – is developed to account for the varied meanings and uses of the term. Second, the origins and scopes of the different types of solidarity and their link to crises are discussed. After introducing the special issue papers, five contributions to the understanding of crises and solidarities are highlighted, namely: the meanings of solidarity are varied and discursively contested; different types of solidarity merge and interact; crises are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for solidarity to emerge; crises alter the scope of solidarity; economic shocks can have long-term effects on solidarity. Thus, crises have led to a reconfiguration of solidarities in Europe.