Abstract
AbstractThis chapter aims to investigate whether (restrictive) policy measures on migration across seven European countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK) are better explained by political factors, rather than the actual number of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, their integration process or the effective European societies’ demographic and economic needs, within each national context. The analysis shows, indeed, that restrictive legislative and policy measures on immigration and integration issues seem to be not justified by the reality of immigration in the selected European countries. Conversely, these restrictive measures can be explained by some relevant political factors: prevalence of negative attitudes towards immigration among European citizens and salience of the immigration issue; electoral relevance of populist radical-right parties who mostly mobilized on immigration issues and significant diffusion of their authoritarian/traditionalist/nationalist positions within each country’s party system. These data confirm that citizens’ perceptions and party systems’ features are closely related phenomena, which influence one another and are all key factors that need to be considered to explain the law and policy-making of recent years on immigration issues.
Highlights
2 Between Numbers and Political Drivers: What Matters in Policy-Making factors are more relevant to explain the law and policy-m aking on immigration issues carried out in a similar fashion in such different European contexts, rather than the actual number of MRAs, their integration process or the effective European societies’ demographic and economic needs, within each national context
The spreading in European party systems of authoritarian/traditionalist/ nationalist positions (Hooghe and Marks 2018), which are strictly linked to the aforementioned new cultural cleavage between supporters of cultural demarcation and international integration (Kriesi et al 2006), can be seen as a signal of the previously mentioned influence of populist-radical parties on the positions and immigration policies of mainstream parties (Van Spanje 2010; Abou-C hadi and Krause 2018)
Immigration issues are part of a new cultural cleavage opposing the winners and the losers of globalisation and integration processes: the so-called integration-d emarcation cleavage according to Kriesi et al (2006) or the transnational cleavage according to Hooghe and Marks (2018)
Summary
Policy debate over immigration has intensified in a period characterised by global refugee crises and a wave of nationalist electoral victories. Lucassen and Lubbers (2012) using the same data – this time across 11 countries – find that perceived cultural threat (i.e. the perception that immigration and cultural diversity pose a threat to the country’s way of life) is a stronger predictor of support for far- right parties than perceived economic threat (i.e. the perception that immigration poses a threat to jobs and the economy) These findings are consistent with the idea that immigration issues are part of a new cultural cleavage emerging because of globalisation and integration processes: the integration-d emarcation cleavage using Kriesi et al.’s terminology (2006) or the transnational cleavage according to Hooghe and Marks (2018). This chapter aims to investigate whether policy measures on migration across seven European countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK) vary according to different political conditions at country level It relies on the most recent data from both existing comparative datasets on public opinion (European Social Survey, Eurobarometer) and a comparative database we built for the SIRIUS research, which includes a systematic set of macro- level indicators spanning the time period 2010–2017.
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